The Ojibwe Nation and Dream Catchers

Hello, my name is N.L. I am a freshman at GCE Lab School. This is my final action project for my Humanities course called "Who Am I ?" Now in this class for our second unit of Doubt and Dream, we have been learning about the study of dreams. Freud was a cultural philosopher who had a lot to say about dreams and he came up with psychoanalysis, which is a theory to treat mental disorders. In this unit, we studied surrealism, which is an “artistic method that implies symbolic meanings”. We studied many surrealist artists and interpreted their many artworks. We partnered up with a classmate and shared our dreams with each other, and interpreted the meanings of them. For this Action Project, we were supposed to create a dreamcatcher that represents a dream we had, and the positive and negative elements we want and don’t want in our future dreams. I enjoyed making both of my dreamcatchers and learning about the meaning behind them.

N.L. "First Dream Catcher" March 23, 2019

Dream catchers originated from the Native American Ojibwe Tribe. Most dream catchers are made by grandparents and then given to their grandchildren. They believe that everything you make for the first time, you shouldn't keep but give it to someone. Since this was my first time making a dream catcher, I decided to make my first one for my two baby cousins and a second one for me. The purpose of a dream catcher is to protect someone sleeping from negative dreams. It allows positive dreams to pass through the web and reach the sleeping individual. The dream catcher works by trapping and filtering out the negative dreams and letting positive dreams go by. The positive dreams slip through the web and flow down through the hanging strings to the person sleeping. Negative dreams get caught in the web and burn out when the sun shines on them. Each part of the dream catcher symbolizes something. The hoop of your dream catcher symbolizes strength and unity. The center of the dream catcher symbolizes your “Creator,” "Great Mystery," and or your bliss. Someone’s bliss is what makes them happy and spreads joy to them.

The center of my dreamcatcher symbolizes the “Creator” because it represents the balance of good and evil in our world. In my dreamcatcher, my superego and id and the good and evil forces of my mind are fighting against each other. The “Great Mystery” in my life is the bliss of having relationships with people I love, the feeling of love, blessings I receive from God every day, sports and music. I chose to put a yin-yang symbol in the center of my dreamcatcher to symbolize good and bad in my life and to symbolize the balance of good and evil. The three different colored feathers hanging from my dreamcatcher represents the Pan-African flag which symbolizes the goal of encouraging and strengthening bonds of unity between all people of African descent. The center of my baby cousins’ dreamcatcher is a heart which symbolizes the love I and my family has for them. The two different beads and different colored thread represents both of my baby cousins and their differences. For my dreamcatcher, I want positive dreams of my late (past) family members and of good memories from my life in the past, wishes of success, protection over me and my family, and the elements of peace, love, and bliss, and “good” to pass through my dreamcatcher. I symbolized these positive elements in my dreamcatcher by having a red thread in my dreamcatcher’s web. For my baby cousins’ dreamcatcher, I want the positive dreams of family, wishes of good health, and the elements of peace, love, and bliss to pass through their dreamcatcher. I symbolized these positive elements by making the ring of the dreamcatcher red. I used the color red to represent strength, passion, and love.

N.L. "Second Dream Catcher" March 23, 2019

I want my dreamcatcher to filter out the negativity of negative minded people, negative or evil energy from demons in my unconscious/subconscious, fears of dying, and killing. I symbolized these negative elements by putting one side of my web white and the other black and also putting a gun on my web. I want my baby cousins’ dreamcatcher to filter out negative memories of trauma and conflicts in their lives, negative or evil energy from their unconscious and subconscious minds, and the fears of the things they’re scared of. I symbolized these negative elements by putting on the ring of the dream catcher.

We went on a Field Experience to the American Indian Center where we talked to Fawn Pochel and I learned about some of the different Native American tribes and nations and their some of their beliefs that differ between tribes and nations. I was very interested in learning as much as I could not only for a future grade but to expand my knowledge. She also gave us some tips on making dreamcatchers. Another Field Experience we went on was to the Art Institute of Chicago where we looked at artworks from surrealist, abstract, and cubist artists. The Ojibwe thought that dreams were very important. A psychologist named Freud came with the theory of psychoanalysis therapy, which is to release repressed emotions and experiences or to make the unconscious in your mind conscious. The unconscious mind is your thoughts while you are unconscious. These two things factored in with artists in the modern time of Surrealism. Surrealist artists were obsessed with Freud's ideas because they believed leaving an open door to your unconscious mind opens up a gateway or path to creativity and new ideas. In class, we did dream sharing and interpretations. I interpreted my partner's dream as a horror-filled dimension where murdering a masked killer was the only way to get out of the loop. If I were in their dream, I would’ve felt stuck inside of a place similar to hell. If I kill the masked murderer I will wake up from the dream. These were the two "if" statements I interpreted from my partner's dream. I recently had a very realistic dream recently and it has been on my mind for a while. Everything was so perfect. My family was one huge happy family at my grandma’s house, but then all of a sudden that vision started to fade and I woke up. I feel some factors in this dream could be the rationalization of the dream and repression of negative things that I might have been on my mind in this dream.

In conclusion to the class "Who Am I ?," I learned that truth, memory, doubt, and dream make a person. Experiences and beliefs can be determined as truths and doubts as well as memories and dreams. Learning about different people's history, knowledge, and wisdom has impacted me to appreciate different cultures and educate myself about different cultures. I have really enjoyed the many discussions, field experiences, and experiences in general in this class.