All posts by jewel

Julie Loar is the multiple award-winning author of six books and dozens of articles. Her work has been translated into several languages. She teaches workshops on the sacred feminine, dreams, symbols and mythology. Each year she leads a tour to Egypt.
dreams, guidance, Perspective, symbols

Waking Dreams: Reading the Signs With Eyes Wide Open


“Hope is a Waking Dream.”   Aristotle

When someone says they are daydreaming the usual connotation is they are lost in idle fantasy, or worse in the view of our modern world, wasting time. A daydream is described as a voluntary, or semi-conscious, imaginative fantasy or vision while awake. I think the criticism is unfair as many have reported receiving powerful creative inspiration this way.

By contrast, what psychologists call a waking dream is considered to be quite different from a daydream. A waking dream is described as a sudden sensory experience that happens while awake. Waking dreams are similar to sleeping dreams in that they penetrate ordinary reality due to REM (Rapid Eye Movements) sleep activation. Waking dreams can be so vivid that they can be briefly mistaken for “reality.” I would argue instead that such states are a heightened sense of reality.

To me the deeper question is the true nature of reality that physics and metaphysics explores. Some say that life is but a dream–one where we sleep and one where we sleepwalk. When we are not sleeping our brain waves are primarily in the beta range and our focus is on the outer world. When we sleep and dream our brain waves slow to alpha and theta and our focus becomes internal and more receptive to higher guidance, which is why cultures across time have valued the guidance in dreams.

Native Peoples

Indigenous cultures view dreams and waking dreams as sacred, literal extensions of reality that provide guidance, healing, and connection to ancestral or spiritual realms. Indigenous perspectives consider waking dreams to be not only symbolic but  real experiences. Waking dreams can be a way to access realities that are usually inaccessible while awake.

Australian Aboriginal Dreaming, or Dreamtime, represents a complex, continuous reality that links past, present, and future through stories, art, and ceremony. When attuned this way, waking (and sleeping) dreams act as conduits to the spirit world. Modern Indigenous perspectives also emphasize reclaiming these traditions from colonial perspectives that often labeled them primitive or superstitious.

Enhanced Guidance

What if rather than being unusual, some of our most powerful and important guidance could come from waking dreams? I believe if we watch for the symbols and learn to interpret them, we can gain valuable insight. Instead of what might appear as a meaningless distraction or a mere fairy tale, we might receive guidance to solve current problems. This adds a powerful component to our nighttime dream messages. Inviting and expecting waking dreams adds richness to daily life. You might ask for a waking dream to get more guidance from a powerful sleeping dream you had that morning.

Examples of Waking Dreams

  • You stop behind car and the license plate is a word with a strong message
  • Your eyes are drawn to a clock and the time is 11:11 or 4:44
  • Suddenly a rainbow appears in the sky
  • A feather appears in your path, or you see an animal with meaning
  • You hear lyrics to a song or notice a billboard that speaks to you

As described in my dream books, (Symbol & Synchronicity and Tarot & Dream Interpretation), having a dreamwork practice opens a communication channel with your higher guidance. This counsel comes from the level of your Soul and is tailored just for you. The effort of learning to decode the symbolism pays valuable dividends.

Seven Steps

Both books can be used with a waking dream in the same way as sleeping dream. The Seven Steps in Dreamwork©process takes a waking dream to a deeper level. Give your waking dream a title and think of an image that captures the central theme. Examine what’s happening in your life right now and how the experience of a waking dream is offering guidance about current conditions or a long term pattern of behavior.

Guidance is available 24/7 when we learn to notice the messages that are woven through ordinary life. Invite these moments of magic and meaning to illuminate your path.

Astrology, Astronomy, Divine Feminine, General, Uncategorized

April Fools

Photo by Mona Miri
The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.
 ~Will Rogers~

The origin of April Fools is cloudy, like the weather for the month, but the most commonly accepted premise is the problem lies with Pope Gregory XIII and the calendar. The Gregorian calendar is the most widely used calendar around the world. This method of timekeeping was named after Pope Gregory XIII, who introduced it in October of 1582. And like the “spring forward” aspect of Daylight Savings Time, eleven days were lost forever in the transition. When you went to bed on September 2, 1752 you woke up on September 14. That would have been a bad time to plan a vacation.

Although the Gregorian calendar is named after Pope Gregory XIII, it is an adaptation of a calendar designed by Italian doctor, astronomer, and philosopher Luigi Lilio (also known as Aloysius Lilius). He was born around 1510 and died in 1576, six years before his calendar was officially introduced. The Gregorian calendar’s predecessor, the Julian, was replaced because it no longer reflected the actual time it takes the Earth to circle once around the Sun, known as a tropical year. The new calendar was also intended to adjust the date of Easter as the preceding calendar of Julius Caesar had caused Easter to slip from its proximity to March equinox. This is still an issue today as various lunar calendars cause Easter to be celebrated differently with traditional Christians and their Orthodox cousins.

Gregory’s papal bull only had authority in Catholic nations, and European Protestants resisted the change because of its ties to the papacy. Two hundred years passed before most places let go of the Julian calendar, and some locations held out even longer. In the Middle Ages, New Year’s Day was celebrated on March 25 as Lady Day, a feast of the Virgin Mary, until 1752. In some areas of France, New Year’s was a week-long holiday that ended on April 1.

And that brings us to April Fools. Caesar’s calendar reform of 46 BCE made January 1 the beginning of the New Year. It’s speculated that those who clung to the old ways were mocked by those who celebrated on January 1. Those who were called April Fools were country folk who resisted the change. It’s speculated that jokes and hoaxes became ways of tricking those who were seen as old-fashioned, or worse.

Happy April 1, wherever that may actually be in any calendar.