The dreamtime could be understood as the time of the creation of the world.
For Aborignal people, the dream beings or ancestral beings had wandered
the unfinished earth from where they spring up to create the whole
australian continent.
All along their itinerary they have created by walking, gesture
and singing all that exists: mountains, rocks, rivers, trees, flowers,
animals and humans.
These paths followed by ancestral beings are now punctuated by sacred
sites where they have stopped and often do something important.
These place are well known by the members of a given group who know the ancestral being dreaming and own this dreaming.
By this way, their earth and and all that belongs to their world have
his own history throught these stories of mythic creation and the right
behaviours of these ancestor founded the law of the group which has to
be followed by all it members. Often there is differents dreamtime
stories for men and women.
These story are transmitted orally by the mean of ceremonies often
at differents step of initiation that need to be passed by each
individual to become an elder of his group.
As stories of creation, they teach the name, the nature and essence of
each things and are in fact very concrete informations to live in their
environnements. So the dreamtime is also a sum of practical knowledge
and the paths of ancestors are used as maps for Aboriginal people to
move on their territory when they need to do so.
Also the dreamtime is not only a past time, but a présent and
future time because if the earth created mens, they needs at their turn
to renew the world creation to make it continue to exists. Ceremonies
react the accomplishment and path of the ancestor, adding new parts to
extend these myths to reflect their actual society(and consequence of
european presence for example)
So the dream time could be understood also as the perpetual transformation of the world which take place around us.
"Each boomerang own a part of the story, a fragment of the dreamtime"
The dream time