P

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Letter P of The Occultist’s Dream Dictionary. This is a dream dictionary for people who live with spirits: the demons, gods and dead who visit in sleep, the dreams that can mean something is wrong, the big dreams of love, money and life read with a witch’s eye, and the magical symbols that turn up when you are doing the work. A dream is a conversation with the unseen, not a verdict, so take these as starting points and weigh each one against what is happening in your life right now.

Spirits that come in dreams: P

Paimon

Paimon is one of the most popular spirits people work with today, for knowledge and learning, influence and charisma, building a following or a client list, and being introduced to other spirits. He often comes into a practitioner’s life as a teacher and a gatekeeper at once. (History and lore: his page.)

How they tend to appear: The classical form is a crowned man riding a dromedary, with a host of spirits playing trumpets and cymbals before him and a roaring voice. You usually hear him before you see him: music first, a parade, a concert or a stadium crowd, then a crown, a camel, and the unmistakable sense of being in the presence of a king. Modern dreamers also report a charismatic man on a stage, an androgynous figure in gold, a lecture where everyone is listening to him, and a pull toward the northwest, the direction the Goetia says to look for him.

What the dream may mean:

• Loud music, then a crowned rider: a petition or dedication has been accepted.
• He teaches you something specific: a word, a technique, a solution. He is pushing a lesson you can use straight away.
• People turn and follow you: influence work is taking hold. This is often the dream people have just before an audience or a client list starts to grow.
• He hands you to another spirit: a common and confusing report. As a king with a host, he refers devotees onward to whoever is best placed to help. It is not rejection.
• He gives you an animal: he was said to give good familiars. Watch for that animal around you in waking life.
• You sit on a throne or wear a crown: a call to step into authority you have been avoiding.
• He is silent, or the music stops: often a sign to put into practice what you already learned before asking for more.
• “Why did Paimon hand me to someone else?”: usually because the new spirit fits the question better, or because he wants you to build wider relationships. Declining politely is fine, and he does not take offense at an honest no.

Support, message or attack?

Likely support or a message:

• Music, crowds, gold, a crown, and waking energized with something learned.
• It follows a petition about learning, influence or your practice.
• People respond to you differently in the weeks after.

Likely a test:

• He introduces you to a spirit you did not expect and watches how you behave.
• Another spirit scolds you, and he lets it happen. Usually the lesson is about finishing what you start.

Possibly an attack or a mimic:

• A crowned figure who is petty, mocking or whispering threats. Paimon is regal and loud.
• Flattery that you alone are chosen, with demands for secrecy or ever-larger offerings.
• Waking drained, with dreams that began after a stranger’s object, a group or a person came into your life.

If you work with them: Record any teaching word for word. Thank him with music, a gold candle or a fine offering, and put what he taught into practice before asking for more.

Phenex

Phenex is worked with today by writers, poets, musicians and students, and by anyone who needs to come back from ashes after a loss, a breakup or a burnout. (History and lore: his page.)

How they tend to appear: A phoenix singing sweet notes in a child’s voice. Look for fire that does not burn, beautiful singing, a child singing in another room, gold and red feathers, and lines of poetry that arrive whole.

What the dream may mean:

• A bird sings in a child’s voice: very likely him.
• You wake with a line of verse in your head: his teaching or inspiration. Write it down at once.
• Something burns and rises again: renewal after loss.
• He waits with you: he was said to hope to return to his throne after a very long wait, which may be why he is so patient with slow writers and long recoveries.

Support, message or attack?

• Likely support or a message: song, gold light, and words you remember.
• Likely a test: he gives you a first line and waits for you to finish it.
• Possibly an attack or a mimic: a burning bird that brings fear and leaves scorch-like marks on waking points to attack.

If you work with them: Record every word, light a red or gold candle, and write something in his honor.

Purson

Purson is called on today for finding hidden money and missed opportunities, for readings about past, present and future, and for good familiars.

How they tend to appear: A man with a lion’s face carrying a viper and riding a bear, with a trumpet sounding before him. It is one of the stranger images in the Goetia, and people who dream of him usually remember the bear. Some report a lion-faced man in a parking garage or on a subway, pointing.

What the dream may mean:

• A lion-faced rider points to a spot on the ground: treasure or hidden money, most often an opportunity you have walked past.
• He tells you about your past and future: you are being given a reading. Listen to all of it.
• A trumpet wakes you: a petition has been heard.
• The bear sits down beside you: patience. What you want is there, but not yet.

Support, message or attack?

