I’ve been interested in herbs for a long time, making my own tinctures and using them as medicine. Recently I started looking into herbs that encouraged dreaming, being particularly interested in dreams as source material for paintings. Here are a few that are supposed to work well, please be sure to check that you do your own research before using any of them – know your herbs so that you don’t poison yourself!
Datura – these are the white flowers that grow in roadside ditches. Pick a few flowers and bring them into your room when you sleep. DO NOT EAT THEM OR MAKE A TEA FROM THEM unless you are prepared to be unconscious in a visionary trance for a day or two, or dead.
Brugmansia, the Angel Trumpet that grows nicely in Southern California has similar properties to Datura. Again, DO NOT INGEST this plant. Placing the flowers in your bedroom as you sleep is said to produce strong dreams.
A Nicotine patch on your skin at night will give you vivid dreams. Try a small piece of the patch first if you don’t smoke, or it will make you feel ill. Quite effective, gives potent dreams.
Fresh Valerian root will act as a tranquilizer and make you sleep. It smells like old socks. Grind the fresh whole root. Smelly but effective.
Calea Zacatechichi is supposed to give you divinatory dreams when drunk as a tea before bed. I haven’t tried this yet. It has a bitter and horrid taste.
Vitamin B is excellent for dreaming; I’ve had great success with this. Simply take a capsule before sleeping. I suspect that drinking milk with it stops it from working.
A good friend tells me that she sprinkles artemisia wormwood on her pillow before sleeping and shows up in other people’s dreams prophesying future events!Â
You’ve had it to drink in its liquid distillation as absinthe.
LOL!
Dude! That last one sounds kind of intense! I might want to take it slow if I try to intensify or even encourage some dreaming.