Dreamtime & Healing |
As far as I've understood (because Aboriginal culture is on a number of points quite different compared to the Western Culture), Dreamtime or Dreaming (or e.g. Tjukurrpa in one of the Aboriginal languages) is the following:
Dreamtime is the time before time, before creation, and it flows also into the present time and the future. One can compare it a bit with the tales of creation that most if not all cultures have. Dreamtime is stories about the creation of objects (rivers, mountains) or animals or people and why they are as they are. Every tribe has their own Dreamtime stories and every Aboriginal has/tells his own piece of the story.
On the site Stories of the Dreaming you'll find a number of lovely and beautiful Dreamtime stories, giving you a hint on what Dreamtime really is. A number of stories on this site is readable text, while other stories can be heard or viewed in Real-time Audio/Video. Really worth visiting!!
Also drawings are made of the Dreamtime, such as rock paintings or drawings
on Didgeridoos. Depending on the tribe the drawings can be dot paintings
or line paintings. Often objects or animals are painted in the so-called
X-Ray vision method. This means that the paintings give you the idea that
the painter has viewed the object with X-Ray eyes (does Superman come from
Australia?? :-) ). Often recurring themes in the drawings are wells (concentric
circles), people (U-shapes, hands), roads or ways to other places (straight
or curved lines), animals (such as the kangaroo, the emu, the platypus
or mythological animals) or Mimi's (a kind of people/ghosts living in the
rock).
| Traditionally the paintings were made of ground
rock, but nowadays often modern material, such as acrylic paint is used.
An example of a dot painting (though not an original aboriginal one, but a painting, drawn by Celinda Schepers, based on and inspired by the traditional dot painting method) can be seen to the right. |
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When the word "Healing" is used, together with the didgeridoo (but also in general), it is often meaning "setting the mind to a better mood". Healing as in "physical curing" is -as far as I know- never meant when talking about Didgeridoos and Healing. As a rule it is the listener (and not the player) that is 'being healed'. However, the strong connection between playing and breathing (as some players say: the breathing is your playing) can be very pleasing to the player too. One of the small things that I notice as a player is that my nose usually really opens up, even when I have a terrible cold. I do not know whether this is by the need to breath through your nose or the vibration of your skull.
The low frequencies a didgeridoo produces can often be felt really well. The low basic drone is also in the area in which both the human hearing and tactile sense is rather sensitive. And often it is easy to enter a sort of trance due to the constant drone and repetitive rhythms. This can help you to relax and to feel better (as long as your rhythms are quiet and not like the heavy rhythms of e.g. Mark Atkins or Charlie McMahon). The meditative effect can also help retrieve certain memories (both positive AND negative).
What is true, is that music has a certain influence on people. In John Diamond's book "The Life Energy in Music Volume I: Notes on Music and Sound" a number of examples is given to prove this. However, I'm a bit reluctant, since the book seems not too much scientific (I'm sorry, but I have a scientific background....). On the other hand, there are more and better scientific studies, showing that music does have a direct link to the human emotion. In studies by Neil Todd of the Manchester University, he showed that the sacculus (an organ in the hearing organ) is directly connected to the hypothalamus, the gland to control hunger, sex and fun...
I'm sure however that a lot of music will need to flow from didges before
there is more scientifically based knowledge about this topic.