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Letter S 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: S

Satan

People work with Satan today for self-mastery, independence, courage and carnal strength, and he tends to arrive in a practitioner’s life at the point of breaking away: from a controlling faith, family or partner, or from a version of themselves they have outgrown. (History and lore: his page.)

How they tend to appear: Modern dreamers describe a tall man in a dark suit who sits across a desk or a kitchen table and asks you a hard question, a stranger at a gas station or crossroads at night, a voice on the phone that knows too much, a red-lit room or a black throne in an ordinary building. The horned or goat-headed figure still comes, and so does a serpent in a tree. Many describe heat in the chest, a smell of smoke or warm spice, and the sense of being seen completely.

What the dream may mean:

  • He hands you something or pulls you to your feet: a dedication or a petition for strength has been answered. Note the object. A key points to access you now have, a blade to something you must cut, a book to study he expects of you.
  • He asks a question you cannot answer: a lesson is being pushed, and the thing you avoid is the next work. The same question often returns night after night until you act on it awake.
  • He reads out your failings like a charge sheet: his name is the Hebrew ha-satan, “the adversary,” and in the Book of Job and in Zechariah he is the accuser in the heavenly court, the one who tests and brings the charge. In a dream that is accounting, not condemnation. If the list is specific and true, it is his work and a call to self-accountability. Vague insults that only make you feel dirty are something else.
  • He tests you with loss or temptation, then watches: in Job he is given leave to test, not to destroy. A dream where things are taken from you and he simply observes how you hold up often comes before a hard season that will show what you are made of.
  • He stands silent beside you at a crossroads: the choice is yours alone. The silence is the answer, not a refusal.
  • A serpent in a tree offers you fruit: Christian tradition merged him with the serpent of Eden (“that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan,” as Revelation puts it), and for the left-hand path that serpent is the giver of knowledge. Eating is accepting an invitation to learn; walking away is fine too, and he does not chase.
  • You sit on the black throne, or he steps aside so you can: sovereignty over your own life. This comes most often to people in the middle of leaving something that controlled them.
  • “Was it Satan or Lucifer?”: the two were joined when early Christian writers read Isaiah’s fallen “morning star,” Lucifer in the Latin, as Satan’s fall. Practitioners tend to describe Lucifer’s dreams as light, intellect and the morning star, and Satan’s as heat, body, opposition and challenge. Some hold them as one being with different faces, others as separate; treat the form he chose as part of the message.
  • “Did I sell my soul in the dream?”: a common worry after dreaming of signing something in blood. A dream signature is not a pact you never consciously made; pacts in this tradition are made awake, with terms. Read it as an offer being shown, or as old religious fear surfacing, and ask yourself on waking what the terms looked like.

Support, message or attack?

Likely support or a message:

  • You wake hot, alert and steady, often with warmth in the chest, and the day feels sharper.
  • The challenge is specific: it names a real person, habit or decision in your life.
  • It follows something you did, a dedication, petition or offering in the days before.
  • Even when he is stern, you come out of it standing taller, not smaller.

Likely a test:

  • You are offered something you want at a price to your integrity or to someone else.
  • You asked for a sign and got silence, or you are left alone at the crossroads.
  • The same question or scene repeats until you do something about it awake.

Possibly an attack or a mimic:

  • A “Satan” who only terrifies, mocks and leaves you feeling worthless for days. The pure-evil Devil of that kind of dream is a late figure: the testing adversary grew into a lord of evil only after Persian-influenced dualism, with its good and evil powers at war, shaped later Jewish and then Christian thought. A dream built entirely from that image is more often fear learned in childhood religion, or a parasite wearing the most frightening mask it can find. His dreams test you; they do not leave you shrinking.
  • You wake drained at the same hour, with marks, a smell of rot, or pets staring at the corner.
  • It demands worship on the spot, asks you to hurt yourself or someone else, or floods you with flattery about being chosen above everyone.
  • It began after a spirit-board session, a new object, or stacking several workings at once with no protection. The pattern beginners describe, the devil, then drowning, then filth and bodies, points to something that came in through open doors, not to him.

