Heathens, Pagans and Witches discussion

I'll start this thread with a beautiful quote that Nell just added. I think it sums it up.

‘We don’t sleep to sleep, dammit, any more than we eat to eat . We sleep to dream. We’re amphibians. We live in two elements and we need both.’ Edward Nesbit

It's from The Chymical Wedding by Lindsay Clarke.


Does anyone practise lucid dreaming?

I wouldn't say I practise it as much as it is the way I dream. Around 75% of my dreams are lucid and always have been. I was 17 years old when I found out that this was outside the norm, I had always assumed everyone's dream were lucid. Imagine my surprise...

I read novels a day and dream my own novels at night :-D

I have, by so far it's been by accident, if that makes sense. I have become aware that I am dreaming, and I am able to control the dream events. I also have had dream states where my eyes are open and I can see the room around me, but I can't move. I'm in both worlds.

But for me, usually, my nights are more active than my days. I have premonition dreams, and have since I was a child. My parents and friends heed them. But sometimes it's just petty stuff that I could do without knowing :) Silly things like I'm going to trip up some stairs, or drop something. It's not deja vu. I've actually dreamt it the night before. But then the major ones, someone dying etc, aren't nice at all.

Nell wrote: "... Does anyone practise lucid dreaming?"

I don't practice it; I have been lucid dreaming for 26 years after accidentally realising I could recognise dreams. It has meant that I no longer have nightmares, and I can control any dream I don't like. I also keep a dream diary.

On occasion I have, usually by accident. More regularly, if I am in the middle of a dream I don't like, I am capable of recognizing that I don't like it and tend to go, "Eh, screw this," turning it off like a bad tv movie. ;) Really nice for keeping nightmares away.

My more interesting dreams happen when someone important to me has passed away. Normally at the next life crisis, they show up in the dream, both of us perfectly aware that they are dead, and have some kind of message for me about my life. That's happened with my grandmother, my cat, and a lady who was a major role model and mentor to me when I was younger.

I keep meaning to keep a dream diary. I sometimes have lucid dreams, but they're unplanned, and usually I'm flying, which is how I know I'm dreaming. I find that staying awake for a long time and falling asleep exhausted can trigger a lucid dream or even a hypnagogic state, where I don't realize I'm falling asleep and what's happening feels completely real before it morphs into an extraordinary dream that also feels completely real.

I haven't yet mastered nightmares, unfortunately.

Oh, I woke up this morning, after horrible nightmares and thought straight away about Lucid dreaming, and that it would mean no more nightmares, and stress free nights! Jeanette, Ancestral, I would love to learn how to enter this state freely and not by accident. I'm here to learn! Please! (Do I sound desperate? Last night's nightmares were terrible, not premonition but fear dreams).

Avery, I have experienced that too, with each and every person who has died (that I am close too). When my Grandmother died (I was twenty four) and she reappeared in my dream, I hid in a closet. "You're not there," I told here. "You're dead." "It makes no difference, Duckie," she replied. And it doesn't!

I escorted Freya, dismembered, in a boat down a beautiful river, filled with lotus flowers. I knew that she would be reborn when we reached the end. I have also dreamt of her many, many times since, including a dream in which she ran into my arms and hugged me (as a small, Indian girl) then said. "I still love you, but sometimes I forget." I woke up sobbing, but it was an amazing, reassuring dream.

I keep a dream journal. I write down the significant ones, but somehow they never leave my mind anyway. They are just too vivid.

Nell, I have flying dreams too. More as a child, when I doubted myself less. I find that if I think too hard as I'm taking off, my flight falters and I fall back to earth. I also sometimes travel in my dreams, visiting friends.

Dreams of the beloved dead are a wondrous reassurance - Georgina, yours sound ultimately beautiful and sustaining, in spite of the trauma. I've had only one - I knew it was real. It gave me strength and still does.

And yes, advice on nightmares would be appreciated, Ancestral, Jeanette and Avery. In the past I've woken myself by opening my eyelids with fingers and thumbs, which suggests that I knew I was dreaming - there must be a better way. Mine tend to reoccur with variations on a theme, and can be half-understood as stemming from some current fear.

