Making a Patter, by Eugene

Our class is back in the film class we just finished. On the table are papers or plates with moving images on them that can be moved around. I shift and rearrange them trying to get the story, with Suzanne helping me and the teacher making comments. I hear what sounds like an argument from the next room, or maybe the way people talk after there's been an accident. I realize it's Marija Gimbutas talking about the Goddess.

I have an awareness that the narrative I'm trying to form with the moving images is a patter (on our schedule, there was a typo in the title of the film class, so it read "Archetypal Patters in Cinema"), somehow a precursor to a pattern. As I awake, I have the sense that I understand the concept of qualia that we discussed in class the night before.

Three Distinct Dreams, by Bridget

Since I don't normally remember dreams, I used both the sachet and the anointing oil, and I had three distinct dreams.

In the first, I was outside on campus. A dog came running over, and then suddenly a bunch of dogs came. Then I realized that I was dreaming. I've never had that happen before.

The second dream was tied into the fact that we'd all commented earlier that night on how beautiful the night sky was. The dream was that the universe was a huge blackboard and I had white chalk and felt pressured to hurry and begin creating the universe once again, beginning with the stars, I remember feeling overwhelmed by the task.

In the third, A gold and white fish came swimming over to me and made eye contact and then flipped over to expose his wiry, black pubic hair. He wanted me to focus on it.

Mugwort Mascots

Mascots for two of the cohorts (class groups) at Pacifica--Digger the wombat and Mugwort the monkey--with mugwort scent sachets tied around their necks.

Truck Driving, remote dream report by Michael

I was a terrible driver, and in all sorts of vehicular predicaments, in a big rig, dune buggy, motorcycle, pickup truck. I kept obliterating other people's property and I was getting very frustrated because try as I might to concentrate, I couldn't because my girlfriend was wiggling and naked most of the time in the passenger seat, so I would wind up plowing into someone's house, or knocking over a tree, and the formalities afterwards seemed to drag on forever, so I was perpetually late.

Then my girlfriend reminded me that it was a dream. I still couldn't focus on driving and kept bashing into things, but I treated it like bumper cars, and as soon as the vehicle I was driving was wrecked, I'd grab her and toss her into the next available car, and off we went, careening away.

overpowering oil, remote dream report by Sylvia

I bought essential oil of mugwort and dried mugwort, either organic or wildcrafted, as is the standard for the local witch store where I get my herbs. I had decided to not take any tea internally tonight ( recently had oral surgery and am on an antibiotic as well as antibiotic mouthwash and wasn't supposed to have anything in my mouth at bedtime, even water).

In preparing the anointing oil, I got mugwort on the kitchen counter, and mopped it up with a paper towel and my hair. You were not kidding this stuff is strong.

I also made a small sachet but more for ceremonial purposes than practical purposes; I put in it mugwort, rose petals (for heart) and rosemary (for memory), with no oil. The oil in my hair was so strong I didn't want to augment it. The smell "me montait à la tête": giving me a slightly spinny "woo" feeling.

I dotted on some anointing oil, turned out the light, and I listened to the binoaural beat CD Dreamcatcher (Metamusic®) by Don Peyote and Naasko through earphones until I drifted off, rousing only to take off the earphones when the CD ended. I felt the CD made me relaxed and receptive to magic in dreamspace.

Conclusion: take mugwort internally for next attempt.

making sachets and anointing oil, image by Mikita

Students make scent sachets and anointing oil

full night full of dreams, by Jennifer

For my Oneironauticum experience, I slept with a sachet, working with the scent of mugwort. Over the course of the night, I woke several times throughout the night, either because the smell was too strong—in which case I moved it away from my face—or because it had grown too weak—so I pulled it closer again. Interestingly, I found that bringing the scent closer to my face caused me to remember dreams I’d had earlier in the evening, in much the same way that moving into the same sleeping position I’d held (on the right side, on the left side, on my back) sometimes helps me remember a dream from an earlier period of sleep.

