File:How to Dream Like a Pagan - History Documentary

Ancient Irish, Welsh and Scottish Celts, Vikings, Greeks, Vedic Hindus and Anglo-Saxons all had secret techniques to get clairvoyant dreams (See the Future) with psychic visions from communicating with the spirits of the dead or with the gods. Very often the skills for receiving such prophetic dream visions were associated with an elite spiritual caste who were also the poets called bards, skalds, scops etc Such dreams could give them poetic inspiration from the spirits of dead poets. The ancient secrets of Celts and Vikings were also related to shamanic practices in which shamans deliberately evoke visions through various techniques such as sleeping on the skin of an animal.

The video specifically looks at an irish rite known as Imbas forosnai performed by elite seer poets known as Filíd, also the tairbfheis, a rite to determine the High king at the Hill of Tara. In Wales there were the awenyddion and in Scotland they had a pagan rite of prophecy called Taghairm. I also look at several Anglo-Saxon and Norse Icelandic saga sources discussing Ulfhednar, Hammramr, Elves, haunted barrows and seers and compare them with the dreams described by Homer and Pausanias in Ancient Greece.

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Music in order: Braindead collective - thumb piano shuffle Baxter Jones - in dreams Chris Zabriskie - what does anybody know about anything Borg - Death of Winter Bark Sound Production - Eld Stark von Oben - Pan Myling - Dödskult Xurious - steppe expansion Stark von Oben - Daijal Kevin MacLeod - Moorland Torulf - Freja Borg - The Choosing Ceremony Ormgard - Sjálfsforn Borg - The May Queen enters the Circle Kevin MacLeod - Dhaka Gvashnahr - Through the astral void Vanguard - A Brighter Dawn

Art by Christian Sloan Hall and Veli Nyström

Sources:

Chadwick, N., ‘Dreams in Early European Literature’, in: Carney, James, and David Greene (eds), Celtic studies: essays in memory of Angus Matheson 1912–1962, London: Routledge, 1968. 33–50.

Martin Martin A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland (1703)

O Rahilly, T. F., ‘Early irish history and mythology’ (Dublin 1946)

Ramos, Eduardo, ‘The Dreams of a Bear: Animal Traditions in the Old Norse-Icelandic Context’ (2014) https://www.academia.edu/8461445/The_Dreams_of_a_Bear_Animal_Traditions_in_the_Old_Norse-Icelandic_Context

Tendulkar, S. and Dwivedi, R., “Swapna’ in the Indian classics: Mythology or science?” (2010) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3215360/

Vaschide and H. Piéron, ‘PROPHETIC DREAMS IN GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITY’ (Oxford : 1901) https://archive.org/stream/jstor-27899218/27899218_djvu.txt

The Wooing of Emer by Cú Chulainn (Author: [unknown]), p.303 (paragraph 78.) https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T301021/note038.html

00:00 Intro dream sequence 02:29 St. Martin of Tours' vision on the tomb 05:24 Gender and dream visions 07:38 Norse seers 09:51 Celtic seers and barrows 13:19 Norse barrow visions 15:53 Anglo-Saxon barrow beliefs 18:08 Sleeping on skins in Scotland 20:02 Sleeping on skins Ancient Greece 21:01 Indian dreams 22:59 Ancient Greek prophetic dreams 24:40 Ending