My fiance is constantly having nightmares about fighting demons and monsters. He wakes up all over the room and house. He is a sleepwalker who regularly dreams about white snakes biting him and spiders on the ceiling, but under stress, he fights all kinds of evil beings. Should I be worried? What can we do to help him? Thanks!
- Susie
Dreamchaser:
You absolutely should NOT be worried about your fiance.
There are a couple of things going on here. The first and most obvious is that he keeps a lot of stress locked up inside of him during his normal waking hours, and when he sleeps, he works through all that stress. This is actually very healthy in terms of his mental, emotional and spiritual well-being.
Another thing happening here relates to his past lives. He is not only remembering them - he is re-living them in his dreams. The "monsters" and "demons" are really memories of skirmishes from past lives when he was a warrior, knight, soldier, etc. When he gets stressed, he re-visits those lives in his dreams. As he fights and relives those battles, he releases a lot of stress.
In Asian mythology, white snakes were considered lucky. He has had a number of past lives in China and Japan, and on a soul level, he still has these associations with white snakes. It's likely that the white snakes around him in these dreams are protecting him and bringing him luck. The snakes are teaching him to use his creative powers, to explore some mysteries in life, and to travel between the two worlds (waking and sleeping), amongst other things.
The spiders are allowing him to balance his masculine and feminine energy while he is sleeping. Spiders teach us how to use our feminine energy as a creative force. Since he is such a "manly man," he doesn't allow his feminine side to come out often. The spiders are also bringing him divine inspiration; he wakes up with a lot more soul knowledge than when he went to sleep.
I imagine it is really scary to sleep next to someone who has crazy dreams, acts them out and sleepwalks. I am like your fiancÈ. I am the one who sleepwalks and acts out in my sleep. I know I freak out everyone around me. I work through a lot of stuff in my dreams, so I know your man is doing the same.
Please reassure him that he is normal and that he does not have some type of psychological issue. He is just buttoned up so tight in his waking hours that he does not allow much spiritual knowledge to enter his consciousness while awake, so Spirit teaches him when he's dreaming.
He is NOT crazy and has nothing to fear. I bet that he feels better when he wakes up in the morning after one of these dreams, or at least better than he does after nights when he doesn't seem to dream at all.
I wish you both peaceful nights.
*****
Astrea:
The word "mare" is Old English for "demon." In the old days, people believed that troubled sleep was caused by a demon who rode you like a horse while you were asleep. The terrible things you dreamed were the experiences from that ride.
Is your fiance a Libra? They seem to be plagued more than the rest of us with those kinds of night terrors.
There are lots of good remedies for this kind of thing. Here are a few:
One of the easiest ways to protect your fiance from nightmares is to have him find a shell or a stone with a hole through the center. This is a natural holy (holey?) stone. Thread a red string through the hole and hang it on your bed.
Say this together, out loud: "We lay us here to sleep. No nightmares shall plague me until they swim the waters that flow upon the earth and count all the stars that appear in the firmament!"
Another is to have your fiance place his shoes under the bed on the south side, one facing one way, one facing the other. This will keep monsters from "entering" his dreams, because the directions of the shoes confuse them. It will also cut down on the sleepwalking, because if he tries to get up, his feet won't know which direction to take.
For more protection, take three nine-yard pieces of blue yarn. Have him braid the yarn and say at each plait: "Triple headed hag, protect me from phantasmagorical harm. MARES! Ride and scare ELSEWHERE!"
Then place a twig of rosemary and seven dried chamomile flowers in a little pouch. Wrap your yarn around the top of the pouch. (It'll be a big lump when you're done). Refresh once a month, and replace the contents of the pouch.
The oldest and the stinkiest remedy (and sometimes these work best) is to take an onion and cut it in half. Release it and pick up the side that lands cut side up. Pull your bed away from the wall and walk clockwise around your bed, stopping at each corner.
Hold the cut onion over the corner with the cut side facing up. You might also wrap the bottom of the onion in Saran Wrap and let it come up the sides, so it's still stinky but doesn't drip on your bed or your floor. Then at each corner say, "Dragon North, Dragon South, Dragon East, Dragon West, Sweet Dreams on the Dragon's Breast!" When you finish, go to the center of the head of the bed and inscribe a cross with a circle around it.
I hope these easy rituals help you BOTH get more restful sleep. GOOD LUCK!