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

Letter Q 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: Q

Qayin (Cain)

In traditional and Sabbatic witchcraft Qayin is honored as the first sorcerer and an ancestor of the witch line. People work with him today for initiation, for the strength to walk alone after leaving a family, faith or community, and for the crafts of the field and the forge.

How they tend to appear: A lone man walking a plowed field or a road at dusk, a mark on his brow, dirt on his hands, a farmer’s or smith’s tools, the smell of turned earth and iron. Modern dreamers describe a drifter on a highway shoulder, a man in a workshop or garage, or a tired laborer at a bus station. Many describe him as quiet and tired rather than frightening, and some dream only of the mark itself burning on their own forehead.

What the dream may mean:

  • He walks beside you on an empty road: an invitation into the older witch lineage. It tends to come when you have been feeling cut off from family or community, which is the point of him: the outcast who founded a line.
  • He hands you a tool or a seed: start the work.
  • You are sent out of a house or a town: an exile you need to accept before you can grow. In Genesis he was sent out east of Eden and built a city there.
  • He stands over a fresh grave: a lesson about guilt you are carrying and have not looked at.
  • The mark burns on your own forehead: you are marked as his, and also protected. In the story, the mark kept anyone from harming him.

Support, message or attack?

  • Likely support or a message: you wake sober and steady, with a road, a tool or a task.
  • Likely a test: he leaves you alone in a field and waits to see whether you start working or wait to be rescued.
  • Possibly an attack or a mimic: a figure using his name who only accuses and shames you, with no road, no tool and no lesson. That is more likely your own guilt or a spirit feeding on it.

If you work with them: Write the dream down before you speak to anyone. Give a little of what you grew or made with your hands, bread, a handful of earth from your own garden, or a small piece of worked iron, and ask at the altar for the next step.

Quetzalcoatl

Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent of central Mexico, is worked with today for knowledge, writing and teaching, creative work, renewal after loss, and the kind of sacrifice that leads to rebirth.

How they tend to appear: A serpent covered in green and iridescent feathers, a strong wind that moves through the dream without touching you, the morning star low on the horizon, conch shells sounding, or a pale bearded man in a tall feathered headdress. Some dreamers report a quetzal or a hummingbird at a window, or a classroom full of wind. People often wake feeling lifted.

What the dream may mean:

  • The serpent coils around books, glyphs or a calendar: you are being called to study, teach or write.
  • Wind sweeps a room clean: an old structure in your life is being cleared for something new.
  • Bones are gathered, or blood drips onto them: in the myth he went to the underworld for the bones of earlier people and gave his own blood to make humanity. A costly but fertile rebirth, the kind that follows a loss.
  • The morning star rises as you wake: a new beginning, and a good time for a working.

Support, message or attack?

  • Likely support or a message: feathers, wind, light, learning, and waking lifted.
  • Likely a test: he asks what you will give for what you want to learn.
  • Possibly an attack or a mimic: a plain serpent with no feathers that bites or chokes is not his usual form. If the dream is all threat and no wind, light or learning, read it as a serpent dream in its own right.

If you work with them: Record it, then offer something light and fragrant, copal resin, flowers, maize, cacao, at dawn when the morning star is up. Ask for one clear task and do it within the week.

Qetesh (Qadesh)

Qetesh (Qadesh), a Canaanite goddess taken into Egyptian worship, is worked with today for sacred sexuality, desire, fertility, body confidence, and the courage to be seen as you are.

How they tend to appear: A nude woman facing you directly rather than in profile, as in her old images, a lion beneath her feet, lotus and snakes in her hands, the scent of lotus or a warm resin, and a heat that people describe as erotic but not grasping. Some dreamers meet her in a spa, a dance studio or in front of a mirror.

What the dream may mean:

  • She hands you a flower: a petition for love or attraction has been heard.
  • She stands on the lion: a push to master your own wildness instead of hiding it.
  • She turns away: the work may need more honesty about what you actually want.
  • She looks straight at you while you are naked: she is asking you to stop hiding your body or your desire.

Support, message or attack?

  • Likely support or a message: warmth, lotus, lions, and waking confident in your body.
  • Likely a test: she asks you to be seen, and you feel the urge to cover up.
  • Possibly an attack or a mimic: sexual dreams that leave you drained, frightened or ashamed, especially ones that repeat without your consent, are not her signature and belong under attack signs.

If you work with them: Thank her with flowers, perfume, wine or honey, and wear something that makes you feel beautiful at the altar the next night.

Queen of Elphame

The Queen of Elphame, faerie queen of Scottish lore and of the witch trials, is worked with today by traditional witches for second sight, healing knowledge, charms, and the old pact with the Good People.

