Why the Dreaming State is Necessary for Manifesting Our Will
A commentary on the Sandman, and it’s relevance to witchcraft
“You shouldn’t trust the story-teller; only trust the story.” — Sandman, Neil Gaiman
One of the first things I learned to do when I embarked on my magical journey was to travel to the astral through my mind. I had just really learned to meditate, and as I went deeper into my mind, I found myself in a world of my creation.
My own sacred space was my peace: imagine, if you will, a lush and fruitful space. Golden hues permeate the entirety of it. At the center is a willow tree with leaves made up of golden bright light. Waters surrounded it, neither shallow nor deep. That connects to a waterfall of light that softly patters with harmonious vibrations. Flowers, trees and soft grass litter the area, and further in the distance are woods that leave to other distant places.
“Sacred space is not just an external place. It is an internal place as well.”
― Mat Auryn, Psychic Witch: A Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick & Manifestation
I began retreating to this place more often as time went by. Sometimes the space would change and reflect how I was feeling or going through at distinct moments of my life. Which gave me a sort of litmus test per se of how I was truly feeling within.
This was a place in my mind that connected my unconscious with the astral. Which became integral as I expanded my skill-set in my magical practice.
Over the years, I learned to venture from this space into the woods that often led to the astral realm itself, or venture into a cave with deep waters. Where, if I dove into, led deep into the caverns and mazes of my unconscious. A place of hurt, horrors, and hidden attributes I familiarized myself with, as in the process called shadow work.
Harnessing this gift can prove to be a boon, you can contact spirits more readily and develop the skill of entering trance on demand when the need arises. Entering trance allows us to enter a magical state of mind, where our unconscious mind aligns with the collective unconscious. Thus allowing us to hold a dialogue with the universe and manifest our will into our lives. That is the act of performing magick.
I bring up the Sandman, for it is both a great graphic novel series, and now a live adaptation of the aforementioned comics. It follows Morpheus the Lord of Dreams and Nightmares, the embodiment of the concept of dreams themselves. He goes on adventures to reclaim his power and deal with disturbances of the dreaming, which affects the living in the realm of existence.
I’m not here to talk about the story itself, but the concepts explored within it. Primarily the necessity of dreaming and the imagination within spiritual work.
For me, the realm of the dreaming and the entity known as Morpheus is a personification of the collective unconscious. The web and space of humanity’s shared consciousness, where the mysteries and the esoteric lie, and where some entities are born.
Shamans and spiritual workers in humanity’s primal stages knew these lessons. Many of them spoke of the waking world as a dream, saying we do not wake up to our reality until we either fall asleep or move on to the afterlife. I’m partial to this belief, and believe that reality is indeed a dream of the Source of Creation that we liken to God, or The Great Spirit.
For we are both the dreamer and the dreamed, the created and co-creator of our shared realities.
Shamanism itself places a lot of emphasis on dream-walking: the act of traveling through dreams, either asleep or through trance, to act upon another person’s dream or mind.
Shamans hold the belief that, through dreaming or trance work, the practitioner may walk through the doorway of dreams to meet spiritual teachers or other guides. As well as release negative energy within a person, deemed nightmares, to heal them of their affliction. In terms of manifestation they use the creative potential of the universal unconscious mind to manifest their will within the waking world.
By working within this paradigm when we approach magick, we come to realize that what we think, believe, and do affects our own realities. While it isn’t as simple as that, it gives credence to using our will within magick to alter our reality. For we are both the dreamer and the dreamed, the created and co-creator of our shared realities.
References
- Gaiman, Neil, Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, and Malcolm Jones. The Sandman: [volume 1]. New York: Vertigo, 2010. Print.
- Auryn, Mat. Psychic Witch: A Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick & Manifestation. Llewellyn, 2020.
- https://corrosion-doctors.org/Dreaming%20is%20Personal/Shamanic.htm