When I woke, I felt like I’d been immersed in a carnival of dreams all night long. In addition to my normal recall of three longer narrative dreams, I remembered a couple great short snippets. In the interests of brevity, I’ll only pull out a few central images from the night.

My first dream, early in the night, featured swooping architecture and me dressed as a jellyfish. My second long dream involved me driving with my family through my dream version of Toronto. I go there often enough in my dreams that I have a mental map of the place. We were driving in a VW van but it was my father’s, not mine. We were on a track like a rollercoaster, swooping steeply down incredibly fast. I could see the tracks through the bottom of the floor, and I remember thinking it was vertiginous, and wondering if other people felt this much intensity when they drove with me in my van. In the third long dream, several people and I became alarmed that our friend had gone missing. We set out to search for her, and at one point were all running down a dusty, rock-strewn path. I was barefoot and therefore couldn’t run as fast as I wanted. I find myself inappropriately barefoot often in my dreams.

In the first of the two snippets of dream, I looked up at a star-filled night sky, the sort you only see in the countryside. White flame began to lick up among the stars. Then I stood on a hillside over San Francisco at night watching the fog roll in very quickly. It was all incredibly beautiful.

The final snippet, from which I woke a mere ten minutes before the alarm would have woken me, occurred as I surfaced close to consciousness, half wanting to go back to sleep, half thinking I should wake up and write down my dreams. Three psychiatrists stood at a bar with their backs to me, discussing me as if they didn’t know I was in the room.

“What do you think, should she wake up and write down her dream or not?”, one asked.

“I think she should probably keep sleeping. She needs to be fresh for her class.”

“I think she should wake up. She might forget her dreams if she doesn’t write them down.”

They went on in this vein for a while. Then one of them spun around as if he’d just noticed me and somewhat embarrassedly stuck out his hand as if to shake mine, saying “Oh, hello there! I’m Dr…” at which point I woke

Minutes of the August 09 Oneironauticum

On Thursday, August 20, the students in my dream work class at Pacifica Graduate Institute (Brook, Casey, Christina, Corinne, Estelle, Eugene, and Suzanne) as well as five faculty members (including Mikita, Erik, and me), and about a dozen other students from other classes gathered to prepare for Oneironauticum. The oneirogen of the month was mugwort, taken one of three ways. Some of us stuffed sachets with dried mugwort, sprinkled with mugwort essential oil, to work primarily with the scent. Others made an anointing oil to absorb the mugwort through the skin. Still others made a tea from the dried leaves and stems. Some people tried a couple different methods simultaneously.

The next day, several of the Pacifica students, who were just finishing a nine day intensive of 12 hours of class time a day (with breaks), said they’d had the first really good night of sleep in a long time. Many other participants—both those from Pacifica and remote participants—reported remembering more snippets of dreams than full dream narratives. Interestingly, some of the people who had this experience normally remember greater numbers of long, narrative dreams, and others normally don’t remember dreams. Personally, I usually remember 2 – 3 long narrative dreams a night. With the mugwort, I remembered 3 such dreams, but also a few separate short snippets of dream.

The next Oneironauticum is Thursday, August 20th

The next Oneironauticum is Thursday, August 20th. This special session will take place in Santa Barbara, on the campus of Pacifica Graduate Institute, during the two-day session that marks the beginning of a class I'll be teaching on dreams. Students and faculty will participate in person and, as always, we welcome remote participants.

For this session, we’ll be working with mugwort as our oneirogen. Mugwort contains thujone, the active ingredient in absinthe, and is known to promote powerful, visionary dreams and often also lucid dreaming. Oneironauticum participants have worked with mugwort blends several times. For this session, we’ll concentrate specifically on mugwort as an oneirogen (anything that promotes vivid dreams).

Mugwort can be used in many forms. We’ll be working with three different methods of enjoying this herb, either in dried form, as essential oil, or both combined. For this session, participants will choose one of the methods, or may try a couple or even all together. Both dried mugwort and mugwort essential oil can be purchased at most well stocked health food stores.

