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...is the name given to the school of magick in Unknown Armies whose practitioners gain magickal power by staying awake for extensive periods of time, which often helps them blur reality so much that it's easier for them to work magick.

What brings me to this is a little experience I had about an hour ago; I was sitting listening to the Mirrormask soundtrack, and I thought I'd have a go at speaking with my spirit guide, so I began to visualise... and before I knew it, I'd gone under and was dreaming. Folk warn us that it's easy to fall asleep while meditating... but is it good for anything? We do magick while we're awake. We have crazyass dreams that seem to tell us s**t while we're asleep. Now, what about that pocket of pseudoconsciousness between waking and sleeping? These moments could be an insomniac's day to day life, the time when you stay awake for over 24 hours, the moments when you're so tired you begin to doze off and (day?)dream experiences while still believing you're awake. Surely by being awake and being able to perform magick, coupled with the ability to have semi-vivid dreams, we'd be able to wreak some serious s**t?

One idea I had was to use a sigil while flitting between consciousness; I'd hold the sigil in my mind, and I'd doze off and there'd be a whacky dream sequence involving the sigil somehow. When I woke up for good, all was well, and I eventually got what I sigilised for. But is there anything else we can use the semisleep (or even the fully asleep) stage for? Can anyone scientifically clarify exactly what's happening during this stage of sleep (especially since I thought you had to be asleep several hours before you begin to dream)? Have you had any magickal experiences while staying awake for long periods of time, or flitting between the waking world and the land of Nod? Precisely what /is/ the land of Nod, anyway? Is it possible to make a whole magickal system based on sleep? Discuss sleep magick, and associated thingimies.

Forgive the odd stream-of-consciousness going on here. I'm tired.

sorry for the language, but HOLY S**T!
ive had simular thoughts from experiances ive had when i didnt sleep for periods of 15-48 hours. everything seems easier to do when im in that special state, so tehr emight be somehting to it. unless i jsut have retarded magick xd .

as far as the dreaming bit, the only dreams i remember are of events that occur maby a month after the said dream occurs, so realy i have no way of knowing what you mean.

Rocking? sweatdrop

When I was in bed... I can remember two distinct times that I felt "rocking" while I was laying there... aware that I wasn't actually moving.

The first time though... I got frightened and forced myself upright and the feeling rushed away.
A second time... I rode through it but nothing happened. sweatdrop

I've had the tilting thing, the rocking thing, and the spinning thing. Oh! And the falling thing. That ususally makes me jerk really bad. I blame that on my inner ear issues which have mostly gone away and now I only fall. o.O But that's realtively common so I don't much worry about it.

Sometimes, when I'm waking up slowly I hear voices. Like, a crowd of voices all around me and it's pretty loud but I can't understand a word anyone's saying. Like that general chatter you hear in malls, but can't catch just one conversation to hear. The more I wake up, the louder it gets. And when I hear it, I try and concentrate on it and that wakes me up and I loose it. However, back a couple of years ago I developed some severe fatigue issues and I was waking up one morning and it happened. So that time I just layed there and let it happen. And then it increased in volume. I finally started zeroing in a single conversation but it still sounded unrecognisable. I thought for a moment that it was another language, but I wasn't sure.

Bother my hands were above my head and they felt really numb all of a sudden, like they were loosing blood flow, so I figured I must be laying wrong. I went to move them, but I couldn't. I couldn't move any of me. I've heard of stuff like that happening but I'd never experienced it. I kinda paniced a little. I tried to calm down, ignore it and go back to the conversation. When I turned my focus back to the nearest(I guess that's a good way to put it) conversation I heard the last half of an interupted sentence. Female. I understood what she said at the time, but since I didn't hear the whole sentence I couldn't translate it exactly. Later I realized I didn't know what words she did say because they were modern English.

Well, when I was fully focused for that small amount of time, I was noticed. The person talking cut herself off because she suddenly knew I was there. Both her and who she was talking to took a pause and looked at me. Not that I could SEE anything, I was interpreting figures in my mind's eye (if that makes sense) but I knew they looked at me. And then she mentioned something about it to the other one, but by that time I was involuntarily being pulled back to conciousness. Everything fell off to a whisper and I woke up and listened to the last of it whisp away. I was happy, but frustrated at the same time. It was the furthest I've ever gotten with sleep stuffs (including astral projection and the like).

I have a friend who can dream walk. She just randomly pops in on people's dreams that she has a link to. Sometimes not a link... but that's still in debate considering who it was. Long story. Moving on.

My mother is a precog and does so by dreams. I got a bit of that, but my dreams are so screwed up it's like trying to devine the meaning out of an extreamly random interpretive dance. o.O

And I can't think of much else at the moment concerning dream magics. So, there's my contribution. domokun

((completely off subject and so silly: Do you like mah new hair? Init pretty? heart ))

That made me recall this...


"And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden."
~Genesis 4:16

I know that doesn't say anything about the actual place, and you could of gotten the term from that quote, but...ah, well.

I tend to get more writing done when I'm tired. More inspired, maybe, maybe not. I do believe, though, that the dream world is indeed a very fascinating place, and I often wonder about what it all means. It could definitely seem to be a magickal state, after all, in what you're describing you are leaving the unconscious dream-state [or whatever you'd like to call it] halfway functioning as well as remaining somewhat cognitive. Might post here again with more thoughts.

Rocking is common too. I've experienced it. Like you, I've rode these feelings to the best of my ability and couldn't get much to happen. sweatdrop

I had a dream about this last night. I think it included me being in a forest. I don't remember the dream...but I thought it strange that I should dream the very thing you are trying to accomplish.