I find that the less vivid dreams, the ones that slip away completely after waking, can be analyzed reasonably easily if I can catch them in time. They usually relate to something seen or mentioned the previous day, or to some underlying concern.

The significant, extraordinarily vivid ones, can leave me deeply affected, as if I've actually lived them. But then maybe I have.

I think you have (lived them).

My mind threw everything it had at me last night: husband leaving me, my mother-in-law having half custody of my children, lost in a city, and then because my ducks followed me, squashed ducks. Enough is enough! Yes, I'd love to be more lucid in my dream state.

And yes, the return of deceased loved ones, reaffirms everything!

I would love to be able to go into lucid dreaming. I've only experienced it once or twice.

A couple of years ago I got these dreams about when I was another persons (maybe past lives persona?) I was in the body and surrounding of those persons, for example I was one time a wealthy newly married woman, in England I think but I'm not sure in the 20th century, that was inspecting our newly bought house by the sea/water. I was able to do want I wanted, I controlled those dreams, so in the dream with the new house I really took my time to look through all the rooms and the details, chatting with my household. In another dream I was a teenager in the 1950's and I tried on all of her/mine clothes. Another dream was when I was a young boy in 17th century Italy. And so on.

But I have never been able to make so I dream lucid or such dreams. They just happened. And I haven't experienced anything like that for some years now.

All my dreams feels really real, even though in most dreams I'm not aware that I'm dreaming. But during the dreams it feels like I'm awake anyhow, it's really intense, so I'm glad I only have nightmares like once every 10th year or something. I love my dreams, I dream so many different, interesting stuff but more often than not I awake more tired than energized due to it feeling so... real.

I think dreams are a really interesting phenomena, and I used to keep a dream diary. I'm thinking about starting one again, but it's so tiresome to write the thirst thing when you wake up, ha ha.

I know what you mean about tired when you wake up. I said the same thing to my husband the other morning.

The past lives dreams are amazing. I had them when I was pregnant with my children. Very, very, weird dreams during pregnancy.

This could be very interesting if we all look into, and practice lucid dreaming, learning from each other, as a group.

Georgina wrote: "I think you have (lived them).

My mind threw everything it had at me last night: husband leaving me, my mother-in-law having half custody of my children, lost in a city..."

Fear/anxiety dreams - you could probably trace the origins of this one fairly easily, but it doesn't make them any less awful, and they tend to follow one into the day too. Remember the 'Now'. :)

I'm often lost in a strange city, but oddly not usually more than slightly bothered about it. I wander about, sometimes arrive at a train station and catch a train, try to get 'home' but instead happen across peculiar scenes and places.

Emelie wrote: I love my dreams, I dream so many different, interesting stuff but more often than not I awake more tired than energized due to it feeling so... real.

You have to ask yourself how the mind manages to construct these dream spaces and places that you move about in, never apparently having seen them before - at least in this life. I've actually counted large stones on the side of a building, bumped on a bicycle down cobbled streets, and felt my ankle brush against the bricks as I flew down a narrow alleyway. No wonder we wake up tired!

Georgina wrote: "The past lives dreams are amazing. I had them when I was pregnant with my children. Very, very, weird dreams during pregnancy."

This could be very interesting if we all look into, and practice lucid dreaming, learning from each other, as a group.

We should do that. Can anyone recommend a good book to begin with?


I had dreadful nightmares during pregnancy and blamed the hormones.

I've enjoyed reading everyone's experiences, and would also like to work together on lucid dreaming.

The main problem I've had the past few years is that I don't remember very much of my dreams upon waking. For example, last night I woke up laughing so hard, my partner thought I was crying, but then couldn't remember a durn thing about what was so funny. Granted, I have found my emotions to be really odd in dreams usually (like not-so-scary and often humorous things giving me a nightmare reaction, mundane things making me laugh like crazy, and extremely odd or scary things not having any effect at all and are usually the ones I get bored of and "turn off"). While I freely admit to having an odd sense of humor, I've never understood why my emotions when dreaming are so different compared to my waking emotions.