Dried mugwort tea: A bitter tea can be made from dried stems and leaves. For each serving, pour a cup of boiling water onto l-2 teaspoonfuls of the dried herb and leave to infuse for l0-l5 minutes in a covered container. The covered part is important; you don’t want to lose the oils. Some herbalists claim mugwort is a healthy daily tonic, while others feel that mugwort contains some toxicity and should not be consumed frequently.

Mugwort anointing oil: In ancient medical practices, oils infused with herbal remedies were smeared on the skin, allowing the recipient to absorb healing properties. This is an excellent method for taking in the oneironic properties of mugwort. To make your own oil, create a blend that’s 10 to 15 percent essential oil and 85 to 90 percent high quality olive oil. As a guideline, 20 drops of essential oil in a third of an ounce of olive oil will achieve a proportion of 10% essential oil. Just before bed, rub a small amount of the oil into your temples and on your chest or throat.

Dream pillows: Recent studies have discovered what avid dreamers and herbalists have known for a very long time: scent affects dreams. To make a dream pillow, start with a sachet, or sew together two pieces of cloth to create a small pillowcase, or even use the end of a sock. Take a small plastic water bottle and cut off the top quarter. Put the dried herbs into the bottom part of the bottle (make sure it’s dry!), then add in several drops of the essential oil. The scent is strong, so try adding a few drops at a time then stopping to see how it smells. Once you have a blend you like, use the top of the bottle as a funnel to move the mixture into the pillow. Place near your head at night.

As always, dreamers are invited to participate remotely, joining our world-wide network of dreamers who go to sleep with the common intention of percolating vivid dreams all using the same oneirogen. Simply use one of these methods to work with the mugwort. You may also, as always, participate by simply going to sleep with the intention to join us in our group dreaming experience. Anyone who participates, either in person or remotely, is welcome to post their dream experiences to this site. Contact us if you're interested.

optical illusion, remote dream by sylvia

I’m with some friends, and observing a landscape that has an approximately 20” embankment to a higher plateau. Apparently I’ve only been existing on the “lower” one, and my friends tease me about not having been on the “higher” one. The plateau is a beautiful Arizona-type desert. I walk on this plateau and the immediate landscape changes to a tennis court with impressively giant (as in narrow, long, not wide or deep) cracks in the court. The cracks match the angles of the tree branches above, so that the patterns merge together when I look ahead (earth and sky appear to merge together in a sense). I point out the illusion to a companion I’ve caught up with on the walk. We are set to walk back now, and I suggest to some other people on this walk (a mother, father and daughter perhaps?) to walk backwards in order to observe this phenomenon of the big jagged trees matching the cracks in the court.

Same night different scenario: A bunch of us are in a type of cul de sac and on vacation. It’s time to cut it short, and those with rental cars abandon them there, but first they pose under signs that materialize over the cars, signs that display the balance they owe on the rental cars. Some kind of other shift in the scenario: I walk up to a friend, past a little girl (about 7 years old) whom I’ve found annoying but I say hi to, since it’s so unusual to see her here.

Charles Manson the barber, remote dream by Bill

I dreamt that Charles Manson had been released from jail and that during his 40 years in captivity he had gotten his barber certification.

I worked for a large corporation (much like I really do) and the corporation was really into a new feel-good program for prisoner rehabilitation, and we had hired Charles Manson as an on-site barber.

Everyone was all freaked out about having the guy so close to their head with scissors, so I made a big speech in front of the whole company about how safe it would be, and I offered myself up as the first haircut.

The cutting was to take place in a large auditorium, with a guard on the stage and with an audience watching.

working at a federal facility, remote dream by Sandy

I am working in an office in an older building at a federal facility. Several guys also work in offices along the same hallway. I am reviewing a report about groundwater contamination. I am ready to send my comments to the author and mention it to my coworker. He states that he has already sent the response for our office. I say something like "When were you going to tell me?" I am irritated because I feel that I have wasted my time, so I ask him about about the status of reviewing another document. He says something like "Don't worry about it - the cleanup is going to happen." I respond with irritation saying, "Don't tell me what to worry about. I have been doing this job for 20 years."

