Varvara Dobrovolskaya

Abstract: Sleep and dreams occupy a special place in folklore. First of all, they appear in folklore texts: the heroes of fairy tales and epics fall asleep under the influence of magic and have prophetic dreams that help them meet danger or perform a feat. The motif of a prophetic dream or a kind of dream guidance on the border between sleep and reality is often found in folklore prose. The result of such a dream is the discovery of a place to build a city, the finding of a treasure, the search for lost livestock, etc. Sometimes, sleeping in a special place (at a spring, a roadside cross, an abandoned bathhouse, etc.) allows a person to come into contact with certain sacred forces. A special group consists of dreams in which deceased relatives act. In these dreams, they communicate with the living, give them some tasks, and help them find lost items. Divination, where the diviner must receive an answer to a question in a dream, is also extremely popular in Russian tradition. A significant group of texts is related to stories about fainting, visions that a person experiencing lethargic sleep sees. Of course, a special place is occupied by spells and non-verbal magic aimed at ensuring a good night's sleep for adults and children. Finally, there is a special group of dream interpretations that exist both in oral and written form.

Speaker: Varvara Dobrovolskaya is a Russian folklorist, fairy-tale scholar, Ph.D. of Philology; a specialist in the study of folk mythological signs and beliefs; Head of folklore and ethnographic department of the Center of Russian Folklore; Associate Professor of the Department of General and Slavic Art Studies Institute of Slavic Culture of the Russian State University named by A. Kosygin; a member of the editorial board of the scientific almanac "Traditional Culture"; a member of the Ethnographic Commission of the Russian Geographical Society. He is the author of more than 250 works on folklore and traditional culture.