These are the questions I get most often about Dream Witchery.

These are the questions I get most often about Dream Witchery.

For More Context, You Can Also Read The Dream Interpreter: A Bridge Between Worlds in the Amazon.

Almost a year ago, my most recent book 'Dream Witchery: Folk Magic, Recipes & Spells from South America for Witches & Brujas' was published, and it has been a real hassle promoting it; most positively, I could have written another spellbook (in fact I'm dying to write another simple spellbook, that's no secret),

I could have written a book on Santeria and Candomble, and many practicing people would have been angry just because they like to be mad at something. I would have written it in a couple of weeks, but I preferred to do something interesting, write from another perspective, my perspective, I had never done a book before that someone could say 'heavy to read,' but apparently that's what I did now. The truth is, even for me, it is who wrote it.

Over the last eight months, I have had dozens of conversations about it, both in public (via multiple podcasts and events) and in private. Here, I summarize the most common questions and their respective answers.

1. How can you create an altar for dream magic, and why not just use your regular altar for it?

A dream altar is like a dream journal—there are recipes and variations of both in Dream Witchery—it is a space that you create exceptionally dedicated to dreams. This space and practice allow you to have an open space for consecration to work directly with your mind and its visions. It is like making a doll/totem of yourself for your own healing and protection. Still, instead of giving this doll to someone else, you keep it to work daily on your healing process.

A dream altar allows you to separate this practice from all the others you have (in case you have another witchcraft or wicca practice) in this space dedicated to understanding and studying your dreams and, through them, your subconscious, past lives, visions of the future, lucid dream paths, etc... You can make amulets and spells incredibly dedicated to guarding you and your energetic body while you sleep, you can create unique sigils to protect your subconscious against the actions and spells of others, and you can draw a dream map or conduct interpretation sessions of your own dreams, or simply burn incense to sleep and write in your dream journal.

The most significant advantage of a dream altar or dedicated dream space separate from other ritual spaces is that in this space/altar, you can work with your energy without mixing with other etheric currents. If your dream space will represent your subconscious or be connected to it, keeping it protected, clean, and tidy, away from the interference of other spiritual entities on your altar or portal, sounds like a good idea.

A ritual space for dreams doesn't require a tremendous amount of work, and there are no rules to create it; it can be anything from a simply decorated chair to a small table altar on the floor, candles anointed with your ritual oil, a safe and large incense burner, a jar with your herbal incense blend for dreams or visions, crystals to enhance your clairvoyance, lighter, small mirrors anointed with lavender and artemisia oil, your dream journal and a pencil, and even a teacup to drink your favorite infusion to sleep are just some of the implements you can keep on your altar.

If you're seriously thinking about building your dream altar, in 'Dream Witchery' author Lorraine Monteagut (book Witches) contributes the recipe for her own dream altar, and Dawn Aurora Hunt (Kitchen Witchery) contributes a unique infusion of dream magic.

2. What is your best advice for interpreting dreams?

There are multiple methods when interpreting dreams, and there is no rule to follow. All the rules have been invented for one reason or another, and these serve more as 'recommendations to follow' for a better interpretation.

It is important to remember that the Indigenous culture of the Amazon is pretty broad since we are not referring to the habitat of a single tribe but of more than 70 different tribes and more than 70 different languages ​​and cultures; dreams are interpreted openly and publicly in a ritual way.

The Western vision interprets dreams as entirely individual and takes their signs and omens as a message for the dreamer in question, which are analyzed privately. For the Amazon tribes, in a more general and cultural sense, dreams are messages sent by our ancestors from beyond the grave to the entire tribe. They are interpreted by the spiritual leader of the tribe, the soothsayer, as a message of more excellent social character and enormous religious rigor.

In Western culture, an individual's dream can be interpreted as a warning of danger for that individual. Still, it can instead be construed for a tribe as a warning for the entire social and cultural complex because, in this sense, each individual is the tribe, and each tribe is the individual. Thus, each dream and each message are taken and interpreted seriously.

Anyway,

The best way to interpret a dream is to consider the cultural, religious, and social context of the individual who has come to consult. For example, in Colombia, dreaming about cockroaches is regarded as a bad omen of illness, especially if there are children at home, while in Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago, the same dream symbolizes wealth and money.

Context: Cockroaches and other insects carry diseases and all kinds of bacteria with them. However, they can enter homes because they are attracted by the smell of food in the trash, especially excess food that is thrown in the trash because no one at home wants to eat it (caprice, abundance, options, etc.).

