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CATEGORIES → Dreaming Herbs

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This is especially true for the dreaming herbs that come from Africa, since distinctions are muted between the spiritual and material, the sacred and secular. Dreams and traditional religion are inextricably linked for them, and the appearance of an ancestor in one’s dream is considered a significant experience on both sides of the ocean, informing and enriching the lives of individuals and communities. The ancestor’s message and its purpose can vary greatly – from providing healing and prophesy to demanding changed behavior and many other curious and interesting things. 
 
Not all ancestors are welcome dream visitors, nor are all deceased relatives always considered ancestors. This web of connection that is the dreaming world links the living and the dead, allowing the continuity of existence to be felt while ensuring the perpetuation of guidance from the ancestors.  So, it's only natural that Africa would be an incredibly rich source for herbs that help to induce vivid dreaming, as well ones that help enhance dream recall as well.
 
Native Americans are also another example of a people who were so connected to the Earth and the spirits that are in every single object; animate or inanimate, that they as well, have thousands of years of cultural research into various herbs that help to induce vivid dreaming, lucid dreaming, or dream recall.  Medicine Men seek names of newborns through fasting, meditation, prayer and dreaming where the spirits will give him a name. At a subsequent "Naming Ceremony", the medicine person burns tobacco as an offering and pronounces the new name to each of the 4 Directions and everyone present repeats the name when it is called out.

 

The Chontal Indians in Oaxaca, Mexico have become known the world over for Maria Sabina and her Mushroom Cults, as well as Salvia divinorum, called the Diviner's Herb, as well as Calea zacatechichi; a dream inducer.  Almost every community in coastal Oaxaca has its encanto, a physical space that leads to an unknown, metaphysical world, and this metaphysical world is key to understanding their culture.  Naturally, this was another place to look for herbs that would help with dreaming and dream recall.

 

There are several other plants used in Indian communities of Mexico to obtain divinatory messages from dreams. Several puffball mushrooms (Lycoperdon spp.) wrongly reported as hallucinogens are eaten fresh by Mixtec Indians before going to bed in order to dream. Nahuatl Indians use an as yet unidentified species of Salvia, known by the name of Xiouit, for the same purpose. The Tarahumara Indians use a plant called "Bacana", which has been reported to be used as a divinatory agent, was later confirmed as an herb to help induce dreaming.  We are searching for sources of these plants and others, since this is also a personal quest to find the most effective aids to help induce this incredibly vivid and curious state that often feels no different than waking reality.

 

There are many cultures around the world who rely on their dreams to tell them more about human nature, both as a means fo self-exploration, and to understand the world around them more clearly.  So, we offer as wide a range of dreaming herbs as possible, to give our incredibly varied audience the best chance at finding the dream herb ally that will work best for you, whether it's a tea, a smoke, or a ritual item that helps you align yourself with energy that will most enhance your dreaming. I wish you all the best in your journeys, and encourage you to post your experiences on the Experience Reports section at IAmShaman.

 

If you want to find further information, look to the Study on Calea zacatechichi, look to Entheology.org, or look into getting the Nova Dreamer from the Lucidity Institute.  We get no commission from the sales of these devices; we simply have personal experience with them actually working, triggering one to "wake up" while still in the dream world.