It’s normal to experience moments where you suddenly remember the dreams you had last night. Your previously-forgotten dreams may suddenly pop up in your mind unexpectedly and generate a deep sense of familiarity or even nostalgia. While it’s common to suddenly remember your dreams from last night, it’s also possible to suddenly recall dreams from months or even years ago. It’s difficult to determine what causes this spontaneous recall. Very vivid or lucid dreams are hard to forget, but we often forget many of our mild and non-lucid dreams. Usually, when we experience spontaneous dream recall, we are remembering a dream that we forgot about up until that moment.
In this post series about how to work with your dreams, so far I have focused on dreams you already have had. Now let’s take it to the next level, and learn how to ask for the dream you want to have. Known as dream incubation, this ancient method for asking for guidance from the dreamworld is scarily effective.
There’s a world that lies on the border between wakefulness and sleep, in the realm of the subconscious. Between the conscious and unconscious, sounds and images auto-generate rapidly in a seemingly random succession, much like they do in the dream world. This world is witnessed only while you fall asleep, in transit. Whether you are inducing a lucid dream consciously or falling asleep in a normal fashion, you will pass through this in-between realm, which is similar to a lucid dream, yet noticeably different. It’s a blendbetween the physical world and the dream world… a crossroads of some sort. Thoughts take on a new quality here… they become vaguer and occur more automatically, with less intention and effort. Events, people, places, things, and sounds all appear underneath your eyelids while you still vaguely sense your physical surroundings. This is the place from which you cross into the realm of the unconscious mind (the dream world).
In order to understand dream magic, and how to manipulate others dreams (whether it’s for good or bad juju), you have to understand how to operate your own dreams.
Understand your own dreams: You have to start remembering your dreams. Whether it’s something as simple as saying a mantra before you go to sleep such as, “I will remember my dreams when I wake up.”
Keep a dream journal: If you have a hard time with remembering anything, write your dreams as soon as you wake up to keep record of what has happened.
Give yourself time when you wake up: Once you wake up, let your mind remain in a relaxed state, it’ll be easier to reflect on your dreams when you wake up.
Our minds are connected through a Universal wifi: While this is not technology, our minds are energy and we are all connected, once this mindset sets in, it’s easier to “tap” into other consciousness.
Keep practicing: Dream magic comes with much practice; we have to train our minds to tap into this kind of force, and it’s something we have to keep up.
Dream work is very important when practicing magic, and it allows opens up our intuition to help aid in any spirit work. Dream magic has been a powerful practice since the time of the old gods when it was taught to man. It’s up to the Witch on how you use this ability.
Lucid dreaming is when you are in a dream but fully aware that you are in a dream, leading to you often being able to control the outcomes or certain aspects of the dream. You are able to live your fantasies and also are more likely to remember your dreams come morning.
With work Lucid dreaming can be improved into astral projection via sleep or dream walking where you can exit your dreams to enter the dreams of others or walk about the “dream plane”. Skilled lucid dreamers also often use their dreams for divination and problem solving due to how vivid they are and how it is easier to remember them.
Herbs for Lucid Dreaming: African Dream Bean, Blue Lotus, *Datura, *Mexican Dream Herb, Lavender, Mugwort, Rose Buds, Valerian Root, Wild Asparagus
Essential Oils for Lucid Dreaming: Lavender, Mugwort, Patchouli, Rose
Other things to achieve Lucid Dreaming:
Keep a dream journal and write in it regularly.
Interpret the meanings behind your dreams after recording them
Avoid caffeine, alcohol, and smoking cigarettes before bed
Keep a regular sleeping schedule
Sleep in complete darkness if possible
Meditate before going to sleep
Openly state before you go to bed “I will lucid dream tonight” and repeat this either out-loud or in your mind as you get ready for bed. When you lay in bed continue focused on that in your mind
Along with that before bed tell yourself, preferably in a mirror if it helps, that you will remember your dreams come morning
Do “reality checks” meaning in your dream check to see if you are dreaming. If you see mirrors, see if you can see the background behind you or if it is misty/blurry. If see a clock look at it, look away, then look back, often in dreams the time will change. This is the same for signs and street signs. You can also before going to bed mark up your hand with ink and in your dream look down and see if it is there still. If its not you know you’re dreaming. Look down at your feet, often in dreams they will seem oddly unfocused. If you see a bookshelf, see if any of the book titles are visible or repeat.
Okay, I know I am dreaming, now what do I do?
Well now you practice. It is rare to immediately be able to control your dreams completely. To gain full control you need to practice. Start small and take baby steps. Try hopping in place in your dream, see if you can make yourself hover for even just a second. Keep at it, try to float in place longer and longer with each jump. In time and with practice and patience you will be able to soar through your dreams one night and it’s easy from there. If you come across a locked door try opening it while saying out loud “this door is unlocked”. Keep at it, because hopefully you will be able to open it soon enough.
