Subpulvinar or Under-the-Pillow Magic

 While researching the history of dream magic, I discovered what may be the most ancient and consistently used magical method for influencing dreams, which is the use of under-the-pillow or what I call Subpulvinar magic. From the earliest recorded oneiromantic spells found in the Iškar Zaqīqu or Assyrian Dream Book and the Graeco-Egyptian spell collection of the Papyri Graecae Magicae, the act of ritually placing objects under your pillow to influence the content of dreams became a staple of medieval and Renaissance grimoire oneiriomancy as well as folk magic love charms, and is even now recommended in a watered down form by modern, New Age dreamwork authors, who often suggest placing herbal sachets under the pillow to aid in sleep.

Despite this extensive history, under-the-pillow magic has remained relatively obscure, not often discussed by more serious occult texts on dreams and without even enough critical attention to be given a name. And yet it was so well known that in the post-Hellenic and Roman era, Pliny the Elder in his Natural History when describing medicinal magic recommends placing various herbs “sub pulvino” as curatives (as well as a whetstone to reveal a poisoner). In Rome, a pulvinar was the pillow or cushion placed in a temple that was reserved for a god to sit on, and as such, the term ‘subpulvinar’ best evokes the magical aspect of under-the-pillow spell-craft, and is the term I use for this technique of oneiromancy. A good psychological explanation for how subpulvinar magic works is that by placing an item under your pillow or bed that symbolically represents the intent of your dream, your unconscious associates that item with sleeping.

Subpulvinar magic is an excellent method for incubating dreams, and offers a more concrete version of repeating a dream intention before falling asleep by writing the dream you want to have or question you want answered on a paper placed under your pillow. This form of subpulvinar magic was used in medieval Jewish dream magic, as in the Sepher Raziel, in which you place a ‘dream-question’ or she-elat chalom on a parchment placed beneath the pillow. Likewise the Folger Library Book of Magic recommends writing Greek names and words on parchment placed under the pillow, similar to the subpulvinar use of mantras or other nomina magica found in the Papyri Graecae Magicae, where strings of magical words can be placed under the pillow inscribed on a strip of tin to request a dream oracle.

From Grimorium Verum, to see in a vision whatever is desired

Subpulvinar magic can also be used in place of incubatory visualization, by drawing a picture of the desired dream under the pillow, which is found in many medieval and Renaissance grimoires. Agrippa in the Three Books of Occult Philosophy, for instance, describes placing an “image of dreams” under your head that depicts “the figure of a man sleeping in the bosom of an angel,” while the Operation of Love by Her Dreams in the Key of Solomon, requires sleeping with an image of the woman who you want to dream of you under your pillow. Dream incubation spells in both the Grimorium Verum and The Book of the Images of the Twelve Hours of the Night require writing or engraving a figure or seal that includes various angelic placed under the pillow, and Paracelsus also discusses the practice of writing characters, names and words written in blood on virgin parchment placed under the bed or pillow, as well as in the Archidoxes magia placing the Sigil of Mercury under your pillow to see everything you want to see in dreams. The Icelandic Galdrabók uses subpulvinar wands and wood carved with runic sigils for the purposes of dream incubation, dream sending, and to discover a thief, particularly the svefnthorn or sleep-thorn, a rune used in Old Norse myths to put people to sleep.

Svefnthorns from the Galdrabók

Even more powerful than a written or drawn intention is to place an object, fetish, or talisman under the pillow that represents or resonates with the desired dream, a method found in old European folklore, often to find the name of one’s true love. For instance, in Essex, an encharmed sod of earth placed beneath the pillow foretells true love along with symbolic dreams. Paracelsus likewise discusses how during the Renaissance, maids would put their belts, hairbands, bows, and the like under their pillows to make journeymen fall in love with them. Some contemporary dream magic books such as Sirona Knight’s Dream Magic are entirely filled with modern variations on subpulvinar love spells, in which you place crystals, rose petals, and other objects under or inside your pillow in order to incubate dreams and meet a lover. Other cultures have used subpulvinar objects for the purpose of healing, such as the Iroquois, where medicine man would place an herb or an object such as clothing belonging to their client under their pillow to determine their ailment. Several of the subpulvinar spells discussed by Pliny the Elder incubate healing dreams through placing the ashes of a weasel, twigs from a kite’s nest, or a spotted lizard in a box underneath the patient’s pillow. The oldest subpulvinar spell for dream incubation comes from the Iškar Zaqīqu, KAR 252, which, although the lines recording the praxis for the ritual are broken, indicates reciting a prayer for the dream god Mamu to an object that is then placed at the head of the bed. The most outré subpulvinar incubation spell comes from the Salomonic Magical Arts, where you place “three turkey feathers and a cross inside a bird's beak which has been cut off, and put it under your pillow together with a raven's heart.”
    
My own personal experimentation with subpulvinar magic has been to adapt it to the magical approach to dreams as an objective reality. This came about when I first read James Hillman’s The Dream and the Underworld, with its titular comparison of dreams to the underworld, alongside Géza Róheim’s The Gates of the Dream, which specifically discusses the cultural practices of burying coins with the dead, or other objects such as candles or strips of cloth, which act as “bridges” to carry the soul between worlds. This led me to place objects under my pillow in order to carry them into the dream, the way the dead carry what is buried with them into the afterlife. Eventually I assembled a whole tool-kit of objects to sleep with under my pillow in order to make use of in dreams, including coins, a key, string for rope, a small book, a small mirror, etc. You can also include small figurines to represent guardian spirits, totem animals, or other beings to bring into the dream with you. The amount of things you can place under your pillow is only limited by your ability to focus your intention on them, and by how lumpy you want your bed.