• Likely support or a message: the viper stays in his hand, and what he pointed at turns up.
• Likely a test: he points and lets you do the digging.
• Possibly an attack or a mimic: a viper biting you rather than being held belongs to the attack signs.

If you work with them: Note the place he pointed to and look for its match in waking life. Leave an offering and ask for a clearer sign if you need one.

Papa Legba

Papa Legba, the Vodou lwa of the crossroads and the gate between people and the spirits, is worked with today for road opening, communication, new opportunities, and access to other spirits. In ceremony he is greeted first so that the others may come.

How they tend to appear: An old man with a cane, a straw hat and a pipe, often with a dog, standing at a crossroads or a gate. He looks frail. He is not. Modern dreamers describe an old man at a bus stop, a doorman, a crossing guard, a man selling candy at a corner, keys handed over at a door, and pipe smoke where nobody is smoking.

What the dream may mean:

• An old man opens a gate for you: the way is opening, for a working or for a new opportunity.
• He leans on his cane and waits: something is expected of you first, usually an offering.
• He points down a road: that is the road.
• He hands you keys: access, to a job, a home, or a spirit you have been trying to reach.
• A phone rings and an old man is on the line: communication opening, often with the spirits, sometimes with a person who has gone quiet.
• A dog leads you to a gate: he is near, even if you do not see him.
• He laughs at you: a trickster’s lesson. You are trying to force a door that opens the other way.
• “Did I forget to greet him?”: a common worry after work with other spirits stalls. Dreams of a closed gate, or of waiting at a crossroads with no one coming, often mean exactly that.

Support, message or attack?

Likely support or a message:

• A gate opens, a road clears, and you wake hopeful.
• Pipe smoke, a straw hat, a dog, a cane.
• Opportunities or messages arrive in the days after.

Likely a test:

• He waits at the gate and does nothing until you offer something or ask properly.
• He gives you a choice of roads and will not say which.

Possibly an attack or a mimic:

• A figure at a crossroads who blocks you with menace. That is not his style, and may be a blockage sent by someone.
• Endless crossroads with every road closed, alongside real doors shutting in waking life.
• An old man who asks you to bring him into your bed or your body.

If you work with them: Offer tobacco, rum or candy at a crossroads and thank him. Greet him first whenever you call on other spirits; that is his place.

Pan

Pan, the goat-legged Greek god of the wild, is worked with today for sexuality and vitality, nature magic, music, freedom from restraint, and getting back into your body after years in your head.

How they tend to appear: A goat-legged, horned figure playing pipes in a forest. Even without him, wild music, a festival in a field, the smell of animals and earth, and a sudden flood of feeling are his.

What the dream may mean:

• Pipes heard in a forest: an invitation into wild or sexual magic.
• You dance with him: freedom from restraint you did not know you were under.
• Sudden terror in the woods: his panic, which gave the word its name. The lesson is in what you fear about your own wildness.
• A voice cries that he is dead: Plutarch tells of a sailor who heard exactly that. Witches have been quietly disagreeing for two thousand years, and the dream usually means the wild part of you is not as dead as you thought.

Support, message or attack?

• Likely support or a message: music, joy, desire, and waking alive in your body.
• Likely a test: panic in the woods that you are meant to walk through.
• Possibly an attack or a mimic: a goat figure that brings only shame or a sense of violation is not Pan.

If you work with them: Offer wine, milk or honey outdoors, and spend real time in wild places.

Persephone

Persephone, queen of the Greek underworld, is worked with today for death work, grief, seasons of loss, taking power over your own descent, and for people turning from victim into the one in charge.

How they tend to appear: A crowned woman in a dark garden, pomegranates, spring flowers pushing up out of black earth, stairs leading underground. Some dreamers meet her in a basement, a subway station or a greenhouse at night.

What the dream may mean:

• She offers pomegranate seeds: she is asking you to commit to underworld work. In the myth, eating them bound her below each year, so think before you accept.
• Flowers rise out of the dark: renewal after loss.
• You follow her down a staircase: the inner descent is starting.
• She is a girl, then a queen: she is both the one who was taken and the one who rules. Many people meet her right when they are turning from one into the other.

Support, message or attack?

• Likely support or a message: a dark garden that feels like home, and waking calm.
• Likely a test: the seeds offered, and a choice to make.
• Possibly an attack or a mimic: being dragged underground in terror is more likely fear or attack.

If you work with them: Offer pomegranate, flowers or honey, and write down what you saw below.

