Obsidian and Visionary Lucid dreaming

This is when I really got it, that material objects have a soulful side.

In the middle of the afternoon some time ago, I laid down on the futon in my office and fell into a light sleep.

I then try to get up, and realize I am in paralysis. I roll off the couch, separating from my phenomenal body, and entering a lucid dream state. I find myself standing in an accurately portrayed version of the room, but my vision is cloudy. My eyes hurt too—deep in my ocular cavities. I look down and I am now holding a large triangular wedge of obsidian, or dark volcanic glass. Without thinking, I push the sharp obsidian edge into my eye area. It’s like inserting an old school Nintendo cartridge into the game player—there’s a perceived *click* when the obsidian is in place. The pain in my eyes stop and now I can see clearly, and feel that I am more fully here. I then flip my body backwards onto itself and the dreambody cancels itself out where it intersects, until I am bodiless in a dark spacious void…

Upon awakening, I was struck by how the obsidian spontaneously showed up. I then realize I actually have several pieces of obsidian in the room; they were in a bowl that I had placed in one of the corners of the room months ago when we had moved into the house. I hadn’t thought of them since.

I had long ago picked up the obsidian from a natural source in California, and had been used it for stone tool making. While I knew about obsidian’s reputation in some circles for absorbing negative energy, and have at times placed obsidian in a room purposefully, I have never used it ritualistically.

And I had never before connected obsidian and sleep paralysis/ lucid dreaming.

Aha, I think: the obsidian reveals itself as a true liminal object, traversing both the waking and dreamworld versions of my office. Spontaneously, at that. And, interestingly enough, the obsidian takes on a healing role, clarifying my vision and allowing me to move to the next arena in the dream without fear.

And that’s what we want to see: liminal objects that have a natural presence in both worlds.

Obsidian is a true amulet, in the way that French ethnologist and historian of magic Dominique Camus defined the concept — as a magical object that brings protection by virtue of its innate powers (ie, as the substance itself, not by ritual enchantment after the fact).

Protector, healer, clear vision bringer.

It turns out, that obsidian has long been used as a protector and guide. In the 3rd millennia BCE in Mesopotamia, obsidian amulets were used to protect against the demon Lamastu - a nasty creature blamed for crib death and nightmares (making it a parallel entity to Lilith, and a tradition probably intertwined with sleep paralysis). In ancient Egypt, obsidian amulets, such as the so-called “two finger amulets,” were sometimes found in coffins to assist the deceased make it up the ladder of Ra to the sky realm. In medieval hermetic circles, obsidian was considered Saturnine, and from an alchemical perspective, had the healing properties of coolness and dryness for treating melancholy and depression.

The way that the obsidian showed up in my dream, unbidden and without ritual intent, and in a healing a protective role, showcases how it is the stone’s natural eminence that brought those powers.

To be sure: as I’ve said before, I’m not necessarily saying that that liminal objects like dream amulets are inherently magical, protective and healing. You cannot prove or disprove this line of reasoning in the waking world. Rather, I’m saying that we are probably neurologically primed to recognize objects with liminal properties, and that they are effective when applied in the correct states of consciousness.

It's good to be skeptical, but it turns out that ritual objects are shockingly effective, even if you have never tried incorporating ritual objects into your dream practice before. These practices are available even if you consider yourself secular but spiritual, and/or they can be incorporated into your faith tradition. (I say this as someone trained as a cognitive archaeologist... it took me years to really figure this out)

This is an example of what it means when I suggest that stones have interiority, a secret life. Materialism can be ensouled after all.

This article is adapted from my book Lucid Talisman, which is conveniently out of print.