Start talking to the ‘characters’ in your dreams. Try to influence their behavior such as suggesting they do something. You can also approach a ‘stranger’ in your dream and see what happens if you state that you two are friends. If they start acting as if they know you and are indeed your friend, you know you have improved your control.
Take notes in your dream journal on these tests. Write down if they failed or succeeded and keep at it. With time you will be able to change things in your dreams with ease.
The Positives of Lucid Dreaming:
You can control your dreams! That is just awesome, you can live out things you can’t do in real life.
Prevent or stop nightmares, when you are lucid dreaming you can just tell whatever is causing you the nightmare to ‘fuck off’ and usually they will. Nightmares can be quickly changed into enjoyable dreams
From my personal experience and experiences of others, after a lucid dream you feel more awake and alive come morning, it’s almost energizing to wake up from
Its calming, I can relieve my stresses from the day and not worry about them in my dreams
You can attempt to solve your real life struggles in your dreams or making plans
Eventually you can work your way to Astral Travel and Dream Walking
Using your dreams for divination
Improve sleep, many people who lucid dream fall asleep faster and deeper than most people leading to them having improved sleep patterns and habits
For artists and story writers, dreams can really inspire you and help you test out your ideas
Deity communication, for those who do worship deities you can communicate or even interact with them in your dreams if you welcome them in.
Spirit and entity communication, just like deities lucid dreamers can interact with entities in their dreams by letting them in. Many lucid dreamers interact with their guides and guardians through dreams as well
In January 2006 in New York, the patient of a well-known psychiatrist draws the face of a man that has been repeatedly appearing in her dreams. In more than one occasion that man has given her advice on her private life. The woman swears she has never met the man in her life. That portrait lies forgotten on the psychiatrist’s desk for a few days until one day another patient recognizes that face and says that the man has often visited him in his dreams. He also claims he has never seen that man in his waking life.The psychiatrist decides to send the portrait to some of his colleagues that have patients with recurrent dreams. Within a few months, four patients recognize the man as a frequent presence in their own dreams. All the patients refer to him as THIS MAN. From January 2006 until today, at least 2000 people have claimed they have seen this man in their dreams, in many cities all over the world. At the moment there is no ascertained relation or common trait among the people that have dreamed of seeing this man. Moreover, no living man has ever been recognized as resembling the man of the portrait by the people who have seen this man in their dreams.
THEORIES Several theories have been developed to explain the mysteriously recurring presence of this man: 1. ARCHETYPE THEORY According to Jung’s psychoanalytic theory, this man is an archetypal image belonging to the collective unconscious that can surface in times of hardship (emotional development, dramatic changes in our lives, stressful circumstances etc.) in particularly sensitive subjects. 2. RELIGIOUS THEORY According to this theory this man is the image of the Creator, that is to say one of the forms in which God manifests himself today. 3. DREAM SURFER THEORY It is the most interesting theory and the one that has the greatest implications, but it has also the lowest scientific credibility. According to this theory this man is a real person, who can enter people’s dreams by means of specific psychological skills. 4. DREAM IMITATION THEORY This is a scientific psycho-sociological theory which claims that this phenomenon has arisen casually and has progressively developed by imitation. Basically when people are exposed to this phenomenon they become so deeply impressed that they start seeing this man in their dreams.
Dreams can be a compass when you’re doing workings which fall outside of reason or logic.
For the past little while I’ve been in the midst of magical operations which work on very subtle aspects of my self.. The goal is essentially to discover the true nature of myself, my true will you could call it. To align my conscious self with my unconscious.
The great difficulty with this is that anything you can consciously think of is filtered through both the true will and the false will. The “me” who is deep inside is always present but by the time anything reaches my conscious mind it is muddled with all the imprints and conditioning that I have accumulated in life.
In a situation like this you can’t trust a single thought that comes into your mind. Any one of those thoughts could be a traitor in the mix, even the ones which seem like brilliant ideas. In fact, the ones that seem like brilliant ideas turn out to be traitors quite often.
How do, then? How do? Luckily we have an avenue in which the true self gets more control than our conscious self. Dreams. As Crowley has stated in Liber Aleph the places, characters, and objects in our dreams are often results of our conscious experiences. Yet the feeling of the dream, the events, and arrangements of symbols are all aspects which the unconscious takes control of.
Ecstatic dreams signal that we are coming closer to our true will in the area of the topic that the dream was based on. Terrifying, sad, or violent dreams are signals that we are moving far from our true will.
As an example if you have a dream about your love life in which you are filled with anxiety, and the events of the dream are violent, then your approach to love is coming from a position of false will. If, on the contrary, you have a beautiful and enjoyable dream about love then your perspective on love is in alignment with your True Self (or unconscious self).
This allows us to tiptoe around the traitors Reason and Logic. It allows us to receive messages, more or less directly, from our unconscious.
The transmission may be partially delayed, but that is a small price to pay for a tool which allows you to avoid all the wretched confusion the thinking mind creates. Personally I’d rather make slow progress towards the right destination instead of taking leaps in random directions and hoping I end up at the right place.
Occult Aspects 