How they tend to appear: A tall woman in green on a white horse hung with bells, a door opening in a green hill, feasting halls under the earth, sudden music, the smell of crushed grass and cold stone. Modern dreamers also describe a woman in green at the edge of a park or a golf course, a party in a house that should not exist, and losing track of time. Time often behaves strangely in these dreams.

What the dream may mean:

  • She invites you under the hill: an invitation into faerie work, or a sign the court already has its eye on you. Accused witches such as Isobel Gowdie and Alison Pearson told of being taken there.
  • You are fed in her hall: classically a binding, so read it with care.
  • She kisses you: Thomas the Rhymer kissed her under the Eildon Tree, was carried off to serve seven years, and came back unable to tell a lie. A gift, and an obligation.
  • She gives you herbs or teaches you a charm: a gift of craft, often healing.

Support, message or attack?

  • Likely support or a message: music, green, bells, a gift of knowledge, and waking oddly refreshed.
  • Likely a test: you are offered food or drink and must decide whether to accept.
  • Possibly an attack or a mimic: faerie dreams that only steal, leave you exhausted each morning, or bring things missing from the house may point to a lesser spirit that is taking rather than trading.

If you work with them: Offer milk, cream, bread or whisky outdoors, never inside. Many traditions hold that you should not say “thank you” to the Good People, so if your lineage teaches that, show gratitude through the offering instead. Ask before you accept anything more.

From the coven’s casebook

Drawn from the kinds of dreams people bring us. Names and details are changed.

“I dreamed a fairy queen offered me a drink and I refused”

In the dream the hillside opened like a door. A tall woman in green rode out on a white horse whose bridle was hung with small silver bells, and the sound of them went on longer than it should have, after the horse had stopped. Behind her, under the hill, was a hall full of people eating at long tables, and the air smelled of crushed grass and cold stone.

She held out a silver cup, beaded with cold. He knew, from somewhere, that he should not drink it. He shook his head. She laughed, not unkindly, and said, “You will be back.” He woke in the inn and checked his watch, certain he had slept for hours. It had been twenty minutes, and his feet were cold under the blanket.

Callum was a structural engineer in his fifties who did not believe any of it. His wife had practiced traditional witchcraft for twenty years, and he was fond of her books the way you are fond of a partner’s hobby. On a walking holiday in the Borders he had lain down for a nap after a long afternoon on the Eildon Hills. His wife brought the dream to us half amused and half not, with his question: why would my brain invent a rule I don’t know?

We asked, through her, whether he had ever read the ballad of Thomas the Rhymer. Years ago, he said, because she had made him; he remembered a man taken under a hill and nothing more. We asked her to look the ballad up while he was in the room. She did, and read aloud the part where the queen warns Thomas not to touch the fruit of her garden. Callum said, “Well, there you are.” We asked whether the dream had left him uneasy or tired. Neither. It had left him in a good mood.

Our verdict: most likely his own mind, enjoying a story. The ballad tips it. He had walked Thomas the Rhymer’s own hills that morning, he had read the ballad, and the rule he thought he did not know is in it, along with the bells on the bridle. Jung would add that a commanding, beautiful woman appearing to a careful, controlled man is the anima, carrying what he keeps at arm’s length, in his case wonder. The runner-up is a genuine invitation from the Queen of Elphame, and it is not nothing: the cold stone, the time running strangely and the feast under the hill are the oldest marks of her country, and being fed in her hall is the oldest binding in the lore. Least likely is anything hostile. He woke rested and cheerful, and if it was her, it was a test of manners, which he passed.

He would not leave anything for her himself. His wife poured cream on the ground outside the inn that evening on his behalf and did not say thank you, as her lineage teaches. He has not dreamed of the woman in green again. He says it was only a dream. He also took the long way around the hill on the walk back.

If this happens to you:

  • Do not eat or drink what you are offered in a dream of the fair folk; refusing politely is the old rule and costs nothing.
  • Check what you read, watched or walked through that day before deciding it was a visit.
  • If you leave an offering anyway, leave it outdoors and leave without thanks.

Had a dream like this? Send it to us and one of our readers will look at it with you.

Love, money and life dreams: Q

Quarrel with a lover

Fighting with a partner in a dream usually brings up tension that has not been spoken aloud in waking life. A common version is shouting at someone you love who simply will not hear you, or a calm partner suddenly turning cold. The dream often shows what you are afraid to say, not what is coming.

The magical reading:

  • During a love or reconciliation working: a quarrel can mean old blockages are being stirred up so they can be cleared, much like dust rising when a room is swept.
  • When it may be interference: the arguments repeat night after night and the same third person keeps appearing at the edge of the scene. Ask whether someone has sent separation work against the two of you.

Quitting your job

Walking out of a job in a dream often carries relief, guilt, or both. People describe throwing down an apron, telling a boss exactly what they think, or simply leaving the building and not coming back. It tends to show how much of your energy the work is taking, and whether part of you has already left.

