dialogic dreams: creative selves coming into life in the flow of time

This article discusses male Xavante youths' experience of subjectivity through exploration of dream‐songs using, following Singer, a Peircian model of the semiotic self. Dreamed songs are shown to straddle the territory between the domains of individual subjectivity and publicly circulating discursive practice, mediating between the creativity and experience of individual selves and the experience of collectivity. Preinitiates construct images of the dream‐song “type” through performance with seniors, then share dreamed compositions with a cohort to merge individual experience with collective experience in performance. Performance links participants to seniors, past performers, and, ultimately, to the ancestors. [dreams, song/dance, semiotics, expressive performance, Brazilian Indians]