Perhaps we should discuss some specific oneiroi?
There is Grandfather Chronos, manifests as a lean haggard old male, and he’s a bit of a cannibal. When he shows up you always have a sense he has taken something, that your sense of personal identity is a bit more fuzzy around the edges. This sound familiar to anyone? He often shows up as a suit of old clothes laid out in a strange room, or a mirror that feels like it should be a door.
Like when people mellow with age? Yes. Ever have a dream where it felt like an object was watching you? Or speaking to you? Perhaps the room itself? Perhaps Grandfather Chronos is not so familiar. He would be a nightmare spirit, so this is a good thing perhaps.
Then there is the White Serpent. This being usually doesn’t show up as an intelligible character, just a strange perception of slithery light, but when it does manifest as a character it shows up as a voice from nowhere in particular, or a road that you just feel you should stand on like you don’t need to bother going anywhere.
A voice calling you awake? Yes. The White Serpent tends to be concerned with psychic integrity.
And the purpose of that? Works to clear any noise it encounters. Clearing noise from the dream allows for higher quality communication for everyone. The serpent is sort of like the dream version of an idealized phone company.
There of course is always Grandmother Nox. She’s a bit of a busy body, shows up as a strange blanket of shadow over everything you perceive, even when the dream context suggests that it’s daytime and you are busy.
That does sound familiar. The haze you can’t quite see through. Yes. She is a bit over protective, but it’s perhaps understandable. Who am I to say?
Does she sometimes come in from the sides (my most frequent nightmare as a child)? Suffocation, actually. Had that nightmare for nine years.
The space that closes in? I’ve had that dream since childhood.
Ah, that is the Boggle, and he does show up when awake and under stress. They can cross over for brief periods of time. The Boggle has taken many forms, had many names, but always the same spirit. Shows up in dreams as a smothering dark blanket presence, or a perception of vast deep black water, and the creature you can’t clearly see moving under it. Our ancestors used to have times of year where their dream life crossed into their waking life more than ours does today. Early spring and late fall mostly, so many of the “fey” are actually oneiroi.
What does the Boggle convey? The Boggle shows up when someone has lost their sense of connection with their body. He’s a parasite/thief.
What if someone else had taken away your connection with the body’s mobility? (Incarceration, perhaps.) Would still call the Boggle.
I had a dream about being on a ship and a dragon was under it, tossing the ship. Ah, Absu to the Semitic people, also known as Leviathan. He is the embodiment of mass hysteria.
The ship was in water but the ship had wings and the next day I found this lithograph. Absu is not malicious, just radical, an elemental being. I suspect in your dream you had a sense of streaming words? Like listening to the TV and the radio at the same time?
A lot was going on but I don’t remember specifically. I woke up and made a sketch of it. Did you wake with a strangely empty focus that lasted for most of the day?
I remember feeling weird like something strange had happened, something distasteful. Absu eats hearts, but in the dream that has no absolute meaning. It establishes a temporary condition.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~Oneiroi