Dream Catcher Lore

Native Americans believe that the night air is filled with dreams both good and bad. The dream catcher when hung over or near your bed swinging freely in the air catches the dreams as they flow by. The good dreams know how to pass through the dream catcher, slipping through the outer holes and slide down the soft feathers so gently that many times the sleeper does not know that he/she is dreaming. The bad dreams not knowing the way get tangled in the dream catcher and perish with the first light of the new day. 

When I place my child to bed each night, you will hear me saying “sweet dreams”.  I believe it’s our hope as parents that our child go to sleep and have wonderful dreams and will rise feeling rested.  This last week my son came to me complaining he’s having nightmares and doesn’t want to sleep in his room; naturally I wanted to turn him back and say try again but I couldn’t go to bed knowing he was having bad dreams so I decided I would sleep in there and to my surprise I too had a nightmare.  It was Eric himself who asked me to get him a dream catcher.  Naturally that would be a good addition to his room since his decoration is Native American and I indeed bought him a large dream catcher at a Cherokee Pow Wow this summer and loved meeting the artist who made the design and in the middle she painted a Eagle. 

I should have placed a dream catcher in his room when we moved in to the home.  Dream catchers are in his brother’s rooms and we even have one in the car because we take long trips I wanted to ensure their rest was filled with peaceful dreams.  I loved sleeping in the car when taking long trips and it just seemed natural to have one with us when we take long trips.  I was fortunate to get mine as a gift from a friend who is a Maliseet Indian.

 If your planning on adding a dream catcher to your bedroom you may want to perform the sage ceremony:  Before use, the dream-catcher is often cleansed in a ceremony of purification by passing it through the smoke of smoldering sage–the  sage ceremony.  Sometimes, if the dream-catcher is not in a well-lit room, it becomes overloaded with energies that need to be cleared. 

When I look at our dream catchers I can see the love that went into each weave and feel honored to have these beautiful items in our home.   When you need a special gift for your child or anyone you care about consider purchasing a dream catcher and include the history from the tribe.  Each tribe I found has its own unique legend of the dream catcher.

www.aaanativearts.com has a beautiful legend about the dream catcher that I would like to share:   

ORAL TRADITION: Ojibway legend

“A spider was quietly spinning his web in his own space. It was beside the sleeping space of Nokomis, the grandmother. Each day, Nokomis watched the spider at work, quietly spinning away. One day as she was watching him, her grandson came in. “Nokomis-iya!” he shouted, glancing at the spider. He stomped over to the spider, picked up a shoe and went to hit it.

“No-keegwa,” the old lady whispered, “don’t hurt him.”  “Nokomis, why do you protect the spider?” asked the little boy. 

The old lady smiled, but did not answer. When the boy left, the spider went to the old woman and thanked her for saving his life.

He said to her, “For many days you have watched me spin and weave my web. You have admired my work. In return for saving my life, I will give you a gift.” He smiled his special spider smile and moved away, spinning as he went.

Soon the moon glistened on a magical silvery web moving gently in the window. “See how I spin?” he said. “See and learn, for each web will snare bad dreams. Only good dreams will go through the small hole. This is my gift to you. Use it so that only good dreams will be remembered. The bad dreams will become hopelessly entangled in the web.”

Please share your story about your dream catchers with me.