The best and worst part about dreaming of passed loved ones is when they have a message for someone else. When I had the one of my grandmother, it was shortly after I had come out to my parents as being gay, which my aunt had done a bit before this. My aunt had never told her mother she was gay, despite living with the same woman for decades. They were just "roommates".

In the dream we were at a family gathering, and my grandmother was just sitting in a chair out of the way looking at me, so I went over to her. No one else seemed to know she was there. When I got to her, she hugged me, and all she said was, "It's okay." Upon waking I remember being so overjoyed because I knew it was a message for my aunt. Of course I wanted to tell my aunt so she might feel better, but she just thought I had an overly imaginative dream and didn't think it meant anything. That broke my heart, not that she didn't believe me, but because I couldn't share that same feeling of certainty and joy with her.

Avery wrote: I've never understood why my emotions when dreaming are so different compared to my waking emotions.

This seemed strange to me too, so I did a search on Google. I couldn't find the answer - all the ones I saw seemed to suggest that dream emotions are reflections of waking ones, either obvious or repressed, but there's a good article about emotions and mood in dreams Here that might provide some answers.

Sad about your aunt, although perhaps some of your feelings were communicated to her in spite of what she thought - certainty and joy are powerful things.

From the same website:

Dreams - What Are They?

Lucid Dreams.

Do let us know how you get on - I'm very tempted to order it immediately, but the other Seth book is on the way and I'll read that first I think. I've added it to my TBR shelf.

Really fed up with nightmares!

Beautiful thoughts coming your way. :)

Thank you! Reading the intro now. I'm still reading The Power of Now as well, but I think they will compliment each other. :):)

Well, I've weakened and ordered Seth, Dreams and Projections Of Consciousness - it should be here by the time I've finished the current Seth book.

We'll read it at the same time then. I'm finishing off some French fairy tales first :)

Hope the dreams have settled down now. I've had a few traumatic ones recently which, although examined for a few minutes on waking, then disappear into the depths of lost memory leaving a feeling of uneasiness that lasts all day.

Unfortunately the nightmare about my ducks being squashed proved partially true. I tried to give some friends half my ducks, with disastrous consequences (yes, ducks trying to walk back to my place, and some incurring damage in the process :( ).

Not pleasant at all, but handled. Luckily, my mother in law didn't come into it! But numerous ducks now waddling around our village looking for me, as they would not accept their new home. Feeling very guilty, but I had become the old woman in the shoe and had so many ducks I didn't know what to do. (And I didn't breed them, their mother/grandmother found me and together with some drakes from next door, decided to call our valley home. :)

Now I have twenty two ducks. That's a good, manageable, number. I can afford to feed them again, and they go into their duck house at night (along with the goose, who just showed up one day too).

And don't the nightmares leave that disquieting feeling all day! I'm well and truly ready for some happy dreams now!

Sorry about the ducks. :(

It's good that you can say 'but handled' though. And isn't guilt a terrible thing? I accidentally killed a duckling when I was almost two by picking it up by its neck - that still haunts me. (Note to self: Remember the 'Now'. :))

Coincidentally, I've just been reading about what Seth/Jane call 'natural guilt' and finding it a difficult concept to grasp.

Here's to happy dreams... :)

Jeanette wrote: "I wouldn't say I practise it as much as it is the way I dream. Around 75% of my dreams are lucid and always have been. I was 17 years old when I found out that this was outside the norm, I had alwa..."

How odd, most, about 80% of my dreams are lucid. I seem to nearly always know when im dreaming, I usually just accept the dream as it is and see where it goes but I can do what I like in them if I don't want to or I want something else to happen. Is it really that uncommon? I know I dream more than most people I know (nearly every night, I don't feel like I have slept if I don't dream) and I can usually remember the gist of my dreams for a couple of hours after I have woken up too.

My sister an I were just talking about it, and have come to thee conclusion that it may have to do with how deeply someone sleeps. My sister dreams but doesn't realise she is dreaming and mostly cannot remember her dreams (she is a very deep sleeper) where as im a very light sleeper, the slightest sound, movement or light change wakes me up... so it could be... maybe...