The magical reading:

  • After petitioning Clauneck or Bune for income or a better position: a quitting dream can be the first sign of a door opening and an old one closing.
  • When it may be interference: you have no wish to leave, the dream comes with dread, and work then turns hostile without cause. Someone may be working to push you out.

Queue or waiting in line

Standing in a long line that does not move is a classic dream of frustration and delay: waiting for a loan, a diagnosis, a partner to commit. Often the line moves for everyone except you.

The magical reading:

  • With a working underway: often the spirit’s way of saying “not yet,” especially if the line ends at a door you recognize from earlier dreams.
  • When it may be interference: you are skipped over every time while others pass, and your waking life matches it. Check for blockage work or crossed conditions.

Quiz or exam

The paper is in front of you and you do not recognize a single question. It usually reflects feeling judged or unprepared in waking life, at work, in a relationship, or in a family role.

The magical reading:

  • Before an initiation or a new level of practice: a test dream can be the spirit checking what you know.
  • If you work with a spirit: when the examiner is a familiar spirit and the questions are strange or symbolic, write them down. They are often the lesson itself.
  • When it may be interference: an examiner who mocks and humiliates you with no teaching.

Signs of spiritual attack: Q

Quicksand

You are sinking into sand, mud or soft ground. Each movement pulls you deeper, your legs feel heavy, and sometimes something under the surface seems to be pulling at your feet.

What it can point to: A draining entity or a parasite feeding on fear, or a curse aimed at keeping you stuck in one place financially or emotionally. Your waking life tells them apart: a parasite brings exhaustion and nightmares that get worse when you are anxious, while a stuck-in-place curse shows up as every plan stalling at the same point.

Ordinary dream or attack? Look at whether it repeats, whether it began after a specific person, object or working, whether you wake at the same hour, often around 3am, and whether you wake with heavy legs, bruises or a presence in the room.

What to do: Sleep with a line of salt across the threshold and an iron nail or key under the bed. If the sinking dreams keep returning, our Are You Under Spiritual Attack? check can name what is pulling at you.

Quiet that falls suddenly

The dream is ordinary until every sound stops: no birds, no traffic, no voices. In the silence you feel a presence arrive, often behind you or at the door, and you cannot turn around.

What it can point to: A haunting in the home, an attached entity making itself known, or a spirit sent by someone else. Old folk belief held that birds and insects fall silent when something from the other side passes, and many people who have never heard that still describe exactly this hush. A haunting tends to happen in the same room and affect others who sleep there; an attachment follows you to other houses; something sent usually starts after conflict with a specific person.

Ordinary dream or attack? Check whether pets react to the room, whether others in the home dream of the same silence, and whether the heavy quiet stays with you for a few seconds after waking.

What to do: Keep a candle burning safely in the room as you fall asleep and say aloud that nothing uninvited may enter. If the silence keeps coming back, the Are You Under Spiritual Attack? check will tell you what has been arriving.

Magical dream symbols: Q

Quartz. Clear quartz in a dream points to amplification and the clarity of your own will. If it is clear and bright, a working is gathering strength; if it is clouded or cracked, something is muddying the intent, such as doubt or an outside influence. A dream of a cracked crystal on your altar is a reason to cleanse and recharge the space.

Quill. A quill is the tool of written magic, pacts, sigils and contracts with spirits. Writing with one points to an agreement forming, and usually means the spirit wants your petition written out, not just spoken. A quill that blots or bleeds can warn that the terms of a deal need reading again.

Quicksilver. Mercury is the alchemical spirit of movement and transformation. Seeing it run across a table points to fast change and messages arriving, while being unable to hold it in your hands suggests that something you are chasing will not be caught by force. Jung was fascinated by the alchemists’ Mercurius, the slippery spirit in the metal, and saw in him the Trickster: the part of the psyche that changes shape the moment you think you have it pinned down.

Queen. A queen, whether a tarot court card, a chess piece or a crowned woman, often shows a female spirit of authority, such as Lilith, Hecate or a queen of the dead. A queen who offers you her ring is an invitation; one who looks away suggests you have not yet earned her attention.

Quarry. A quarry is stone cut out of the earth. In craft terms it is foundation work: building a new altar, a new practice or a new life from raw material. A collapsing quarry can warn that you are digging too fast into ground you have not protected.

Quince. The quince was an old Greek fruit of marriage and of Aphrodite. Eating one in a dream points to love work ripening, while a rotten quince can mean a bond you bound too tightly is spoiling.

Quail. Small ground birds that move in flocks, quail can point to gossip, to many small messages, or to the familiars of a minor spirit. A covey bursting up from the grass at your feet is hidden news coming out all at once.

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

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