If you work with them: Record it, light a black or red candle, and offer wine, your own effort, or a written statement of what you will do next. Ask for a clearer sign if needed. If an animal-headed Egyptian figure came instead, that may be Set, a separate god many also work with; some occult writers derived Satan’s name from Set, but linguists do not support that, since the word is Semitic.

Satanachia

People work with Satanachia for attraction, influence and command, and he tends to show up when someone needs to take charge: of a team, a love situation, or a room that does not yet respect them. (History and lore: his page.)

How they tend to appear: An officer in uniform, a security chief, a manager walking the floor, a man giving orders over a radio or a headset. There are banners, marching feet or rows of people standing at attention, and a very strong sense of rank. He often looks straight past you, as if inspecting the troops.

What the dream may mean:

  • He gives an order to someone you want to reach: your petition for attraction or influence has been taken up. The old grimoires gave him power over women in particular, and practitioners still find he works fastest on love and attraction.
  • He puts you in charge of others: a promotion or leadership role may be on the way.
  • You are made to stand at attention or inspected: discipline is the price of what you asked, often keeping a schedule of offerings exactly.
  • He marches past without looking at you: the approach may have been wrong. The Grand Grimoire makes him Lucifer’s general, and some practitioners find he answers better when that rank is respected and Lucifer is acknowledged first.
  • His people surround someone you are in conflict with: influence work is moving on them; expect them to soften or back down.

Support, message or attack?

  • Likely support or a message: the dream is orderly and crisp, you wake ready to act, and it ties to a petition you made.
  • Likely a test: you are given an order you do not like, such as cutting contact or keeping a hard routine, and the dream waits to see if you obey.
  • Possibly an attack or a mimic: coercion and violation that leave you hurt, a “commander” who orders you to harm someone, or fear that stays all day. These belong with attack signs.

If you work with them: Write it down, return to the altar, and offer something fitting his rank, such as strong drink or a candle burned to the end. Keep your end of any agreement exactly.

Samael

People work with Samael for strength, for cutting away what is dead, and for protection that strikes back, and he tends to come when something in a person’s life has to end and they keep putting it off. (History and lore: his page.)

How they tend to appear: A man in red or black at the end of a hospital corridor, a surgeon, a figure with dark or red wings, a red snake on the floor of an ordinary room, or a motorbike rider who does not take off his helmet. Many wake with an iron or blood taste in the mouth.

What the dream may mean:

  • A funeral or grave for something that is not a person: an ending a working is pushing, a relationship, job or habit that has already died and needs burying.
  • A sword or knife laid at your feet: you are being told to defend yourself, and to stop waiting for someone else to do it.
  • He gives you a drop of something bitter: his name is read as “venom of God,” and the medicine will taste bitter. Poison and cure were often the same thing in different doses.
  • A red serpent coiled with a dark woman: some texts make him Lilith’s consort. For those who work with her, a sign the pair are both present in the work, often sexual or protective work.
  • He strikes something out of your hand: something you cling to is being cut loose, usually before you would have let go yourself.

Support, message or attack?

  • Likely support or a message: you wake clear and decisive, and the ending he showed is already visibly dying in waking life.
  • Likely a test: you are made to choose what to cut, or handed the blade and left to decide.
  • Possibly an attack or a mimic: death dreams that only bring dread and repeat without a lesson, your own death night after night with exhaustion, or an executioner that appears only after you began fearing a curse. That is more often fear, or something feeding on it.

If you work with them: Record it, offer red wine or a red candle on a Tuesday, and ask what needs cutting.

Sitri

People work with Sitri for attraction, lust and desire, to be wanted by a specific person or simply to be noticed, and he tends to show up in a practitioner’s life as a sudden rise in how others look at them. (History and lore: his page.)

