ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I propose a preliminary exploration of the possible link of witchcraft with specific “dream cultures” (Laughlin 2011, p. 23), grounded on the idea of the reality of dreams. In such dream cultures, the alternation of different states of consciousness “between what we call ‘waking’ and ‘dreaming’ states” (Id., p. 35) is not sharply demarcated, and it is possible to reproduce in dream any real or imagined experience or to evoke and relive oneiric experiences in a waking state of consciousness.1 The problem I propose is quite different from that of the relations of witchcraft with phenomena of altered states of conscience such as hypnotism, possession, trance, shamanic ecstasy and so forth, although there can be analogies and connections.