Pazuzu

Pazuzu, the Mesopotamian king of the wind demons, is worked with today for protection, especially of mothers, babies and children, and for hard banishing. Most people know his face without knowing his name: his statue is the one unearthed at the opening of The Exorcist, which cast a protector as the villain.

How they tend to appear: A figure with four wings, a canine face, talons and a scorpion’s tail. His dreams bring hot wind and desert storms, a figure standing over a crib or a hospital bed, and the feeling of a guardian you would not want to cross.

What the dream may mean:

• He stands over a sleeping child or a pregnant woman: protection, exactly as the old amulets against Lamashtu intended.
• A hot wind blows through your house: banishing may be happening.
• A swarm of locusts: he brought the southwest wind with its famine and locusts. It may point to loss, or to something being stripped away.
• He fights a female figure near a bed: he is driving off something that came for a mother or a child.

Support, message or attack?

• Likely support or a message: fierce, hot, and on your side, with the house feeling cleaner after.
• Likely a test: he shows you what he is driving off and waits to see if you will hold your ground.
• Possibly an attack or a mimic: a winged figure that attacks a child in the dream points to an attack.

If you work with them: Thank him with an offering and keep his image near the bed.

Love, money and life dreams: P

Pregnancy

Being pregnant in a dream usually reflects something growing in your life: an idea, a business, a relationship, or a new version of yourself. Men have them too, and so do women long past having children, usually just before a big change. Jung would say something new is gestating in the psyche, and like any pregnancy it will take its own time.

The magical reading:

• During a fertility working: a hopeful sign.
• During a business or money working: the work is growing and needs time.
• When it may be interference: a pregnancy that is taken away, or a body you do not recognize, may point to interference with what you are building.

Proposal

Someone kneels with a ring, or you are the one kneeling. Proposal dreams often come with a wish for commitment, but they also show up when you are close to a big yes of any kind: a business partner, a move, a vow to yourself.

The magical reading:

• During a love or commitment working: a proposal from the target suggests the spell is taking hold. One from a stranger can mean the work is aimed at someone new.
• If you work with a spirit: a proposal from a spirit can be a pact offer or a spirit marriage. Think it over in waking life before agreeing to anything.
• When it may be interference: a proposal you feel trapped into accepting may point to domination work.

Partner cheating

You see your partner with someone else and wake furious with them, even though they are asleep beside you and did nothing. These dreams usually reflect insecurity, distance or an old hurt from a past relationship, not a prediction.

The magical reading:

• During your own reconciliation working: these dreams can show a cord to a third person that needs cutting.
• When it may be interference: there is a rival in waking life, and repeated cheating dreams come with sudden coldness. That may point to separation work.

Promotion

Being promoted, handed a new title or called up in front of colleagues often reflects ambition and a wish to be recognized. A common version is being given an office with your name already on the door.

The magical reading:

• After a career or success working: the work is moving, and a door with your name already on it suggests the position is being set aside for you.
• When it may be interference: a promotion snatched away at the last moment, repeatedly, alongside real near misses at work, can point to someone blocking you, often a coworker who feels threatened.

Police

Police in dreams usually reflect guilt, fear of consequences, or your relationship with rules and authority. Many people dream of being pulled over and not knowing what they did.

The magical reading:

• During a court case or justice working: police who take your side, or arrest the person who wronged you, are a good sign.
• When it may be interference: being arrested over and over for nothing, while trouble keeps finding you in waking life, may point to someone working to bring you legal or official problems.

Parent who has died

A parent who has passed appearing in a dream is often grief and love doing their work. Very often the parent looks younger and well, sitting at an old kitchen table as if nothing happened.

The magical reading:

• Ancestor contact: a parent who brings a clear message, a warning, or simply peace is very likely real contact, especially if you have been leaving offerings for them.
• If they ask for food or a candle: many practitioners treat this as routine. Give it, and see whether the dreams settle.
• When it may be interference: a parent who asks for things you would not give, wants you to follow them, or leaves you drained and frightened is more likely a mimic wearing a loved face.

Signs of spiritual attack: P

Pressure on the chest

A heavy weight presses on your chest, though no figure is visible. Breathing is hard, your heart races, and you wake drained, sometimes with the sense that something just lifted off you.

What it can point to: A parasite or attached entity feeding on your energy, or a curse sent to weigh you down. What comes with it tells them apart: a feeding parasite leaves exhaustion and grows stronger when you are frightened, while a sent curse tends to arrive alongside a run of real-life heaviness, such as bad luck, illness and arguments, after a conflict with someone.