How they tend to appear: A strikingly beautiful man or woman at a bar, a party or a hotel, someone whose eyes look feline, leopard print on clothing or bedding, a big spotted cat in a bedroom, or golden wings glimpsed behind a person. The mood is warm and flushed; the classical leopard head with griffin wings is one form among several.

What the dream may mean:

  • The person you want appears undressed or reaching for you: the old texts say he can make people show themselves naked, and in a dream during his working this usually means the petition was heard.
  • A leopard or a feline-eyed stranger watches from a distance: attraction is building before it shows. Expect looks and small contact before anything bold.
  • A beautiful stranger turns into a leopard: desire with an edge you should respect. The person or situation may be more intense than you bargained for.
  • You are the one being undressed, and a crowd admires you: the working is acting on you as glamour. People are about to notice you, not only the target.
  • The target is in bed with someone else, or the cat walks away: the working has met a rival or a block, or the person you asked for is not the right one. Ask him which before you push harder.
  • Sex with him in the dream: some who work with Sitri describe this as part of the bond, a way the working moves through them. If it was welcome and you wake energized, it fits him.
  • “Did the person dream of me too?”: sometimes, but the sign to watch is a change in how they act toward you.
  • “Will he be offended if I say no to the sexual side?”: declining politely is fine. A spirit worked with properly takes a clear no and keeps working on what you asked for.

Support, message or attack?

Likely support or a message:

  • You wake flushed, warm and confident, and feel more attractive through the day.
  • The form fits him: feline features, spotted cats, golden wings, or a strikingly beautiful person.
  • It ties to your petition, and the person begins to move toward you in waking life.

Likely a test:

  • You are shown your own jealousy or possessiveness up close.
  • The dream makes plain you must act awake: send the message, go where they will be.

Possibly an attack or a mimic:

  • Sexual dreams you did not invite, that drain you, leave bruises or bites, or carry on after you said no. That points to an incubus or succubus, not to Sitri’s work for you.
  • The lover is faceless, or the dream turns painful and “it is not them anymore.”
  • It began after a gift, an object or a new person entered your life, with no petition of yours behind it.

If you work with them: Thank him with perfume, sweet wine or a red candle, and act in waking life rather than waiting.

Sorath

People work with Sorath for success, visibility and vitality, the launch, the audition, the moment of being seen, and he tends to show up when someone is ready to step out of the background. (History and lore: his page.)

How they tend to appear: Stage lights, camera flashes, a billboard with your name, a gold car or a gold-lit room, lions, a burning disc in the sky, heat on the skin, and the number 666 turning up on a clock, a price tag or a screen.

What the dream may mean:

  • A spotlight or camera turns on you: visibility is coming, a public success, recognition, your name said out loud.
  • You are burned or blinded: the warning side, too much exposure too fast. Slow the launch.
  • A golden sun rises over your house: health and good fortune returning to the household.
  • 666 on a clock, receipt or phone: his name adds to 666, which was the sum of the Sun’s magic square long before it was the number of the Beast. After solar work, read it as confirmation he is present, not as a threat.
  • The sun goes dark at midday: something hidden stands between you and success; find it before pushing.

Support, message or attack?

  • Likely support or a message: you wake warm and energized, and the dream follows solar or success work.
  • Likely a test: the light is so strong you must choose whether to step into it or stay hidden.
  • Possibly an attack or a mimic: heat that wakes you sick or feverish with no solar imagery, or a “666” dream that only frightens you after reading about the Beast. That is not him.

If you work with them: Record it, offer gold candles or frankincense on a Sunday, and ask how to hold the light.

Stolas

People work with Stolas for herbalism, crystal work, astrology and astronomy, and he tends to show up when a practitioner is ready to stop buying ready-made and start learning what plants, stones and stars actually do.