I would agree, except that I am a very heavy sleeper and have been known to sleep through bomb blasts; it's very difficult to wake me once I'm asleep, but I am a lucid dreamer and keep a diary.

Nell wrote: "Sorry about the ducks. :(

It's good that you can say 'but handled' though. And isn't guilt a terrible thing? I accidentally killed a duckling when I was almost two by picking it up by its neck - ..."

Can't remember the 'natural guilt' bit. Will look it up again this afternoon, see what I make of it too.

Ah guilt, we have had a long, tumultuous affair. I am trying to ditch it altogether, but it's harder to give up than smoking (which I did a fortnight ago). It lingers, resurfacing at night. I feel guilty about feeling guilty!

Samantha, I envy your lucid dreams. It is something I really wish to learn how to do.

Gina wrote: ...but it's harder to give up than smoking (which I did a fortnight ago).

Brilliant, well done - stay strong.

Seth, Dreams and Projections Of Consciousness arrived today and I've spent a hour or so reading this afternoon. So far I'm finding this Seth book easier than the other - maybe because I prefer Jane's voice to that of her husband and his constant interruptions about times etc., also these are early sessions (up to #20 so far, as compared to #600+ in the other book), and they feel somehow fresher and less intense than before (but that could easily be due to Jane's voice again).

Not too much about dreams and dreaming so far, but I can wait...

I'll get stuck into it today so we can discuss it together. :)

That'll be good :)

Well, I finished Seth, Dreams and Projections Of Consciousness yesterday. The section that deals with lucid dreaming and Out of Body Experiences comes at the end of the book and takes up about 70 pages.

It might be helpful in managing nightmares, although the early stages of dream work instruction consist of waking frequently to write down one's dreams, and one would have to be committed to losing sleep - almost certainly much-needed for someone with children, a responsible job, and/or lots to do during the day. Jane said that she managed this for periods of a week or more, but needed breaks of undisturbed sleep in between.

I found the long section on probable/possible realities convoluted and (dare I say it?) tiresome (in the literal sense of the word), and decided that if it were true our brains are (probably...!) not equipped to cope with such a concept. There should probably be a mental health warning on the cover, especially bearing in mind the experiments with Out of Body Experiences.

Jane's narrative is interesting in that one gains a good feeling for her character, which comes across as honest and straightforward. Her 'voice' and language are quite different from Seth's, and her ideas, when expressed, so much simpler and easier to understand than his.

I'm glad I read this book, but I'm not in any hurry to pick up another, and I still have the earlier one to finish. :)

They are heavy going. I admit I'm not in the right state of mind at the moment (I'm writing, exhausting enough in itself). They are not written in a way that makes for easy reading either, the prose does not flow and the concepts are mind bending. I will go back to it later, when I have fewer stresses to deal with.

Yes, I agree about Jane's voice and ideas, in comparison with Seth's or her husband's.

I've been using a Theta Waves Meditation for a few nights just before going to bed. It's amazingly relaxing, and seems to help me remember dreams.

Last night's were quite extraordinary and vivid - if I'd sat down to write a short story I'd never have been able to come up with anything so strange, let alone construct or imagine the settings.

Admittedly, some daytime concerns had created small imprints, but can't possibly begin to explain the rest of the dream content.

All my dreams are confusing. I cannot tell if they are lucid. sometimes they are my deepest desires. even worse they are sometimes my worse nightmares.: ) then later I get these dejavu kind of dreams that never failed me.: ) which is hard to explain.

I understand, mine are often confusing too. And fear dreams/premonition are hard to determine until the event you dreamt about actually happens. I had one lucid dream last month, in which I was unhappy with what was happening, so I basically took my bat and ball and went home (woke up). :)

Greetings all :)

I've had limited success with lucid dreaming--admittedly because I've been rather lax in honing that gift. However, one trick that I haven't lost is to begin pounding the floor / wall in any dream that I am becoming uncomfortable in. Within moments, I'm awake with just enough recall to write down the important elements, emotions, and reactions to the dream. I've found that I can generally find a cause for that dream when I take the time to review those notes.

