If we have a healthy sleep schedule, we spend around a third of our lives asleep. And if we’re lucky, we have some great dreams. It’s no wonder we’re fascinated with sleep and the inner worlds our minds reveal to us there. We can explore our fears, desires, and some generally weird shit in our dreams. And if we don’t get enough sleep, enough dream time, we can get cranky and irritable. Our minds and bodies need that time of rest to reset and regroup.

So sleep and dream magick is something I’ve always been particularly interested in. There are a few things you can do to make sure you’re setting yourself up for the best sleep and dreamtime as possible. Let’s look at sleep first.

Sleep

• I know this seems obvious, but try to get at least 7 hours of sleep/night. I know it can also be tough to do, but giving yourself that rest period is good self care, and will trickle benefits into your waking life as well. Personally, my fibro makes me sleep at least 9 hours/night, but it helps my body heal and get ready for the next day. Find your perfect amount of sleep and make it happen.
• Make your bedroom as restful as possible. I strongly believe in no TVs in the bedroom. Watching TV is a wakeful activity, and it can help keep you up longer than you intend. The same goes for scrolling through your phone. I won’t say that I’m not guilty of ‘screen time’ before bed, because I love eBooks, but I try to limit it to just that. Also, invest in a really great mattress, good sheets, and pillows that make you happy to lay your head on them. Seriously, we spend roughly a quarter to a third of our lives sleeping, it should be a pleasant experience.
• Create a before-bed ritual. This is a great time for skincare or other beauty magick, mellow music/nature sounds/white noise, incense and prayer, a bath or shower, or whatever it takes to let your brain know that now we’re settling down for bed. Again, I read. Do whatever makes your body and brain relax.
• Drink lavender, chamomile, valerian, passion fruit, or lemon balm tea. Better, make a mix of some of these herbs. And surround yourself with stones. Obviously. Bloodstone and chrysoprase ensure peaceful sleep. Howlite stills the mind. Lepidolite soothes sleep disturbances, and green tourmaline aids sleep. Variscite brings peaceful sleep as well.
• Create a sleep altar. Dedicate it to Morpheus or Hypnos. Or just dedicate it to the kinds of dreams that you would like to have.
• Spray your linens with lavender for peaceful sleep!

Dreams

• It’s widely known in the dreamwork community that the best way to work with your dreams is to write them down as soon as you wake up. So keep a journal or a voice recorder app next to your bed so that as soon as you wake up, you can record your dreams before they start to fade away. You never know what important details you might miss if you rely on your unreliable memory!
• Start developing a list of recurring symbols that you encounter. While a lot of people may agree on the meaning of a dream symbol, only you can know for sure what it means to you. Sometimes a snake is dangerous, sometimes it’s sexy. What’s important is that YOU know what it means in YOUR dream.
• Mix some mugwort or blue lotus flower into that sleep tea you made. They enhance your dreams and also your psychic powers. So you never know what kind of fantastic dreams you’ll have!
• Keep a chunk of amethyst next to the bed- it facilitates intuitive dreaming. Charoite gives powerful dreams, and alexandrite stimulates dreams and the imagination. Bloodstone stimulates dreaming, and celestite helps with dream recall. Chalcedony gets rid of bad dreams. Danburite helps you with lucid dreaming. Herkimer diamond and howlite also help with dream recall. Jade brings insightful dreams, and jasper helps with shamanic journeying and dreams. Kyanite helps with healing dreams. Lapis lazuli enhances dream work. Malachite stimulates memory dreams. Moonstone encourages lucid dreaming. Rhodochrosite enhances dream states and creativity. Ulexite helps you understand the meaning of dreams.
• Again, create a dream altar on your nightstand or somewhere near the bed. Keep your dreaming stones and your dream journal next to you.
• You may or may not want to talk to close friends about your dreams. They may have some insights that you would miss. Just make sure that the people you share with are non-judgmental and can give you genuine help and advice. And then offer the same to them.

So I’m curious. Have you spent any time working with sleep or dream magick? Have you had good results? Please let me know in the comments, and blessed be! <3

**Stone information from Judy Hall’s The Crystal Bible.