ABSTRACT
Drawing on fieldwork material from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, this chapter explores the meaning of dreams and dream interpretation practices in the region. More particularly, it focuses on dreams which are seen as embodying some kind of truth or insight into otherwise hidden dimensions of reality. Visionary dreams bring attention to possibilities people otherwise may not have noticed, in the past, the present and the future, and sometimes involve encounters with prophets, saints, ancestor spirits or other spectral beings. Taking my point of departure from examples of dreams that matter in the lives of three different women at different points in time, I discuss dreams as spaces of possibility which put the here-and-now into perspective and allow alternative versions of self and others to emerge, which may or may not be actualised. Focusing on dreams, I will argue, becomes a lens to exploring the relation between the actual and the possible; between lives as they are actually lived among people from various walks of life in Central Asia and the more intangible hopes and regrets that lurk in the shadows of these lives.
