Waking up from my slumber my Lolo use to keep me at ease in the turning of the mornings. He would say in song, Ag murmuray kapay. Murmuray- Ilokano (pronounced: moor-moor-rye) It’s difficult to give a straightforward translation for this. You could describe this moment as the time before you get up from bed. There is a mindfulness suggested around this time in which there is an importance in respecting the sleeping and waking phase, being gentle with your energy before you face the morning and letting yourself be a bit more still. In other words, give yourself a moment to remember your dreams and ease into the “waking up” phase.

I’d love to share my family’s dreaming practice. How every morning my Lolo would remind me to “murmuray”- how this practice kept me in good flow between the “waking” and “dreaming” dimensions and how often we looked to our dreams for the appropriate signs and visits we needed to guide and help us in this “waking reality”. If I tried to get up from my bed right away, he would gently put my blanket back on top of me and tell me to take my time and even go back to bed if I needed to, to help me remember my dreams.

I’ve done a lot of intentional dream work in my life. I want to especially note the Toltec tradition in helping me to expand and focus this practice. It is one of the most intimate spaces for my spiritual development and the expansion of my consciousness. In many ways, I would be lost without my dreams and it has definitely been one of my primary ways to connect with the ancestral world, my grander self and many many other worlds. It is a portal of many portals and it is also a sacred and specific practice which I encourage everyone to come into: the practice of lucidity.

My family’s dreaming practice is what I would call a pre-colonial practice. Between the influences of Catholicism and modernism, it’s the one apparent spiritual practice we could share from without clashing in our politics or life experiences. Our group family text threads are usually filled with, Lolo was in my dream last night— this is usually a positive sign for us as my Lolo represented a sweetness and earnestness that everyone missed. At family gatherings, it’s the same, after all the political discussions and tsimis we would move into our dreams, I saw your mom in my dreams last night…

I love my family’s matter-of-fact sharing about their dreams. It’s the one place where sovereignty of our wholeness has been kept. It’s the one place where we all feel good to share from and don’t feel judged by each other.

Lucidity for me is a mastering of the dreaming practice. The first step is to first see your dreams as a “practice.” After all, all of it is a hologram– and the grander scheme of it all is that even the waking phase is a hologram. My elder, Arkan Lushwala always reminds us when we are going through a phase of “stuckness” in life, If you think of this (situation) as a dream, what would you do? (how could you control it?). In other words, how can you move through your life, your situations more lucidly so you can dream OR manifest reality in such a way that works in your favor. Seeing things as a dream creates a fluidity and helps us to take back the freedom within our imagination. And there is no imagination without freedom and sovereignty. If you lose the inherent freedom and sovereignty within the dreaming practice then that would be considered a nightmare (or a daymare)- which I’ll leave for another time.

DREAM WELL. SLEEP WELL and let yourself “murmuray”- take your time in the morning to wake up. This gives your spirit time to transition from the dreaming back into the waking phase. Many times when you are awakened by an alarm or some other startling ways, parts of your spirit can get fragmented. This “alarmed state “also is one of the reasons why we forget our dreams right away. So let yourself rise with ease. Protect your spirit as it aligns back with your body in the morning (or when you wake up.)

Four ways to help you align, sleep, dream and remember your dreams better:

• Do not eat too late at night. In Mexica and Toltec traditions the stomach is the dreaming body which switches with your head at night. Eating late also induces what we call “bangugut” which at times causes nightmares and sleep paralysis.
• In continuing with your digestion. If there is a lot of waste kept in your large intestine/colon, it may be necessary for you to do a cleanse. This is also one of the main reasons why many people cannot sleep- their digestion is either needing a cleansing/clearing in which it is too slow or it is over-active in which it is too fast.
• If you can, wake up “naturally”. If you need to use an alarm, try to use a ring that doesn’t startle you too much or give you a “rude awakening”- pun intended.
• Continue to practice good sleep hygiene. Most especially do not keep any technological devices on your bed or even in your sleeping quarters. You are most naturally open (psychically/energetically) when you are asleep. Whatever is around you, can influence your sleep and the way you dream.

Look to your dreams,

angel(a)