How they tend to appear: A crowned owl, often on long legs, is how most people meet him now; a large raven is the older form. Dreams place him in greenhouses, herb shops, planetariums, night gardens or a bedroom with the ceiling open to the stars, with herbs drying, stones glowing and a hush like a library.

What the dream may mean:

  • An owl hands you a leaf or a flower: he is pointing at the herb you need for a working. Write down its shape and color and identify it before using it.
  • A stone glows in your hand or on a shelf: a crystal or mineral to work with, or one you already own and have been ignoring.
  • The night sky fills with moving stars: the timing of your work matters right now, so check the planetary hours or the moon before your next ritual.
  • He shows you a poisonous plant: know poison as well as medicine, and handle what you are working with more carefully.
  • The owl flies off as you approach: you are not ready for what you asked, or you have asked before doing the study he already set.
  • “Why an owl when the Goetia says raven?”: both forms are reported, and neither is wrong.
  • “He looked like a cartoon”: popular animation has given Stolas a pop-culture face, and people do dream him that way. Judge by the content: is he teaching plants, stones or stars?

Support, message or attack?

Likely support or a message:

  • You wake calm and curious, with a plant, stone or star name in your head that you can look up.
  • The dream is quiet, nocturnal and orderly, like a lesson.
  • It follows an offering or a request to learn.

Likely a test:

  • You are shown something to identify and given no name; finding it is the task.

Possibly an attack or a mimic:

  • An owl or raven that attacks, screeches, or brings death images every night is not his teaching.
  • The cartoon form arrives with flattery, sexual pressure or demands, and nothing is taught.
  • You wake heavy and fearful at the same hour, and the bird imagery started after a specific object came into the home.

If you work with them: Write down any plant or stone you saw, offer herbs or a crystal, and begin the study.

Shax

People work with Shax to find out what is being hidden from them, to recover money, and to take the focus off themselves when they need to go unnoticed, and he tends to show up when someone suspects they are not being told the whole story.

How they tend to appear: A plain gray pigeon on a ledge or a car roof, a hoarse voice on a bad phone line, muffled sound as if heard through cotton, a blurred screen, or a car or horse speeding past.

What the dream may mean:

  • A pigeon drops a coin or a card in your lap: money moving toward you, often from a quiet source. He was said to take money out of kings’ houses, so watch for money owed by a large company or an employer.
  • Something hidden is uncovered in front of you: a fact or object is about to come to light.
  • Your own sight or hearing dims: he can take away sight and hearing, and in your own dream that asks what you have been refusing to see or hear.
  • A bird speaks to you hoarsely and stays close: he may be offering a familiar.

Support, message or attack?

  • Likely support or a message: the information can be checked, and it holds up.
  • Likely a test: he tells you something tempting. The grimoire warns he lies unless properly bound, so check before acting.
  • Possibly an attack or a mimic: a bird that blinds or deafens you every night with no message, or muffled dreams paired with real fatigue.

If you work with them: Record exactly what was said and check it. Offer bread or grain.

Sabnock

People call on Sabnock to protect the home and body, to heal wounds that will not close, and to build things that last: a business, a house, a career structure. He tends to show up when someone is ready to put up walls, in both senses.

How they tend to appear: A soldier or a security guard, a builder in a hard hat on a construction site, scaffolding going up around your house, a lion-headed man in armor, or a pale horse. Concrete, stone, steel and the sound of building are common, and so is a dull ache in the body on waking.

What the dream may mean:

  • Building or climbing a tower: he was said to build towers and castles. After petitioning him for a business, this usually reads as the structure going up.
  • Walls rise around your home: protection is being built around the household.
  • He hands you armor or a shield: it is time to set firmer boundaries with a specific person.
  • A wound that closes in front of you: healing is under way, or a lesson that hurt is now holding.
  • A wound that will not heal: he was also said to cause wounds and sores that rot. After working with him, a dream of a wound that festers is worth taking seriously: ask whether you owe him something or have asked him carelessly.
  • A tower cracks or falls: the foundation of a plan is weak; fix it before building higher.

