Damiana Experience & Dream

I've been growing my apothecary for quite some time now. I originally did this for mostly experimenting with incense blends, however, I've sort of been a bit surprised to find how people are using various substances. I too am surprised how damned little information there is on these herbs. Every where I go to look, "there is not enough evidence...", "no studies...".

I decided to make a bit of tea with some Damiana. I am bad with dosage. I just filled both sides of the tea-ball up. I drank this while I was reading The Bornless Ritual. After much comparing, I decided I really like Alex Sumner's version. I was really struck with the beauty of it. After this I laid down and went to sleep. I didn't think I was feeling any affect of the tea at all. I had quite forgotten about it. As I lay on my back, I began to pray. I felt a nearness to God. I felt a warmness washing over me. 

A short digression: I've come to realize that many people do not know how to pray. They may have memorized something liturgical, or the Lord's Prayer or some such, and have no idea what to do if the memorization fails them. This is absurd to me, as I grew up Pentecostal.

So, I was laying there in the dark, feeling close to God, feeling bathed in warmth, being thankful, praying for people I knew, and then I finally realized that this state of being I was in was chemically induced. This was the damiana. I didn't expect anything like this at all. I momentarily began to panic. At that moment, I would sort of describe it as the warm groggy haze that NyQuil gives you - but not as unnatural. Once I came to adapt to the fact I was altered a bit due to the herb, I proceeded to continue praying, asking God to not withdraw from me. Now, this is the problem I had with Pentecostalism in the first place - your spirituality is based on and out of emotionalism. Whatever. Logicians become so out from emotional need to do so. Paradox.

I fall asleep peacefully. 

I dream.

My dad has brought me somewhere. We are in another town. We go into this place, and there are people around. Steve (my old friend and band-mate which I haven't seen or spoken to in years, though he is a common dream visitor, likely representing some part of my unconscious) is there. So too is this young attractive girl. I know that Steve is interested in the girl, or there with her. He looks very arrogant. Yet this young girl and I spark a conversation and are genuinely interested in each other. My dad is sort of in the background. Not interfering. Just there.

This girl and I talk about Christian theology. It's really fuzzy now - I need to write these things down as soon as I wake up, instead of waiting til I go to bed again. I believe I remember saying Hank Hanegraaff. Hank is one of few Christian teachers I respect. Someone told me that a neighbor of Anton LaVey said that LaVey began listening to the Bible Answer Man Show before he died. I didn't tell the girl in the dream that - I'm telling you. Like I said, it's really fuzzy now, but we were finding we had a like-understanding of Christian theology. She was eager to learn, and I was eager to recommend authors. Part of my consciousness was wary of Steve, who was sitting nearby, looking dour. Suddenly his face changed. As if it was a hologram on the blink. What was actually there was something that looked like Cobra-Commander's chrome-faced visor. I couldn't tell if it was reflective or what - it was very bright. I thought that very strange.

My dad and I left. Dad had his motorcycle. Now in real life, my dad sold his Harley right before his death. He had had a motorcycle when I was little, and he took me for a few rides. I was absolutely terrified, and haven't been on one since I was probably under the age of 10. But in this dream, I climbed on the back of it, and my dad took off down the road. I began to become fearful. I had to yell over the sound of the engine - I told dad to not take the interstate. He agreed. I was afraid of going that fast. I began to feel like I was leaning to the right, and I couldn't straighten up. I felt like I was falling off. I yelled for my dad to pull over, and as he began to, I woke up. I woke up laying on my right side, sort of with the same feeling I had in my dream - it was produced from me laying on my side.

This is I believe the third pretty important dream I've had of my dad since he died and since my work with Black Hawk specifically for ancestor stuff. My initial hope was that he's working on the other side to hook me up with a wife. As I think about it now, damiana corresponds to Venus. It's traditionally used as an aphrodisiac, commonly drank by women in Mexico before intimacy, as well as used in magickal love work. It is said to be able to treat depression, and it is said to be able to cause erotic dreams. The dream character Steve - I don't think he was this girl's love interest, but he seemed and acted more like her guardian. Very interesting.







 UPDATE:

I had another cup of daimian tea last night. I got pretty sleepy, as with a mild dose of NyQuil. I had 2 offertory candles lit. Sometimes I wake up when they go out. I was having this horrible dream about some short little ugly person. I can't even remember exactly what they looked like. We both had scalpels. We were fighting with them. I was trying to kill this damned thing. I stabbed it in the jugular, in the sides, all over everywhere. It was a bloody mess. It was down on the floor, and I was trying to stab it in the heart, but I kept hitting the sternum. I've always hated thinking about stabbing someone, because the idea of hitting ribs or bones gives me that feeling of nails on a chalk-board. I finally just dropped the scalpel on the little horrible creature and walked off to a door. As I was about to go threw the door, the horrible little thing picked my scalpel up and said, "Wait til you see what I do with this."

I woke up. I could smell that my candles had just gone out. I had goosebumps all over me and I felt like something was present in the room. It pissed me off how afraid I felt, because in the dream I was just grossed out. I said "In the name of Jesus", and I actually had trouble saying this because my voice was quivering - as it has before when I entered cold water and began hyperventilating - you can't really talk. After that feeling faded, I could feel the groggy-headiness, again, very much like a mild dose of NyQuil. This was sort of annoying.

So, my second time with damiana was not that pleasant. Like all chemicals, from coffee to cannabis to sugar, I think damiana is a tool. Only with much experience and experimenting will we find it is useful. It certainly had 2 interesting dream effects on me. For now though - I'm going back to Valerian and chamomile for a night-time tea.