Minutes of the August Oneironauticum, by Jennifer
In attendance at the August 16 Oneironauticum were dreamers Vibrata Chromodoris, David Shamanik, lissa ivy tiegel, Geneva Bumb Shanti, Christine Benvenuto, and yours truly, Jennifer Dumpert.
During the evening, before sleeping, we discussed dream states, as we so often do. Thanks to Jeff Warren’s excellent book Head Trip, I’ve recently been introduced to mind state called Hypnopompia, the mirror twin of hypnagogia. I thought the two were the same state, both hypnagogic states bookending either end of sleep. But in fact, where hynpagogia refers to the onset of sleep, when we drift through phases of dream imagery (see my previous post, hypnagogic bliss), hypnopompia refers to the first stage of waking, when our recently dreaming minds try to make sense of reality. Probably my favorite state of being, hypopompia—for those of us who experience it strongly—feels a little bit like the confusion of being born again every day.
For the evening’s oneirogen, we enjoyed leftovers. We began with the calea zacatechichi liqueur Dale Pendell made for the Oneironauticum held during a weekend retreat at the Ojai Foundation called Visionary Practice: Ritual and Reshaping Consciousness, led by Erik Davis, Dale and Laura Pendell, David Presti, and yours truly. The Each dreamer started out with a small glass, and then, well, it was so yummy that we all had another. In the end, we drank the bottle (in fairness, it was a small bottle). Then we went to bed. At 5:00 a.m., we woke and each took 4mg galantamine, an extract of Lycoris radiata (Red Spider Lily).
Our experiences with each substance accorded with those in past Oneironautica. The calea zacatechichi caused most of us to dream of each other, or to feel as if we or someone else in the group had woken up and was moving around the room. The calea evoked emotional responses. Once we took the Galantamine, however, our dreams became more vivid, very detailed and clear, mentally sharp.
If you’re interested in reading past posts about these oneirogens, see the Galantamine archive, the June Oneironauticum road show invite, the minutes, and my account.