Thread: Animism and Dreams

I wonder if there is someone around who is, like me, interested in "primitive"/animistic/hunter-gatherer cultures. I am asking it on this forum intentionally, because it is well documented that dreams (and visions) were very important part of life for these peoples in general. Jesuit missionaries who were living with various woodland tribes of North America in 17.-18. centuries constantly complained about their "dream worship" as one of the most prominent "sins" of the "savages". And as far as I understand, "Dreamtime" is also an important concept for Australian Aboriginals, meaning a beginning of knowledge, beginning of world, a concept which becomes somehow extended in our dreams. I'd even say that dreams are, for one reason or another, inherent part of any animistic (or any personal?) spiritual system.

There are some striking similarities between those "primitive dream worshipers" and modern-day western LDers or "oneironauts". Let's speak about them, let's try to ascertain how can their spiritual practices be understood from our point of view, and on the other hand, how could they help us if we practice them. As this thread is under the spiritual section, "paganic" belief-based approaches are welcome, as well as "purely academic" ones.

For the start, I have one question which I'd love to be answered, but didn't yet find any:
What do you think about the nature of dreams of native Americans, or hunter-gatherers in general? Were they lucid?