Taking into account each individual's cultural context, social position, and religious background will be of enormous help to the interpreter. Although it is not mandatory, it offers a vast and clear depth in the context and symbolism of the interpretation.

The Art

For me in particular, interpreting a dream requires that the client comes in person to the session, it is one of the few things that we do not do online, since it is best to cleanse the client with herbs there on site and perceive the energy of the same, not online. Prepare an herbal tea and serve it cold to the client, and ask beforehand that they bring the dream written on paper to be interpreted instead of simply recounting it out loud hours after the dream has occurred since memories can change as the hours pass.

3. Is lucid dreaming the same as astral projection, right?

Beyond discussing linguistic technicalities and the literary context of each word's origin, let's move directly to its use in practice.

A lucid dream implies that you are asleep and dreaming. In the dream, you realize that you are dreaming and perceive changes in it, whether you wake up with the sensation that there was a particular aroma in the dream, a texture or physical sensation that you remember from the dream, or even a specific flavor.

For example, in a shared dream, I dreamed of being in a rose garden. When waking up from a lucid dream, there is a certain level of consciousness and physical contact with our senses, such as when I dreamed that I was in a rose garden; in fact, when I woke up, I could still perceive the aroma of the roses in my room, and my fingertips hurt because in the dream I pricked myself with the thorns of the roses. This example explains that there was a level of consciousness and meaning in the dream, even though the reins of the dream were not taken.

Astral projection and lucid dreaming are considered ​​'out-of-body Experiences.' Although these can be differentiated, they all demonstrate a certain level of consciousness on the part of the individual.

Astral projection implies a greater consciousness on the part of the individual. It means they can interact arbitrarily and voluntarily with different aspects of the dream or the astral or psychic space in which they find themselves.

In Latin America, we have the folklore of "los caminantes" (or dream walkers), which refers to individuals who, once they go to sleep, can physically materialize in other places or even induce themselves into the dreams of others, either voluntarily or involuntarily.

While walkers do this naturally, some severe folklore surrounds their abilities and how "witches" try to steal their abilities from them. For example, the Amazon tribes that have a connection with the Chilean people it is expected to say, "Be careful of the visions of the night (the walkers); if these visions are around, it means that not far from them, a witch is looking for them, if you see a walker, run away."

In this context, the witch is a negative aspect that casts spells to catch the walker and steal his ability.

In the same context, it is said that when a young man wakes up with a bite on his back, he is asked what he dreamed about, as a bite on the back implies that the witch was trying to suck the walker's spirit out of him.

4. Give me a good spell or amulet to protect me while I sleep.

Witches work their thing during the night, that is true. Most serious covens meet at night, and many lines of spiritualism advise their members to always work after dark to ensure that "the dead do not cross paths with the living in the streets when the former are summoned."

Keeping an excellent protective talisman near the bed will always be very helpful. In this context, 1. a pentagram carved into the bedpost and anointed with rosemary and verbena oil, 2. a necklace of bones consecrated at midnight and previously washed with rose essential oil or rose water hanging from the arm of the bed. 3. a glass filled with clean water, half a lemon, and a spoonful of salt placed under the bed. 4. A new pair of scissors is used only once to cut an artemisia plant and placed under the bed to cut off the entry of any negative entities. 5. Some of the many amulets commonly used for this purpose are A piece of onyx anointed with a drop of the witch's blood that consecrates it and is kept inside the pillow.

If you follow an esoteric path such as Wicca or Santeria, you can implement any kind of amulets and talismans according to your magical-esoteric tradition.

5. I am not Latino or Hispanic, but can I read and put Dream Witchery into practice? (this is the second most common question I receive).

If 'Dream Witchery' had not been written for everyone to read, I would have sold it as a password-limited PDF through my website for only those interested. So yes, Dream Witchery was written with two purposes, and after finishing each chapter, I reread it repeatedly to ensure it kept the context of these two purposes.

Purpose one was to give my Latin American witches or Latin American descendants a tool that would lead them to connect back with their Hispanic and indigenous roots, with the pre-colonial roots of their own witchcraft and with their ancestors.

Purpose two was to give everyone else a tool of power, loaded with the context, history, and culture of our Latin American peoples, to end the nonsense that "everything is the same" because context is knowledge, and knowledge is power. When you understand the original context of things, such as our rituals and amulets, you know their power and origin.

Also, if someone is going to write and sell a book on Latin American witchcraft, it is probably best for it to be a Latin American person since the cultural context is essential.

• For More Context, You Can Also Read The Dream Interpreter: A Bridge Between Worlds in the Amazon.
• Order your copy of my book Dream Witchery HERE and HERE.