Motivation and justification from dreams: Muslim decision-making strategies in Punjab, Pakistan

Dreams may serve to justify or motivate decisions. This paper examines two dream incidents in Pakistan which have implications for the study of decision making processes. In the first incident, the centrality of the dream is questionable in the decision making process, while the second incident suggests that dreams may be more than justificatory props that enable people to do what they had already decided. If dreams play a motivational role in the decision making process then models of decision making may benefit from explicit recognition of the role unconscious, uncontrolled experiences though the narrative may be conscious and controlled.