Support, message or attack?

  • Likely support or a message: you wake feeling guarded and solid, and it follows protection or building work.
  • Likely a test: you are made to hold a wall alone for a while, or to keep building with no sign of progress.
  • Possibly an attack or a mimic: real sores, rashes or wounds after the dream with no protection or building imagery, especially if nothing was asked of him. Those belong with attack signs.

If you work with them: Offer iron, wine or a candle on the wall side of the house and reinforce your wards.

From the coven’s casebook

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

“My partner and I both dream of a man in a hat standing at the foot of the bed”

Mei dreamed she woke in the front bedroom of the old terrace house in Sydney’s inner west that she and her partner had rented a month before. The streetlight came through the lace curtain in a pattern of leaves. A man stood at the foot of the bed in a long coat and a wide-brimmed hat, with no face she could make out under the brim. He did not move toward her. He simply stood, the way someone waits at a bus stop, patient and a little bored.

She tried to wake Josh and her arm would not lift. The room smelled of wool and pipe ash. The man turned his head slightly, toward the wardrobe, as if someone had spoken to him from there. Then she woke properly, cold, and for a second she was sure the shape was still standing by the wardrobe.

She said nothing for a week, because she did not want to frighten anyone. Then Josh, who has never had any interest in the craft, mentioned over breakfast that he kept dreaming of “some old bloke in a hat” at the end of the bed. Their cat had started sitting in the hallway at night, staring at the bedroom door and refusing to come in. Her message asked what people always ask: did we let something in when we moved here, and has anyone else had this?

We asked whether Josh had heard about her dream before he told his. He had not; she had kept it to herself. We asked whether either of them had dreamed of the man anywhere else. They had spent a weekend at her mother’s in Parramatta, and nothing came. We asked whether he had ever come closer, touched them, or left them drained. Never. He only stood.

Our verdict: most likely a resident dead, someone who knew the house long before they did. Two people dreaming the same figure independently tips it. Had Mei been the only one, we would have started with Jung’s shadow, the part of yourself you refuse to own, which often looks exactly like a faceless man; that remains the runner-up only for her first dream. But a second dreamer, a cat reacting to the same doorway and a smell in the same corner all point outside them, and a figure who stays in one house points to the house, not to an attachment. Least likely is anything sent or feeding: he never came closer, and no one was drained. To be sure before doing anything forceful, they used our Is Your House Under Spiritual Attack? check, and nothing sent turned up.

So instead of banishing, they cleansed the bedroom with smoke, set a glass of water on the hall table, and reclaimed the room aloud: the bedroom was theirs now, and he was welcome to the hall. The dreams thinned over the following weeks and then stopped. The cat still sits in the hallway some nights, looking at the front door rather than the bedroom.

If this happens to you:

  • Compare notes with everyone in the home before deciding anything, without describing your own dream first.
  • Notice whether the figure stays in one place or follows you elsewhere.
  • Not everything needs banishing; reclaim the room aloud and give the presence somewhere else to stand.

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: S

Sex

Sex dreams often reflect desire and closeness, or a wish to merge with a quality the other person has. A dream of sex with a coworker or a stranger usually says more about what you admire in them than about a hidden crush.

The magical reading:

  • During a lust or love working: a sex dream with the target suggests the connection is forming.
  • If you work with a spirit: sex with a spirit you work with can be part of the bond, if it was welcome and you wake well.
  • When it may be interference: sexual dreams you did not want, that drain you or leave marks, may point to an incubus or succubus.

Snakes

Few dream animals carry as much as the snake: transformation, healing, sexuality and hidden danger all at once. A snake shedding its skin usually means you are outgrowing something. The healing side is ancient. Harmless snakes were kept in the sleeping halls of Asclepius, and a snake in a dream there was a sign the god had come.

