By: Karri Ann Allrich
Inform your magick and creativity with true consciousness by
incorporating the wisdom of your dreams into your waking life.
A Witch’s Book of Dreams will guide you through the
fascinating process of understanding your dream symbols and
interpreting their meaning intuitively. You’ll discover the function
of myth and archetypes, the necessity of facing your shadow, and the
way to find your inner soul twin. You’ll also learn how to:
• Create a dream journal and personal dream dictionary
• Use dream symbols to heal
• Cast a dream spell
• Understand the message of nightmares
• Use magickal correspondences in dream interpretation
With an extensive Witch’s Dream Dictionary to help you get
started, you can begin immediately to weave the energy and power of
your dreams into the fabric of your days.
In the following excerpt, author Karri Allrich considers the
significance of animal dreams, and interprets a dream that illustrates
how powerful symbols may hold different meanings for different people.
animal visions
As dream symbols, animals provide a rich tapestry of traits and
behavior patterns, even personality types. When an animal reveals
itself in one of your dreams, you have received a gift.
On the symbolic level, first look at the mythological significance
of the particular animal. Look up the individual animal in the
Witch’s Dream Dictionary. There I have provided many general mythic
and spiritual meanings most agreed upon in North
Euro-American/Celtic/Native American traditions. There will usually be
a story and inherent lesson represented by the animal. If you enjoy a
vastly different heritage, be sure that you bring your own tribal
wisdom and stories into account when defining the animal’s
significance for you.
The following dream about snakes illustrates the importance of
attaching our own response to an animal symbol. I worship the Goddess
and, to Her, snakes are wisdom.
My husband Steve and I are outside. We are on a mission, hunting
snakes. He and I each carry cloth sacks. We diligently look among
foliage, under bushes, rocks, and in the garden. As we find a snake, I
hold my sack in my left hand, and capture the snake with my right
hand, grabbing it by its tail. Steve quickly throws a cloth over the
snake, which tames it into submission. I go around and capture more
than a dozen snakes, all a silver gray color.
My sack is quite full. I head home. In the kitchen, I heat up a
large fry pan. I pour in a generous amount of olive oil, and several
cloves of fresh garlic. I then slice up the snakes on my wooden
cutting board, and toss them into the garlicky oil, frying them up.
I had this dream a couple of years ago, and was absolutely
fascinated with it upon waking. It felt very productive. In studying
symbology and the Goddess for so many years, my immediate association
with snakes is wisdom and rebirth. I have always felt it is
unfortunate that the Christian church downgraded the serpent to such
lowly symbology, demoting ancient wisdom into evil and deception.
In the dream, I am accompanied by my Animus figure—in this
instance, it was my husband. I feel that he is indeed a symbol for my
own inner male, helping me “out in the world” searching for
snakes. This is very close to what I actually do, searching symbology,
mythology, art, and psychology, finding any wisdom of the Goddess I
can get my hands on.
I believe the color of the snakes, silver gray, also alludes to the
feminine, as silver is associated with the moon. So this dream appears
to be a search and capture quest for ancient knowledge and Goddess
wisdom.
At home I bring the snakes in the kitchen, the seat of alchemy, and
get the frying pan hot. Heat is energy that transforms. By cooking the
snakes I am transforming the wisdom into a form I can absorb and
“digest.” I am taking in this repository of information,
“cooking it up.”
I season the snakes with a little olive oil and garlic. (For
Witches, garlic is protection and healing.) I do like to spice things
up in all aspects of my life.
To put it simply, in the dream the snakes represent knowledge and
how I assimilate it, expressing it all in my own words, after I’ve
had a chance to digest it.
