Draft:Jeannette Mageo

Jeannette Mageo is an American psychological anthropologist. Since 2003 she has been working as a professor at Washington State University (WSU). Mageo's anthropological work focuses on dreams and the self, attachment and childhood, gender and sexuality in Samoa and the United States.

Mageo is known for her psychological anthropological research on dream mentation. She states in her mimetic theory (MT) that humans' image-based (mimetically) thoughts in dreams are about (worries and problems with a) cultural models (see chapter 2). Those mimetic simulations of cultural models in dreams help to understand dreamers' waking concerns and social bonds by copying and altering public and private narratives (like poems, proverbs, pictures, plays, politics, movies etc.) circulating in their social world. Alterations in dreams work comment on cultural models (see chapter 2). Furthermore, Mageo states in her Mimetic Theory (MT) of dream mentation that visual ambiguity (i.e. your best friend looks in your dream like your friend ”but not quite” (Mageo 2021: 84) because they have a dog as a face) in dreams is definitive, an idea that is not covered (yet) by current dream mentation theories like the Continuity Hypothesis (CH), Threat Simulation Theory (TST) and Social Simulation Theory (SST). Her dream theory expands ideas on evolutionary aspects of dreams (regarding TST, SST) and introduces dreamers' thoughts behind simulating daily social interactions (regarding CH) through the theoretical lense of cultural models and alterations (as visual ambiguities) in dreams.

Short biography
Jeannette Mageo received her B.A. at State University of New York, Stony Brook in 1970 and her doctoral degree, in psychological anthropology, at the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1979. Her dissertation was titled “The image and the soul. An Anthropological Critique of Jung’s Psychology.”

In 1981 she moved to Samoa and worked at an American Samoa Community College. Eight years later Mageo took a postdoctoral position in the Department of Anthropology at the University of San Diego. The years from 1994 to 2007 are filled with various research associations and fellowships at the University of California at Los Angeles, University of London, University of Hawai’i, Australian National University and Santa Cruz.

From 1993 to 1997 Mageo was assistant professor at WSU, followed by becoming an associate professor at WSU in 1997–2003. Since 2003and presently Mageo is a professor at WSU teaching (psychological) anthropology courses and advising graduate and undergraduate students' research. In addition, she is currently a senator of the faculty senate. Furthermore, Mageo organizes anthropological conference sessions most recently for the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania (ASAO) in 2022 or the American Anthropology Association (AAA) in 2019.

Research interests
Jeannette Mageo has a broad range of research interests from cultural self models, cultural memory and history, to gender, sexuality and culture. Her publications on cultural psychology have a comparative angle of areas in Samoa and the US. For example, her work on attachment and childhood focuses on child rearing practices in Samoa and the US. Her work on dreams and the self shows how dreamers mimetic thoughts work on problems with cultural models (see chapter 2 and Theories of dream mentation), like hypocognized (underrepresented) emotions in a society or falling short on cultural values and ideals that are part of a cultural model. Dreams suggest ways on how to reinvent and renew cultural models.

Dreaming of cultural models
Cultural model theory is used by cognitive and psychological anthropologists as a theoretical framework to encounter meaning, ideals, values in people's life through analyzing conscious and unconscious practices, habits, discourses and dreams.

Cultural model theory
Cultural Models (CM) are presupposed metascapes of the world - composed of sociocultural ideals and values that are manifested in norms, discourses, images and narratives - that are shared within a society. Cultural models navigate humans' “how to” act in everyday experiences and “how to” cope in a society. They are necessary to negotiate a person's social life. Models are full of descriptions of relations and boundaries establishing laws (manifesting morals and judgements), rituals, beliefs (like prejudices, expectations, competitions) and institutions. Models are intrinsic and extrinsic aspects/parts of a person, their life and relationships within a society. CM are ambivalent. Features attributed to a CM, like ideals and values that help people to orient oneself in a field of experience, can create problems, feelings of (be)longing, struggle and rejection a person will have with an internalized model.

Cultural models explore features of/in human lives and ways and means how people perceive their life and experiences beyond conscious comprehension. Cultural Models can vary depending on social identities (like gender, age, “race”, belonging, beliefs etc.). This signifies that cultural models can be more accurate for a specific group.

Cultural models in dreams
Mageo sees dreams as “derived from daily concerns and as metaphors for the self, its state and its travails.” She argues that cultural models appear in human dreams and are patterned in dream data. Based on Mageo's Mimetic Hypothesis, dreams are image-based (mimetic) thoughts about cultural models, with models navigating humans' everyday experiences.

Dreams bypass the linguistic mode of thought by using an image-based form of thinking at the forefront. They are preobjectice thoughts as they are a preverbal mode of apprehension. Dreams are intertextual. Dream narratives are composed of visual metaphors of stories circulating in one's society (like fairy tales, TV shows, metaphors, proverbs etc.). Dreams simulate the waking world, using cultural models as templates. Therefore, dreams use the dreamer's selective memories about the model and making intertextual remarks.

Experiencing (unconscious) problems and concerns in waking life are also reflected in cultural models. Dreams address  problems, shared conflicts, errors and shortcomings of daily experiences. Those problems resemble tensions, ambivalence thoughts, and contradictions the dreaming person has with cultural models. Dreams show how good model does or does not model work, by pointing out one's feelings towards a model.

Mageo collects dream data and life-histories of college students at WSU (2019–present) for her research on about Cultural Models in the US Northwest. Her publications (see following chapter) will give a more thorough insight into her dream research,  methodologies and findings. For example, Mageo defined a “US cultural model of close family” through bonds appearing in dream data and life-histories of her students. It consists of a single generation of parents and their children, giving insights on attachment, child rearing practices and models of selves in the US.

Selected publications

 * 2003 Dreaming and the Self: New Perspectives on Subjectivity, Identity, and Emotion. Edited volume. State University of New York Press (SUNY) for their series on dreaming.


 * 2002 Power and the Self. Edited volume. Cambridge University Press.


 * 2001 Cultural Memory: Reconfiguring History and Identity in the Pacific. Edited volume. University of Hawai’i Press.


 * 1998 Theorizing Self in Samoa: Emotions, Genders and Sexualities. University of Michigan Press.


 * 1996 Spirits in Culture, History, and Mind. Co-edited with Alan Howard (University of Hawai'i). Routledge.