The magical reading:

  • If you work with a spirit: a snake coiled peacefully can be a spirit such as Lilith, Damballa or Samael present in the work.
  • During healing or change work: a snake shedding beside you says the transformation you asked for is under way.
  • When it may be interference: snakes biting you repeatedly, in your bed or in your food, may point to work sent against you, or to someone close poisoning you with words.

Spouse cheating

Your husband or wife is laughing with someone at a party and does not see you. These dreams more often reflect insecurity, or feeling left out of your partner’s life, than real betrayal.

The magical reading:

  • During a love working: a cheating dream can be resistance surfacing as the work stirs things up.
  • When it may be interference: if the same third person appears again and again, ask whether that person is working on your partner. If it repeats with marks or exhaustion, consider interference.

Sick

You are vomiting, feverish, or lying in a bed you cannot get out of. Being sick in a dream can reflect stress, or a sense that something in your life is wrong before you can name it. Aristotle suggested the sleeping mind notices small changes in the body before the waking mind does.

The magical reading:

  • After a cleansing or uncrossing: vomiting or sweating in a dream usually means something is being expelled, and that is good.
  • When it may be interference: repeated sickness dreams with real fatigue in waking life can point to something draining you, or to a curse.

School

You are back at school, lost in the halls, late for a class you forgot you were taking. These dreams often reflect feeling tested or unprepared, and they come back at any age.

The magical reading:

  • If you work with a spirit: school dreams very often mean you are being taught. If the teacher is a spirit, write down the lesson, however odd; one with a clipboard signing you up for “levels” is a common report after inviting a patron in.
  • When it may be interference: a school that locks its doors with you inside points to old patterns that still hold you, or to binding work.

Swimming

Swimming easily, even underwater, usually means you are at home with your feelings right now. Struggling to keep your head up means you are overwhelmed, and you probably already know by what.

The magical reading:

  • If you work with a spirit: water belongs to spirits such as Leviathan and Vepar. Swimming down into deep water without fear is an invitation to deeper work.
  • When it may be interference: being pulled under by something you cannot see may point to attack.

Spending money

You are buying everything in the store without looking at prices. Spending freely in a dream can be a wish for freedom, or the flip side, a worry that money is slipping out of your control.

The magical reading:

  • During a money working: spending dreams often mean money is moving.
  • When it may be interference: money that vanishes from your hand as you try to pay warns of a leak, sometimes your own habits and sometimes someone draining your luck.

Signs of spiritual attack: S

Spiders

Spiders crawl over you or nest in your bed. Webs cover your face and mouth, or one large spider sits in the corner and watches you.

What it can point to: A curse or binding, an entity weaving a hold on you, or a living person manipulating you. Webs around your body suggest a binding; spiders throughout the house, a haunting or work on the home. One big spider that watches is often a person, and you may already suspect who.

Ordinary dream or attack? Plenty of people simply fear spiders. Watch for the dreams repeating, starting soon after a particular person or object came along, waking at 3am, bites or marks, or a presence that stays after you wake.

What to do: Sweep the corners with salt water and sleep with a protective oil on your wrists. If the spiders keep coming, our Are You Under Spiritual Attack? check names what is spinning.

Shadow figure

A dark, human-shaped figure stands at the foot of the bed or in the doorway, or leans over you. Usually it has no face.

What it can point to: A haunting, an attached entity, or a spirit sent by someone. A figure that stays in one room points to the house; one that follows you to other places points to an attachment. Before deciding it is outside you, it is worth one honest question. In Jung’s language the shadow is the part of ourselves we refuse to own, and it very often appears in dreams as exactly this: a dark figure without a face.

Ordinary dream or attack? The strong markers are pets staring at the same spot, other people in the house seeing it, cold spots, or the figure still standing there for a moment after you wake.

What to do: Say aloud that it must leave in the name of the spirits you work with, and keep a candle burning safely. If it returns, the Are You Under Spiritual Attack? check will tell you what it is.

Sleep paralysis

You wake but cannot move or speak. There is a presence in the room, or pressure on your chest, or voices.