Then simultaneously almost over this dream sequence, I am looking at a brightly colored (red, blue and gold) pin. It is circular - about the size of a nickel - and within the circle is a chevron composed of 3 lines. Somehow I know that it belongs to a former coworker who has been promoted within the military to a special commission that conducts senior reviews. I am somewhat surprised by this because he wasn't in the military when we worked together. However, he has been in the past, so it seems plausible, although unlikely. Then I am opening 2 packages that contain wooden tinker-toy like objects. The long wooden pieces are dark brown and the smaller circular and triangular parts are bright blue, red, and green. Each object is about 1 foot in length, and the 3 long wooden pieces in each one form a long 3-dimensional triangle. I suppose they were shaped somewhat like rockets.

The dream ended abruptly when I was awakened.

feathered dogs, by Jennifer

I follow a woman into the front door of my building. I’m concerned because I think she’s barging into my apartment, but then it turns out to be someone else’s apartment. There’s a dinner party going on. My friends and I (some of the people at the Oneironauticum and some other people) sit at the table and start eating the food. There’s fried potatoes and greens. We’re not exactly welcome, since we’re consuming their meal, but then the hosts forget about us and it’s OK.

I’m in the bedroom of one of the hosts. He’s in the adjoining bathroom talking to me through the door. His two small, feathered dogs frolic on the bed, getting up on hind legs to do little tricks. They’re incredibly soft.

Minutes from the July 09 Oneironauticum

On Monday, July 27, Dreamers Polly, Elizabeth, Kat, Emily, Amanda, Coco, and yours truly, Jennifer, gathered at Elizabeth’s beautiful house perched high on a hill with sweeping views of Marin.

We spent some time talking about the phases of sleep and the kinds of dreaming that happens in different dream states. People sleep in cycles of approximately 90 minutes (it varies individually), usually five or six cycles a night. The phase of slipping into sleep, when alpha waves (the steady mental idling of the mind that signals awake awareness) slow down to theta waves is called hynagogia. That’s when you get those weird hallucinogenic visions and when your body involuntarily kicks or starts (those are called myoclonic jerks). Then stage two sleep sets in. This is the baseline of sleep, accounting for 45 – 55% of a normal night’s sleep. Body functions slow down and muscular activity (measured by EMG) decreases greatly. Stages three and four usually get grouped together and called slow wave sleep. In those stages, brain waves slow down even more, all the way down to delta waves. Parasomnias like sleep walking, bed wetting, or night terrors happen most often in this stage. Then there’s stage five, or REM sleep. Researchers used to think that dreaming only happened in REM, but now they realize that’s not exactly true. However, people in sleep labs remember REM dreams considerably more often and reliably than they do any other dreams. Finally, there’s the state of passing from dream into a state of wakefulness. That’s called hypnopompia. Actually, it doesn’t usually get called a sleep state, but I have the best dreams there, so I tend to add it in. The time we spend in each stage changes throughout the night. The longer you sleep, the more time you spend in REM. That makes for a simple equation: sleep more and you’ll remember more dreams.

After talking about sleep stages, we prepared our kava kava. First I soaked the powdered kava in cold water for half an hour. I made a strong brew, two parts water to one part kava. A weaker brew might have a tablespoon of kava to a cup of water. Vary amount depending on desired strength. Then I put water and kava both into a blender and blended on high for a couple minutes. Finally, I strained the mix to get the powder out. It took several strainings and still our brew tasted powdery. I like the taste of kava and the slight numbing on the tongue, but people sometimes add other liquid to the blending stage (try coconut water) to improve the flavor.

The majority of us piled into several beds pushed together. Both Polly and I had difficulty falling asleep, perhaps due to the potency of the brew. However, in the morning we were also the two who best remembered any dreams. Reports from remote participants have varied quite broadly about the efficacy of the kava.