Dreams as Sacred Communications
Native American traditions across the continent treat dreams not as meaningless brain activity but as a primary channel through which the spirit world communicates with the waking world — messages from ancestors, animal guides, and the Great Spirit.
Among the Iroquois, dreams were understood with such seriousness that a person who dreamed of a particular object would be given it by their community — because the dream-self's desires, when expressed in dreams, were understood to be the soul's truest needs. Failing to honor a dream's request could cause illness. The Iroquois philosopher Picard wrote (in 1723) of his astonishment at the sophistication of Haudenosaunee dream interpretation — predating Freud by nearly two centuries. The Lakota vision quest is itself a deliberately induced dream-state. Black Elk's Great Vision — received at age nine — guided the entire subsequent course of his life and the spiritual practice of his people. The Anishinaabe understanding of dreams as communications from the manidoog (spirit world) is encoded in the use of dreamcatchers, originally crafted to filter dream communications and preserve their wisdom.
Pay attention to your dreams — they are the language of the soul.
Anthropologist Anthony Wallace documented in 1958 that Iroquois dream-theory constitutes a sophisticated depth psychology anticipating many of Freud's insights by centuries — including the concepts of repressed desire, symbolic disguise, and the therapeutic importance of dream fulfillment.
Anishinaabe oral tradition