What it can point to: An entity using the state to feed, a night visitor such as an incubus, or a haunting. Sleep paralysis is also a known physical sleep state, so look for the other markers before you decide.

Ordinary dream or attack? It points toward attack when it is the same figure each time, when there are marks or bruises, when you keep waking at the same hour, when there is a smell, or when others in the house are affected.

What to do: Sleep with iron under the pillow and focus on moving one finger as you come out of it. If the visits continue, take our Are You Under Spiritual Attack? check.

Scratches on waking

You dream of being clawed or scratched and wake to find marks, often in sets of three, on the back, legs or arms.

What it can point to: A hostile entity, a curse with a physical edge, or a haunting. Marks in neat sets usually point to an entity rather than your own nails.

Ordinary dream or attack? First rule out your own nails, a pet, or dry skin. Then take it seriously if the marks are somewhere you could not reach, if they repeat in the same pattern, or if pets react to the bed.

What to do: Photograph the marks, bathe in salt water, and anoint the bed. If the scratches keep coming, the Are You Under Spiritual Attack? check can identify what is doing it.

Strangers in the bedroom

People you do not know are standing around your bed, talking about you, or going through your things as if you were not there.

What it can point to: A haunting, a doorway opened in the home, or spirits sent to watch you. If the strangers whisper your name, someone may be working on you directly. If they ignore you completely, it is more often the house’s own dead, living there in their own time.

Ordinary dream or attack? Look at whether it repeats, whether it started after a move or after something new came into the house, and whether anyone else in the household has seen them.

What to do: Cleanse the room with smoke and set a salt line across the threshold. If they keep coming, our Are You Under Spiritual Attack? check will tell you who they are.

Suffocating

Something covers your mouth or presses on your throat, and you fight for air until you wake gasping.

What it can point to: An entity feeding, a binding on your voice, or a curse. Timing is the clue. If it started after you spoke up against someone, look hard at that person.

Ordinary dream or attack? Rule out a physical breathing problem first. After that, look for marks on the throat, the dream repeating, waking at the same hour, or a presence in the room after you wake.

What to do: Sleep with a protective charm at the throat and a candle lit safely. If it keeps happening, the Are You Under Spiritual Attack? check names what is pressing on you.

Magical dream symbols: S

Salt. A ring of salt around you in a dream means your protection is in place. Salt scattered, wet or melting away means it is being worn down and needs laying again.

Sigil. A sigil you see in a dream is a message or a signature. Copy it the moment you wake, even badly; it may be a spirit’s seal, or a symbol you are meant to use. A sigil burned onto your own skin points to a pact, or to being marked.

Skull. A clean skull sitting on an altar is ancestral help being offered. A cracked one warns of a connection with your dead that has been broken or neglected.

Smoke. Smoke rising straight up means the offering has been accepted. Smoke that hangs low, drifts back at you or makes you choke suggests it was not received.

Spell book. A spell book in a dream means knowledge is coming. If the pages are blank, you are being told to write your own. If it is in a language you cannot read, you have a teacher you have not met yet.

Stairs going down. Going down stairs, especially old stone ones, is the descent into the underworld, the unconscious, or deeper work. Being pushed down them means something is forcing you there before you chose to go.

Sword. A sword handed to you is will and authority being given. A broken one warns that a defense you rely on is failing.

Silver. Silver belongs to the moon and has long been used against spirits. Silver jewelry given to you is protection. Tarnished silver says the work needs renewing.

Sabbat. A gathering of witches at night is community and initiation. Being welcomed in is an invitation; being turned away at the edge of the fire means not yet.

Scales. In Egypt the heart of the dead was weighed against the feather of Ma’at before they could pass. A scale tipping your way in a dream suggests a court case or dispute moving in your favor. One tipping away suggests a debt, of some kind, still owed.

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

The Dream Oracle: Occult Dream Interpretation, Black Witch Coven

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