The Australian Aborigines are divided into more than five hundred distinct tribal groups that have developed over a span of fifty thousand years. Although these groups are very different, they have much in common regarding their beliefs about the human race and nature.
The various tribes all believe in the mutual interdependence of humanity and nature, on the need each has for the other, and on the need to bring the latter into the historical and ceremonial life of the former. According to the Aborigines, each individual must do what the great heroes did in the "dream-time," the mythical age of the past which is simultaneously the present. Humanity and nature exist and are as they are because of the personal actions of heroes in the past. A historical continuity with the heroic past is possible through rites of initiation that familiarize people with that past and thus make them vicarious participants in it. During these rights Aborigines reenact the doings of the hero or heroes concerned, and in so doing, act out the myth.
The common term used by Aborigines for the heroic past also means dreaming, and corresponds with a person's totem, which in this case is a myth marking the feats of a particular hero (or heroes). Dreaming is a symbol of the long-past heroic age, as well as the means of access to it. The Aborigines believe that life and death are part of a cycle beginning and ending in dream-time: the cycle is sustained by totems, ancestral sacred spots, and rituals that keep the tribe linked to the ancestors. During the experience of dreaming, the limitations of space and time are nonexistent, and it is believed that dreams reveal events which have happened or are going to happen in the future, through the mythical and practical information given by dead ancestors and heroes.
Past, present, and future coexist, and the eternal dream-time was manifested in the past through the heroes, in the present through the initiated, and, if the links between past and present are not broken, it will continue to be manifested in the future. By reliving the dream-time experiences of their heroes, the Aborigines believe they can be connected to the time of the heroes' creation and the power of their ancestors, who are still present in the world and protect people.
The dreams of Australian Aborigines represent the universe as it seems to them, and they often assert that in sleep they can see distant people, even those who are dead. A strong mutual interaction exists between dreaming and waking in the Aborigines' life, and they frequently fail to distinguish between waking events and dream events. It has been remarked that many of the rituals performed in dreams are applied to activities in later life, and many ceremonies are adopted directly from what is seen in visions or in sleep by special individuals.
Diverse explanations of dreams are given by the different Australian tribes. For instance, the Dieri tribe believe that the spirit of a dead person can visit a sleeper. When this occurs, the dream is reported to the medicine man, who, if he considers it to he a vision, gives special instructions. The Narrang-ga say that the human spirit can leave the body in sleep and communicate with the spirits of others, or with the spirits of the dead who wander as ghosts in the bush.
The Jupagalk believe that a person in great pain can be helped by the dream visit of some dead friend. According to the Wurunjerri, who have the same belief, the spirit of each person, which they call Murup, can leave the body during sleep, particularly when the sleeper snores. The Murup, however, can also be sent out of the sleeper by means of evil magic. The human spirit is called Yambo by the Kurnai, who likewise believe that it can leave the body during sleep.
The Ngarigo believe that in dreams, which they call gung-ung-mura-nung-ya, they can see ghosts. The Yuin Gommeras believe in the possibility of receiving songs in dreams, as well as information about approaching enemies. They also think that relatives of a dead man can see who killed him in a dream. The same belief is shared by the Wiimbaio, who say that, when they dream such a thing, they have been to some other country, where a person has told them.
