Dreams and agency during Angola's war of independence

Dreams are not a field of study usually associated with resistance. This chapter, however, offers a historical interpretation of transcripts of dream accounts put down on paper by a guerrilla fighter in northern Angola in 1961. The accounts were found among UPA (Union of the Peoples of Angola) documents in the PIDE (Portuguese secret police) archives in Lisbon, which are accessible to researchers since 1994. The author investigates the relationship between agency and resistance from the viewpoint of a guerrilla fighter. The analysis shows that the struggle between good and evil in the dream world is regarded as being directly related to the struggle for independence. Resistance thus comes to involve more than just the violent onslaught of individual agents based on conscious decisions. In a complex intertwining of acting and 'being acted upon' that helps identify the messages and meanings in dreams, the dreamer is able to contribute to the struggle that is viewed as taking place not only in the daily but also in the nocturnal world. An example of a dream account is included, in Portuguese and in English translation. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Book abstract]