How is qualitative data?: An interrogation and puppet show dream

This chapter explores the question “How is data in contemporary qualitative inquiry?”. Dreams may not be considered “real,” but the data that composes them provides a particular simulation for conjuring up the truth of reality. Snoozing is a space of “in-betweenness”: between wake and sleep, thought and dream, tiredness and rest, or conflict and peace. The chapter offers non-representational theory along with an approach for excavating raw dream data absent of reference and meaning. An affective, pre-psychoanalytic perspective of a dream’s data opens space for understanding the hidden ontologies of the body, absent of the need for interpretation and representation in inquiry. At the heart of dream data lies a key for engaging social justice and transformation—the rawness of emotions, when understood fully, provides a pathway for radically engaging with and advocating for those in society seeking humanization.