Oneiromancy comes from the greek word for dreams and is a form of divination based on dream interpretation.
The goal of oneiromancy is to analyze the symbolism and happenings in your’s or another’s dreams to give insight to the past, present, or future, or to understand a message that an outside force (gods, spirits, your higher self) is sending you. It is a very personalized form of divination, as everyone makes different connections and associations in their own mind.
Steps to Take:
1) Keep a dream journal.
- Take any old journal you have that you can write in and keep it by your bedside along with a pen or pencil. Every morning, or even during the middle of the night if you wake up, write your dreams into the journal.
- Even if you don’t remember your dreams, write something every morning, such as “I don’t remember” just to keep in the habit of writing.
- Alternatively, you can keep a voice recorder near you and talk about your dreams instead of writing. This can actually be much easier for some people.
- Read over your dreams every week to find patterns and recurring themes.
2) Avoid “dream dictionaries”.
- These are books with alphabetized lists of symbols found in dreams and their potential meanings. These books are overgeneralized and very likely to undermine your own intuition.
3) Practice meditation.
- It’s important in dream interpretation to be comfortable in your mind, since you are reading your own unconscious. Morning or bedtime meditations will help you with both dream recall and getting yourself in a state to receive or understand information.
- Taking some time every day to simply enjoy the weather or “stopping to smell the roses” will help you with receiving clearer messages from the universe.
- Practicing mindful meditation will help you in focusing your intent on what you want to dream about. It will help you learn to observe thoughts without analyzing, which can lead to clouded perceptions.
4) Try things like dream tea, bath magic, or making a dream pillow.
- Drink a calming tea 20 minutes before bed to prepare yourself for sleep. Look for teas with ingredients that relate to inducing sleep or dream states.
- Ritual bathing can be very calming and relaxing, and with specially added essential oils, it can help to encourage dreams or make it easier to reach meditative states.
- Dream pillows are sachets made with ingredients to help the flow of sleep and to encourage dreaming. Place one under your pillow before going to sleep.
The goal of all of these steps is to help dream recall so that you may look back on and analyze the symbolism in your dream and understand the messages you may be receiving. While not every dream may be a message from a deity or an insight into the future, these steps will help you better recognize when one is.
The last step is to look at the symbolism present in your dreams and find any outstanding connections they may have with the waking world. You may also incorporate other forms of divination, such as pendulum, tarot, or oracle, to better understand the message.
Beneficial Crystals:
Amethyst, azurite, celestine, chrysoprase, danburite, herkimer diamond, labradorite, moldavite, scolecite
Beneficial Herbs:
Chamomile, jasmine, lavender, mugwort, patchouli, skullcap, valerian, wormwood
*Important: always research the crystals and herbs you use because some may be toxic if ingested or in high doses, care should always be taken*