visions and possession: dream experience by Jennifer
The Women’s Visionary Congress Oneironauticum is perhaps the strongest experience I’ve had yet with Calea zacatechichi. That’s saying a lot. The night was extremely cold. Curled shivering in the pullout bed of my beloved VW Westfalia Baby, I drifted into a particularly clear state of hynagogia and had a beautiful dream vision.
I saw a tree growing very slowly. It started out small and spindly, and then began to widen and extend out. The trunk thickened and branches spread out, and up, slowly but steadily until it had become a huge, great, venerable tree. Then a series of images passed before me, a bird’s eye view of different grand old trees. I saw an enormous chestnut tree, the image so clear I could discern the shadows of fluttering leaves against the sun dappled trunk. A giant redwood followed, towering and majestic, then a dense, ancient pine. Each of these trees, and several others, stood powerful and time worn.
Later in the night, I thought I had woken. I looked down at the foot of the bed where two gorgeous Asian women sat talking to each other. Though I could see them clearly, noting the fine curves of slender faces and their delicate features, I couldn’t hear what they were saying.
Still later, I moved suddenly from what felt like a deep sleep, starting upright from where I lay on my side, hissing with my hands held like claws. I had been possessed by the spirit of a cat. It passed through me in a moment, gone before I could even consider it. Rather surprising.
Finally, some time around dawn, cuddled down into what had become a deliciously toasty cocoon of blankets and sound asleep, again, I felt a chill wind pass through me. Now, I’m from Buffalo, and I know the feeling of a gust so cold you can feel it in your bones. It was so frigid it woke me straight up, where I discovered myself warm and cozy.