I have to admit that I have difficulty taking dreams at just their face value or as a psychic sign of distress though. I've had to much university "education"--meaning read many books and discussed them to death in classes--about consciousness and its various levels of awareness.

Some day I'll find the balance between my healing and analytical minds when I sleep ... lol :)

Will have to develop that method! Yes, I have a dream diary too. My dreams around times of death and birth are always the most vivid and meaningful.

There are times I just crave (and seek) a dreamless sleep. It can be exhausting. I would take something to help me sleep, but I like to be aware enough that I wake up at noise. My ducks and chooks tend to make a racket if anything is wrong, and I have children too. Haven't really had a proper, completely stress-free sleep for years.

Georgina wrote: "Will have to develop that method! Yes, I have a dream diary too. My dreams around times of death and birth are always the most vivid and meaningful.

There are times I just crave (and seek) a drea..."

I hate to sound like my childhood piano teacher ... but ... practice, practice, practice!!! LOL. Seriously though, you just find a "real life" action that you have a consistent reaction to and train yourself to copy that in your dreams.

You mentioned your ark of animals .... lol. Perhaps integrating a sound of alarm from one of them as a cue to wake up as you're already trained to react to that noise?

As to stress-free sleep .... remind me what that is again?!? I haven't slept deeply and in a healing way for years--the results of (formerly untreated) fibromyalgis, hyperalertness learned as a child, and the other niggling things of daily life. Past medications, while useful, always left me with very psychedelic (aka Dante's Inferno) dreams *shudder*. I only use them now when I'm bone-tired from not getting sleep.

I don't think there's any such thing as a dreamless sleep - I read somewhere that if we don't dream, we die, although goodness knows who they used as a guinea pig for that one. There's apparently only sleep where dreams are benign or not remembered.

I've had some very strange dreams recently - almost certainly due to stress and worries of different kinds. Last night I had a very lucid flying dream, probably caused by missing most of Thursday night's sleep (my mother had a nasty fall, and I had to call an ambulance and be at the hospital. She's home again now).

Sleep deprivation seems to be the quickest route to lucid dreams - for me at least. But mostly, although I have very weird dreams, I can nearly always recognize connections to worries or things discussed during the previous days. It's as if the brain makes a distorted anagram of these details and joins the letters/thoughts together at random.

The other night, just as I closed my eyes, it was as if I were seeing a very clear dream image of a vertical row of overlapping newspapers. As I tried to read the headlines (all identical), a butterfly skipped from the front paper to the the next and each in turn. When it got to the end it flew away and the picture disappeared. I had heard the radio throughout, and just opened my eyes and switched it off. Very odd. Wish I'd been able to read that headline.

Good advice C-Cose, including a sound of alarm from one of my animals as a clue to wake me up.

Fibromyalgis sounds awful, wishing you soon healing sleep asap. :) I think I entered that hyperalert sleep state after having my first child.

I have wondered about that Nell. My husband says he doesn't dream, I've always thought it's only that he doesn't remember them. I remember reading in a nat geo about an Italian family that couldn't sleep properly (no REM), it was an inherited problem, and they all died young (I seem to recall forties or fifties). Of course I've used that story to get my children to sleep (go to sleep my darlings, or you'll die young--not quite like that!)

I hope your mother is recovering well. My best to her. :)

I wish you'd seen the headline too. That's a cliffhanger ending, if ever I heard one!

I definitely get the premonition dreams, and very regularly. Two nights ago it was about my husband's mother being ill, then yesterday she rang to say she's got shingles again (poor thing--very painful). Sometimes it helps to know what's going to happen beforehand: I've avoided arguments and accidents, but other times not. I dreamt about our bottom dam bursting a while back, but misinterpreted the dream, taking it figuratively, not literally, so the warning went unheeded until the dam wall started crumbling (very scary--it's a big dam).

I've had world event dreams too--ones where I wake up crying, but only five or six of those in my lifetime. Most are personal.

Georgina wrote: "GI remember reading in a nat geo about an Italian family that couldn't sleep properly (no REM), it was an inherited problem, and they all died young (I seem to recall forties or fifties). Of course I've used that story to get my children to sleep (go to sleep my darlings, or you'll die young--not quite like that!)"

