On April 4th, we end the most recent Mercury Retrograde cycle. It is time for the planet Mercury, the cosmic messenger, to resume a direct course in the heavens. Here at the Dream Tribe, we’ve dedicated our posts for this retrograde time to honor the symbolic energy of Mercury, the messenger in his/her many guises and forms.
Our final post on dream messengers will focus on how plants can help to influence and activate the messages that come in dreams.
Plants that shift our consciousness
Plants have many abilities to shift and open our consciousness. The plants in this category that often first come to mind are the visionary/psychotropic plants and fungi like Los Ninos Santos (psilocybin mushroom), Peyote, San Pedro Cactus, and Ayhuasca.
As an herbalist, I have observed that many other plants and herbs, not just the psychotropic ones, have an ability to affect our consciousness. All plants have both spirit and intelligence. Therefore any plant, even something as ordinary as grass, can affect both our waking and dreaming states.
Plants that induce special dream states
Certain plants are known for their ability to influence & activate the dream state. The name for the category of plants that induce dreams is “oneirogen.”
Oneirogen plants are dream messengers, as they bring about messages in and from the dream world. One of the most well-known dream inducing plants is mugwort, artemesia vulgaris. Both Ryan and I have written about mugwort previously here at DT. In general, mugwort tends to activate dreaming and stimulate colorful, vibrant, Alice-in-Wonderland type of dreams. Mugwort is a great plant to help induce dreams for people who normally don’t remember their dreams.
Lately I’ve been experimenting with other lesser-known oneirogen plants. These include calea zacatechichi (“bitter grass”, “leaf of the god”); hemia salicifolia (“abra de sol” or “sun opener”) and seline capensis (“Xhosa dream plant”).
The Xhosa dream plant
Today I’ll focus on seline, the Xhosa dream plant, which I’m happy to say I planted in my dream herb garden bed just yesterday!
Seline is native to South Africa, and is used ceremonially by the Xhosa speaking tribal people. There are 8 million Xhosa speaking people in South Africa and they are divided into several distinct tribes. Xhosa is the second most common language spoken in South Africa after Zulu. Famous people of Xhosa descent include Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu. Dreams, divination and the ancestors all play a big role in the traditional culture & spirituality of the Xhosa. In this way, the dream-inducing plant, silene capensis, is considered a very sacred herb to the Xhosa. The Xhosa name for this plant is “undela zimmhlope” which translates to “white ways” or “white path.”[2] White is a sacred color to the Xhosa, who consider the color white to be directly connected to their ancestors.[3] Silene is used traditionally by the Xhosa for divinatory dreams. Silene activates dreams that are vivid, prophetic and lucid. As the “white ways” dream plant, Silene dreams tend to include imagery infused with the color white. Another special characteristic of Silene is that its dreams are so realistic that it is hard to distinguish them from waking life. An unusual feature of Silene is that it is normally taken in the morning to affect the dream state at night. A person maintains a normal, ordinary state of consciousness during the day when taking it and then the visionary properties of the plant are activated during sleep. An interesting thing I observed when taking Xhosa is that the visionary dreams came to me, but with some lag time. Often a few days & nights would pass between taking the Xhosa in the morning and the arrival of the dream a few nights later. The first silene induced dream came a few nights after taking it. This dream was very realistic and very detailed. This dream was also sexual and personal, so I will not share it in detail here. However, the quality of detail and realism I experienced in this dream was notably unusual and vivid. A few nights later, I had this dream: I am travelling near Point Reyes. I pass by someone’s yard and see a white horse. I open the gate and borrow the horse. I am riding the horse bareback. It takes me on a journey that is both exciting and frightful. When I awoke from this dream, I did not make any connection to taking the silene. Since I had taken it a few days earlier, I wasn’t paying close attention to the way that it might be affecting my dream state. Later that week, it dawned on me that the white horse was an unusual dream character for me. I do not often dream of horses and I have never dreamed of a white horse. However, the white horse is definitely a white being, a classic signature of a silene dream messenger. Also, since the Xhosa name translates to “white path”, I realized that in this dream, the white horse was taking me on a journey on a definite path. The path was not white, but the being carrying me on it was! The next time I dreamed with silene, the dream came more immediately. I incubated a dream with silene for Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead—a time of the year when the ancestors are close to those of us here on the earth plane. I encounter a being in white. Brilliantly white, covered with feathers like a white peacock or swan. This dream was easier to recognize as a silene dream. As I write this, I give thanks to the appearance of this angelic being in my dreams, who may be an ancestor or spirit guide and I give thanks to the Xhosa dream plant for bringing this messages and messengers from the dream world. Silene and the other dream-inducing plants are very sacred and should be taken in a safe and respectful way. Make sure you do good research into the safety considerations of using these herbs before taking any of these plants. I used the alchemical extract of silene from Al-kemi (http://www.al-qemi.com/) and followed the recommended dosage of 1-3 drops. Other herbal preparations may have different strengths, so carefully follow the recommendations given with the product. Have you had any silene dreams you’d like to share? Please share them below. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xhosa_people [2] http://entheology.com/plants/silene-capensis-african-dream-root/ [3] http://al-kemi.com/alchemy/2009/02/silene-dreaming-in-white/ Silene Capensis photo by haraldhobbitXhosa dream observations
The white path
Magical being in white
Safety considerations
You might be interested in the following books:
One River by Wade Davis
Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge by Jeremy Narby
They were fascinating.
thank u for sharing your experience I enjoyed reading. I bought Burning blend dreamers by Gaia’s delights containing calea zacatechichi, motherwort, Mexican tarragon, and wild lettuce. I’ve had it for a few months and only tried it a few times. Now after reading your article I have decided the timing in my life is perfect to give it another try. Happy Dreaming!
