Tag: Oneiroi

The Spirit of the Place

June, 8th 2024

On a recent flight to the Netherlands to attend the IASD annual dream conference, I caught a couple hours of sleep before landing in Amsterdam. I found myself in a lucid dream and flew out the airplane window, and over the clouds to see the shore emerge below. There at the Atlantic shore near Amsterdam, was a blue vortex of energy, and within it I saw Lucid Dream Teacher Ryan Hurd. He was tossing energy up into the sky as a kind of beacon, to make sure dreamers could locate him, and know where to go in the dreamsphere. I decided this looks like fun, and I joined him in the light blue energy vortex, I said, I wanna play! 

I tossed the energy up as blue ribbons of energy arched in the sky. They reminded me of aurora borealis. I was surprised to see Ryan in my dreams, as he had never appeared previously, and I have not studied with him, nor do I know him very well.

When I actually arrived at my destination for the International Association for the Study of Dreams conference at Rolduc Abbey in Kerkrade, Netherlands, my first encounter was with a Jackdaw perched in an arched window. I enjoyed our interaction as we spoke to one another and he was rather chatty with me. I acknowledged this interaction as engaging with the spirit of the place. I took a photo as a fond memory, and to my surprise, I found the appearance of the light blue energy streaming like a ribbon across the photo. A synchronicity that resonates with my lucid dream of the energy vortex.

I then found my way to my room and looked out the window to see the chapel steeple in full view with a clattering of jackdaws flying the winds. I woke to their Raven like cooing voices each morning.

During the conference a favorite presentation was on Astrology and Dreams by A.K. Katok. He shared about the three fates of the Greek Moirai, and the Goddess Ananke or Necessity. He talked about how our Lots in life are shown on our astrology chart in how we were born into this life. He began to focus not only on the Lot of the Damion, but also the lesser known Lot of Dreams. The presentation pulled my string of curiosity for sure. I spent the evening doing further research into the Lot of Dreams, the Lot of Destiny, and the lot of the Daimon. I decided to incubate a dream to be shown the Lot of Dreams. I had the following dream. 

The Lot of Dreams

I see a staircase with black and white tile, and hand rail with arabesque designs swirling upwards. The staircase resembles those found at the Abbey. I see an otherworldly figure on the staircase, walking up the stairs. 

She is dark with a green patina, a statue come to life. She is small in stature, half the size of a stair step. She is very pregnant, and with a hand held under her belly, she supports her baby in her womb. The other hand is on the staircase railing as she climbs each step with great effort and determination. She knows she will get there, she has no other choice, she has a baby coming soon. She stops to rest and looks over at me. She sees me, and I see her. I am seen by her round white eyes, that look so familiar.

I woke from the dream and attempted to paint the image I saw for my Lot of Dreams. Her round white eyes, and her pregnant belly, the black and white tile, her small stature and the green patina as remnants of the past, stood out for me. I was curious about her eyes and how they looked at me. 

I finally understood where those eyes had seen me before. I recalled the Jackdaw encounter I had when greeting the spirit of the place. The eyes are the same, and in reflecting on my painting, I notice her skirt resembles a bird wing or tail. Her green black hue resembles the hidden colors of the jackdaw, and even the shape of her head is similar, and her small height is more birdlike too. This magical otherworldly creature that is the Lot of Dreams, carries the stories of old as a statue would, and is both human and bird like. According to Homer, the Oneiroi were described as a flock of dark winged spirits of dreams. The Oneiroi passed through two gates, one made of Horn as the place of prophetic or true dreams, the second made of Ivory as the gateway of illusion or false dreams.

The mystery continues to unfold, as I had scheduled time with A.K. to go over my chart and discuss the Lot of Dreams and the Lot of the Daimon. 

During the course of our meeting, I discovered an error in my chart, and while we went over the chart that was incorrect, I began to feel ill, like I was sinking, or drowning and there was no way out. It was then I noticed the mistake and once my chart was corrected, I felt the return of my strength and stability immediately. I wondered what was going on with this story I had been studying that was not my birth chart.

 I recalled another story, where my mother had a twin in her womb with me who did not survive. In waking life, this was possible since my mother was given what was called twilight sleep to relieve the pain of childbirth. The medicine she was given means she was unconscious when she gave birth.

The twilight sleep I know however, is a lucid dreaming state. It so happens, the story of the twin had come to me by a lucid dreamer, known as PasQual, who I had never met previously, She is located in the Netherlands, and I in Texas, and were connected through a mutual friend who had emailed the dream.

We ended up collaborating on a presentation called “Stranger Dreaming” at an online IASD Psiberdreaming Conference in 2019. Around the same time the dream was initially shared, within days, echoes of this story had emerged in my waking life, where on two separate occasions, twin stories emerged. One of a twin carried in the womb of her mother who did not know she was having twins. The other was of a twin, who after the death of her mother, she found out the horror of her mother being held in a WWII concentration camp, and was made to incinerate infants.

Now that I am here in the Netherlands and exploring the Lot of Dreams, the story of the womb twin has resurfaced again, and may be showing up as two birth charts.

The story of the Goddess Nyx has also come through in connection with the figure dreamed for the Lot of Oneiroi. Nyx is the Goddess of Night, is a primordial Greek Goddess who created the Earth, the Sky and Sea from her cosmic egg. She is one of the first deities to exist. She is described as a black robed Goddess who lives at the ends of the Earth and drives through the sky in her chariot pulled by horses.

She is the mother of Moros (doom), Ker (destruction) Thanatos (death) Hypnos (sleep) Oneiroi (dreams), Momus (blame), Oizys (pain, distress), Hesperides (nymphs of evening), the Moirai (fates), Nemesis (retribution), Apate (deceit), Philotes (Love), Geras (old age), and Eris (Strife). She is mentioned as the mother of Hecate who delivers prophecies from the adyton, which can be an innermost temple, or cave.

Nyx as the mother of both fate, and dreams, seems a fitting image of how we may see the Lot of Dreams, through the Mother. In my case, the story of my own mother emerged, a story hidden from view that contains many other elements such as Thanatos, Oizys, Moirai, Apate, Hypnos, Eris, and Pilotes. 

Written by Valley Reed, all rights reserved © 2024