If you’ve visited my shop, you’ll recognise the title of this blog post is the title of a song by Todd Rundgren which is on my playlist. Every song on the shop playlist has some spiritual or magical implication; some deep and serious, some with tongue planted firmly in my cheek. More about that in another post. BUT… When are dreams a product of eating a pizza before bedtime? When are dreams a reaction to your anxiety? My cousins and I have what we call “Pappas Dreams”… we all have the same basic dream that we are in a car together trying to get to a family dinner at my grandmother’s house, but we keep getting lost. When we finally arrive, the house is in chaos, and there are many rooms and many levels all leading to some bizarre place. We are forever lost. Anxiety.
When are dreams a warning? My grandmother used to often dream of my late grandfather walking through the door with a box of donuts, offering them to the family. My Greek grandmother would recount this dream to me and say, “No take-a the food from the dead people.” She firmly believed that if one ate food offered by the dead, it was an omen that someone could die without intervention. Superstition? Absolutely not. This belief comes from the myth of the goddess Persephone, who upon drinking a goblet of wine and eating a pomegranate seed given to her by the god Hades, was destined to remain with him in the underworld, the land of the dead, forever.
I am a firm believer in paying close attention to dreams. If you have the discipline, keeping a diary by your bedside to write them down is a great idea. Whatever the result of your night time travels may be, they can provide you with great insight. You may be surprised because sometimes dreams can be prophetic and you may be seeing visions of your future. Whether through symbolism or an actual play-out of a moment to come, I often have prophetic dreams which makes perfect sense since I work with Apollo, the god of prophecy. The clearest (and funniest) one I ever had took place way back in the mid ’80s. At the time, I was married and we were living in an amazing but haunted brownstone in the South End of Boston. One night, I woke my husband up because I was laughing in my sleep. He shook me awake, saying, “Wake up! You’re dreaming.” I woke up, mid laugh, saying,” Oh my god, what a stupid dream.”
He asked me what it was about and I told him that I dreamed I was seated on the sofa in our flat in between our friend Erik and another guy. They were leaning forward, talking to each other blocking my view of the television, and I said, in an annoyed tone, “You GUYS…I’m TRYING to watch MICHAEL JACKSON.” it struck me funny because, well…Michael Jackson??? Why would I care? I was (and am) a dedicated post-punk rocker and my vinyl and cd collection consisted of all the guitars, minor chords, atmosphere, spooky stuff plus psychedelia that my generation had to offer. Throw in some Bowie, T Rex, Todd Rundgren, Dylan, Lou Reed, Mersey Beat, bop jazz, the Monkees, Beatles, Stones, and 60s garage rock, and Bob’s your uncle. So, ya, Michael Jackson would have been incongruous. Plus, this was in between the release of Off the Wall and when he hit MTV with Billie Jean and Thriller. So I was flummoxed and thought it was just a silly dream. My husband asked me if he was in the dream and I said no, just Erik and the other guy. He asked who the other guy was and I told him that I had no idea, never seen him before in my life.
Well, fast forward a few years and my husband and I had broken up. I had inherited Erik, and I was dating a tall blond Finnish-American film maker. One night he was coming to my flat for dinner, and just after he got there, my doorbell rang, and it was Erik. I invited him to stay for a beer before dinner as I wanted to watch something on TV…The Motown Anniversary Special in which Michael Jackson was going to do the Moonwalk for the first time on live TV…and Michael Jackson hadn’t been around since Off the Wall so he had changed significantly. Well, I got everyone their beers, and settled on the sofa with both lads seated on either side of me. They found they had mu
ch in common so they were engaged in an animated conversation, leaning forward, in front of me. I said, not remembering the dream, “You GUYS…I’m TRYING to watch MICHAEL JACKSON.” That dream was an omen of what was to come. When I had it, I was experiencing a very rocky patch in my marriage. The dream told me that there would be a future. The future would be filled with humour, fun and love. There was hope.
And there are skilled dreamers, people who are actually incorporating dreams into their magical practice. Lucid Dreaming is a method people employ to control their dreams. And there is astral travel, which some may mistake for dreaming. Astral travel, or astral projection is when the soul leaves the body during sleep or deep meditation. Controlled, this method of transcendence can be used to heal others, to gain information, and to travel the aethers to commune with spirits, angels, demons, even the gods. The soul will leave the body from various chakras. so upon falling asleep one may feel a sensation from the heart, or top of the head, forehead, or solar plexus. The soul is connected to the body by a golden cord which must not be broken. And the soul must enter the body straight, because if it doesn’t, upon waking, it will result in headaches or stomach aches, a feeling of malaise, or depression. There are people who use this tool in their practise and can astral project at will. I have never attempted to will myself to do it, nor have I attempted to train myself to do so. For me it happens almost as if I am being pulled out by someone/something in order to gain information or meet someone. Some of my experiences on the lower aethers have been most unpleasant, gruesome, even. The entities that populate the lower aethers are dark and need to be avoided. Some will disguise themselves as higher energies and it is important not to be fooled by them so that you can ascend without delay. You must pass through the lower aethers to get to the higher. Spending more time than necessary in the lower aethers is draining and polluting. If this happens, you will need a ritual bath and several days of cleansing rituals.
I hope you’ll excuse this shameless bit of self promotion, but the shop’s Spell Apothecary carries soaps, candles, oils and incenses to help with dream work and astral projection, and provide protection at the same time. The line is called Hypnos, after the Greek god of sleep. It’s not yet in the online shop, but it’s in the Mathew Street shop. If you can’t pop by for a visit, email me and I’ll put something together for you.
I have been doing a lot of astral travel lately and having “dreams” of the dead and that is what prompted me to write this post. I believe when I dream I am in my “Dead People Place” I am in the upper aethers. It is always the same place, a long, narrow footpath in between vast green meadows and the sea. There are benches along the path and sometimes my late parents will be seated together, or just one or the other, waiting for me. Sometimes I will be pulled off the path into the grass where I see friends who’ve passed and lots of others that I do not recognise. Very often after this happens I will have a day in the shop where people come in asking about contacting a loved one who has passed, or I have a day with nothing but tarot readings, or the shop will be filled with spirit activity. Coincidence? I don’t think so at all.
So sometimes dreams are more than just dreams, more than just our subconscious trying to release issues we compartmentalise during the day so that we might get on with things. Sometimes they are more than a pizza too close to bedtime, or as Scrooge says to Marley, ” (you may be) an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato.” Science is exploring the idea of our consciousness existing after the body dies…yes the afterlife; so why can’t our consciousness go on a walkabout when our body shuts down to recharge? With all the talk of other dimensions, alternate realities, time loops, why can’t it be possible? Why can’t it be that A Dream Goes on Forever?