Nicole,
If you have some good plant-induced dreams and want to share, I’d love to hear more. I am collecting dreams for my writings & a book on dreaming with plants.
Take care,
Atava
I drank some Dreamers Blend tea last night before bed and again amazingly clear dreams. I dreamed of a glass jar filled with a dark liquid. I remember people saying she is really taking this all very seriously. I then drank the dark liquid that I new to be the blood of Christ.
Then I went on to dream of Eddie Murphy who was very angry at me for trying to avoid him. All the characters in this dream were dressed in yellow including myself.
In another dream I was in a terminal trying to get on a plane I hesitate and it pulls away from the terminal just as I’m about to step on. It then detaches from the airport and I am in this cylinder terminal now laying on the floor of the runway. It then shrinks on to me like Alice in Wonderland growing into the cottage. I am now a little girl wearing a terminal dress.
Oh wow… this makes me think of Lena’s dream ( my 3 year old daughter) the other night of a snake chasing away germs… (terminal dress).
What herbs were in your dreamers blend?
One herb, heimia salicifolia, “sun opener” traditionally gives dreams a yellowish hue- which reminds me of the people dressed all in yellow.
Atava,
I bought it from a site called Gaia’s Delights and this is what the label reads…
Calea Zacatechichi, (used by Mazatec Shamans to induce vivid dreaming), Private Reserve Motherwort (often used as a pre-spleep aid to help with lucid dreaming and dream recall, Mexican Tarragon (used to relax nerves), and Wild Lettuce (known for inducing vivid dreams).
I have not had any lucid dreams while drinking this tea but I have not really been focusing on lucids as of late.
The picture on the label is of a sun with a green tree in the center.
This is a site I started for my friends and family to share dreams. I also started a group “A Course in Miracles” . I’ve been spending a lot of time the last week on this and I think this is what is triggering the christ dream. http://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/groups/IACIM/
You are more then welcome to join, we would love to have you and anyone you feel would enjoy our community.
I love you site thank you for being to active in your dreams!
Sorry I wanted to go back edit but I’m not sure how. The site I was referring to was http://www.facebook.com/Dakiniinsights. Many Blessings! Nicole
This is a topic that I am extremely interested in. I am not an herbalist, but my relationship with plants is profound. (I collected and illustrated orchids for years in the upper Amazon and I am recently learning about and using natural plant remedies, some plants of which are grown in my extensive gardens and greenhouse.)
I had a dream about taking ayahuasca BEFORE I actually finally took it in physical reality, and I think that this is the most colorful and vivid dream of my life. The possibility to take ayahuasca was made available in November 2011 (I live in Ecuador where it is legal), but I decided to research it and read some books on it during 3 subsequent months. Also, the reason that I decided to take ayahuasca is that it is a nocturnal experience, manifested in theta and occasional gamma brainwave frequency, very much like lucid dreaming and OBEs, which I have practiced for some years.
My ordinary dream about ayahuasca occured while I was studying ayahuasca. It was amazingly vivid, hyper real, organically alive imagery. (my ordinary dreams are usually fragments, in color, but not bright). Two points I would like to mention, as you tell about the white horse (thank you for telling me about the white horse!) In this dream, I saw a corral of beautiful white horses (I never dream of horses, either). And they were so real,-plus I could feel and hear them shifting, bumping into each other, lightly snorting, their skin nervously shimmying. The second image was exciting to me – a violin like object is handed to me, and I am told that I will be granted one wish, such as to be beautiful forever. Instead, I ask to be granted the wish that I will play violin beautifully. (I play violin in physical reality). In reality, after this dream, I have felt that my playing has greatly improved, it is as if the dream entity “entitled” me to take chances, believe in myself, find my potential!
When I finally actually took ayahuasca a couple of weeks ago, my experience had nothing to do with this dream. First, and importantly, I was in a very controlled atmosphere with a very caring and careful guide. My entire experience was composed of three transmissions; careful and analytical custom-made information given to me in almost Jungian terms, from a loving, superconscious entity with total knowledge of what I needed, an intelligence that knew me and cared about my spiritual development.
My ordinary dreams have not changed too much since the imbibing of this plant. I have had many pre-lucid dreams since, but no lucid dreams. What has been perhaps the best thing is that I have followed the careful transmissions, giving them time and visualization in my meditation, and feel that yes, a solid development is happening as a result of entering through the portal of ayahuasca.
Carol,
Thanks for all that you shared. I loved your description of the dream horses- the image really resonates with me, since the white horse also appeared in my dream. Makes me wonder about who they are or what they represent on a spiritual level.
Your post also makes me think about another aspect of dreaming with plants that I had not considered- how the spirit of a plant may visit us and affect our dream state before we even ingest it on a physical level.
Thanks again,
Atava
Does silene capensis help in attempts to astral project. I struggle to do an OBE. Tried it before but only reached vibration stages and seeing spirits When i open my eyes?
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[…] have written a lot about dreaming with plants. Oneirogen plants are a category of plants that are used to activate dream states. Some of the best known […]
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