Ordinary dream or attack? Repetition, waking at the same hour (often 3am), exhaustion that sleep does not fix, and other people or pets in the home also unsettled are the markers.

What to do: Sleep with iron beside you and burn a black candle anointed with a protective oil before bed. If the weight keeps returning, our Are You Under Spiritual Attack? check names what is there.

Pulled by the feet

Something grabs your ankles and pulls, from the bed, down a staircase, or into dark water. You kick and cannot get free.

What it can point to: A haunting in the home, an entity trying to draw you somewhere, or someone working to drag you down. A haunting usually stays tied to one bed or room; something sent tends to come with a run of setbacks that feel like being held back from progress.

Ordinary dream or attack? Waking with the bedclothes pulled toward the foot of the bed, red marks on the ankles, or a pet that refuses to sleep at the foot of the bed are strong markers.

What to do: Lay a line of salt at the foot of the bed and sleep with your feet covered and a knife or iron nail under the mattress. If you are still being pulled, the Are You Under Spiritual Attack? assessment will tell you what is holding on.

Photographs of you defaced

You find photos of yourself scratched, burned, buried, cut up or stuck with pins, often in someone else’s house or hidden in a drawer.

What it can point to: A curse or binding worked through your image, one of the most common links used. Look at who is holding the photo in the dream, since that person, or someone close to them, is often the sender.

Ordinary dream or attack? It is more likely real if it repeats, began after a conflict or breakup, and lines up with sudden illness or misfortune.

What to do: Take a cleansing bath with salt and rue, and gather any photos of you an ex or rival might have access to, then ward them. To know whether work was actually done, our Are You Under Spiritual Attack? check names what is there.

Poisoned food

Someone serves you food or drink and you know, too late, that it is poisoned. You may wake nauseous or with a bad taste in your mouth.

What it can point to: Ill wishes or a curse, sometimes literally sent through something you ate or were given. When the person serving it is someone you know, that is usually your pointer to the source; when it is a stranger, it may be an entity.

Ordinary dream or attack? Pay attention to real nausea on waking, to the dream following a meal or a gift from one particular person, and to it coming back.

What to do: Drink salt water and spit it out, then cleanse your kitchen. If the dreams come back, our Are You Under Spiritual Attack? check can show whether something was sent.

Magical dream symbols: P

Pendulum. A pendulum swinging hard and steady in a dream means the yes or no you have been asking for is clear. One that spins wildly or stops dead may mean the question is wrong, or that something is interfering with your readings.

Pentagram. The pentagram is the elements bound by spirit, used for protection and evocation. An upright, glowing one is protection holding. An inverted pentagram, to a left-hand path practitioner, points to spirit descending into matter and your own will taking priority; seeing one carved into your door by someone else, though, can mean you are being marked.

Pit. Climbing down into a pit willingly means you are ready for deeper, darker work. Falling in and being unable to climb out can point to a depression or situation you need help with, magical or otherwise.

Pomegranate. The pomegranate is the fruit of Persephone, the underworld, fertility and commitment. Eating its seeds suggests you have committed to something you cannot easily undo. A rotten pomegranate may mean a pledge has gone bad.

Poppet. A poppet is sympathetic magic, a doll standing in for a person. Making one in a dream often means you are ready to do that working. Finding one wearing your hair or a scrap of your clothing is a different matter: someone may be working on you.

Potion. Drinking a potion willingly in a dream is change you are ready for, swallowed whole. Having one forced down your throat is a different matter and can point to influence or control work.

Pyre. Watching something burn on a pyre usually means a working to end something is succeeding. Being on the pyre yourself may mean you are the one being asked to let an old self die.

Path through the woods. A path through dark woods is the witch’s road. A clear path means direction is opening. A path that disappears behind you suggests there is no going back, which may be exactly what is needed.

When a dream will not leave you alone

If the same figure keeps returning, if the nightmares began after a working, a person or a visit somewhere heavy, or if you wake drained and uneasy, something may be attached to your energy. Our Are You Under Spiritual Attack? check ($25) tells you plainly what is there. If it is your home that feels wrong (footsteps, doors, smells, pets reacting, or others in the house having the same dreams), take Is Your House Under Spiritual Attack? ($30) instead. To have a dream of your own read, try the Dream Oracle, our occult dream interpretation, delivered in minutes and built on this dictionary and our casebook, or see all our dream readings. Interpretation is guidance, not certainty, and like all our work it comes with no guarantees.

The Occultist’s Dream Dictionary: A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z