Are you thinking of FFI - Fatal Familial Insomnia? It's not just the lack of REM, but total insomnia, i.e. they never sleep and will die of exhaustion.

Yes, you are right, Ancestral, just looked it up then. What a horrible thing--no sleep at all!

I had sleep deprivation with both children when they were babies (who doesn't). I could very well see how it was used as a form of torture by Mathew Hopkins (English witch hunter).

I have done so since I was a child..I could see a lot of things in present and future...Good or bad..
Problem I had, I could see people I had met at one time or another die..It got so bad I was afraid to sleep.
I had to learn how to turn it *off*..Not so easy a task..
I have better control now,,(

Anita wrote: "I have done so since I was a child..I could see a lot of things in present and future...Good or bad..
Problem I had, I could see people I had met at one time or another die..It got so bad I was af..."

Greetings Anita :)

"Seeing Dreams" are the most difficult to understand / overcome / control, I think. My Mum still has difficulties with them to this day and she's well into her 70's. I've had to exercise the trick that I described in #38 in order to escape those that I don't want to see.

I thank you for sharing...I was always afraid to even tell people..I warned two people when I was young..Of course no one takes a child seriously..Unfortunately they both died exactly like I *saw*..
I never knew anyone else could do this too until I was older..I still don't share the *dreams*..I do try not to let them upset me to much now..
I don't want to shut them down anymore..They might just save someone yet. <3 I hope ..

I can well understand your fear of your premonition dreams when young, Anita, and of telling people about them.

A number of years ago, I dreamt that one of my best friends was having difficulties coping, but we were estranged at the time (he'd been outrageously drunk at my wedding, and I ending up having to put him in my spare room and look after him, on my wedding night). I didn't follow it up. He suicided a few weeks later. I struggled with guilt, especially as I dreamt about him being in an endless black place, with a single flame to mark his presence. I made sure I was there for him in my dreams, we spoke later, he told me not to remember him how he died, but for who he was. Last dream he told me he'd been 'allowed' back in. I'd never looked at suicide as causing problems after death. Now I think it's jumping too soon, and you are lost for a while.

Sorry, rambling, just wanted to say it sounds like your dreams are powerful and of help to others, Anita, however distressing they are.

After someone very close to me died, a number of years back, I dreamt of dolphins. They were threaded in and out of my dreams. There was also a very powerful man with a cane, with a dolphin for the handle, to whom I looked up to. I was told by a physic friend that the dolphin represented the ability to travel from the waking world into the spirit world. I certainly did in my dreams for many weeks after. Then one day the dolphin dreams stopped, and so too my dreams of crossing into the spirit world.

I'm going to make a thread for death, as I feel it's a subject HP&W can tackle well. Maybe I should make it Birth and Death: Beginnings, Ends, or Transitions? What do people think?

(Please excuse spelling mistakes, it's early--only had one cup of coffee, eyes not properly open yet.)

Georgina wrote: "I'm going to make a thread for death, as I feel it's a subject HP&W can tackle well. Maybe I should make it Birth and Death: Beginnings, Ends, or Transitions? What do people think?

(Please excuse spelling mistakes, it's early--only had one cup of coffee, eyes not properly open yet.)"

I think that's both a wonderful and healing idea Gina :) I'll save my thoughts / observations on those topics for those threads as they can be quite involved ... lol. I promise no profanity though :)

Good, will set it up now.:) (Profanity to some, descriptive word usage to others:))

Georgina wrote: "I can well understand your fear of your premonition dreams when young, Anita, and of telling people about them.

A number of years ago, I dreamt that one of my best friends was having difficulties..."

Wow thank you for sharing Georgina..I wish I knew you sooner..It has always been difficult for me to share my dreams..Especially with my family and friends.
The most difficult dreams were about the brother and father of a boy I was dating back in HS..They both died exactly as I dreamt it..I did warn both of them. Terrible insight for a young girl..Another a girl I went to college with..So on...so much pain...But I keep trying to help..
I would like to join your new group too..Please let me know...?