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INFUSE
⊹ DREAM HERBS & SLEEP PLANTS ⊹

Dream: Plants for Dreaming and Sleep

Reopen the Dream Gates.

Calea, the Ubulawu family, the African dream bean, blue lotus: dream herbs and sleep plants, marvelous and still little known. They reopen the gates with great simplicity, often in a single evening, or a few.

SEE THE DREAM HERBS ↓
⊹ BEYOND THE GATES ⊹

The most untamable, the least swayable, the freest of territories.

A shared mystical land that we all explore, whatever our cultures, our religions, our beliefs.

Dreaming is the place where every creation begins, individual and collective.

To honor dreams is to honor the feminine, intuition, rest. It is finding the power in stopping.

That is why we chose to share these plants: to help each of us remember how much dreaming matters.

⊹ WHILE YOU SLEEP ⊹

You can transform your life, just… by sleeping.

When our dreams stay very everyday, caught in the social and the emotional, dream herbs can reveal a more mystical, deeper, more distant dimension of the soul.

They can help us reach the root: the heart of our souls, our hidden desires, our greatest dreams, our reasons for being, that "why am I here on Earth".

In our dreams, our fears, our doubts, our sorrows find a place to speak. Life speaks there first in whispers, and we learn to hear it before it needs to shout.

There we receive guidance and signs for everyday life. Many dreams start making sense and unfolding in our lives days, weeks, often months later.

They are wonderful guides and teachers.

⊹ THE PATHS OF THE NIGHT ⊹

Four families of guide plants

With them, the gates open, and can stay open for days, weeks, months, depending on the care we give our dreams and our sleep.

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6 treasures

Dream Masters

The great dream masters of South Africa's sangomas. Three to five days with prayers and respect, and the Dream Gates open up.

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13 treasures

Great Dream Plants

Dreams rich in meaning, varied, spectacular. Calea, the Herb of the Gods, which the Chontal call thle-pela-kano, awakens the Dreamer inside of us.

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10 treasures

Deep & Restorative Sleep

Simply, to sleep well. Mother Nature wants us, her children, to find sleep always, no matter how heavy our burden.

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8 treasures

Memory & Lucidity

Guayusa, which the Kichwa long drank before dawn to tell each other their dreams, and her sisters: they teach lucidity, for those who wish to become lucid dreamers.

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⊹ WHERE TO BEGIN ⊹

Flagship Treasures

The dream herbs our dreamers talk about most.

SEE ALL 33 DREAM TREASURES →
⊹ BY INTENTION ⊹

For…

Dream herbs are there whenever you wish, to reopen the gates or to work with an intention.

01To sleep betterDream→
02To dream lucidlyDream→
03To cross a griefDream→
04To explore hypnagogiaDream→
Dream Elixir
⊹ THE EARTH IS DREAMING YOU ⊹

Dream Elixir

A few simple drops to throw wide the door of our imaginations. Seven dream plants, from Mexican Calea to southern Africa's Uvuma, gathered in a single dropper.

DISCOVER THE ELIXIR →

Dream herbs, family by family

The plants of the night live here in four families.

  • Dream Masters — the Ubulawu family of southern Africa: among the Xhosa, roots whipped into a white foam, which diviners say “casts a white light on the dream” (Hirst, 2005).
  • Dream Herbs — Calea of the Chontal, the African dream bean, mugwort, Yauhtli, blue lotus: the plants that colour the dream.
  • Memory & Lucidity — to remember your dreams and dream clearly: Calea, guayusa, Brahmi, Aparajita.
  • Deep Sleep — wild poppy, lavender, noble chamomile, passionflower: the plants that open the night.

Sleep herbs and dream herbs

Sleep herbs help you fall asleep and sleep deeply; dream herbs work on the substance of the dream, its colour, its memory. The two meet: a full night leaves room for dreams.

Plant by plant, with the research and our dreamers’ own accounts: the guide to the best herbs for lucid dreaming.

⊹ FREQUENT QUESTIONS ⊹

The plants of the night, question by question

What is a dream herb?

A plant that a tradition uses for dreaming: to make the dream more vivid, to hold it on waking, to receive messages in it. They are also called oneirogenic plants. Calea of the Chontal, the ubulawu of the Xhosa and the guayusa of the Kichwa are the best documented.

What is ubulawu?

Among the Xhosa and other peoples of southern Africa, ubulawu names roots whipped in water until a white foam rises. The word is said to come from ukulawula, “to control”. For diviners, it makes dreams more vivid and easier to remember (Hirst, 2005). Our Ubulawu plants: Dream Masters.

Which plant should I start with?

Gently: a light mugwort tea, or blue lotus, in the evening. A complete ritual: the Ubulawu discovery pack, over 3 to 5 days. Seven dream plants together: the Dream Elixir.

Do dream herbs help you sleep?

Some do, like blue lotus, which our dreamers often drink before bed. Others wake you up: guayusa contains caffeine and is drunk in the morning. For sleep itself: the Deep Sleep family.

Are these plants legal?

They are sold freely in France. Each country has its own law: check yours before you order.

On waking…

Two other doors to other INFUSE territories.

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RITUAL — AN INVITATION TO THE SACRED

Treasures to honor life, open your senses, open your heart: ceremonial cacao, incense and sacred wood, elixirs to dream and to love more fully.

ENTER RITUAL →
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DAILY — NATURE WANTS TO HELP US

Wonderful everyday plants to find our strength again.

ENTER DAILY →
⊹ READ IN THE FOREST ⊹

Essays around the oneiric threshold

Traditions, lineages, narratives — the Forest extends what the pages begin.

Dream plants
Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris): the oldest of herbs
Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) is a Eurasian member of the Asteraceae that the Anglo-Saxon Nine Herbs Charm calls on first, "Una, the oldest of herbs". A herb of women, of travel and of the threshold, it is drunk as an evening tea and slipped under the pillow to dream.
9 minRead →
Dream plants
The best herbs for lucid dreaming — a field guide to the dream plants
Calea, ubulawu, Entada, blue lotus, mugwort, guayusa: thirteen dream herbs, their lineage, the research, our dreamers, how to take them.
17 minRead →
Dream plants
Dream plants: the global guide to the plants of dreams — 18 allies of deep sleep, lucid dreaming and dream divination
The INFUSE pillar guide to its 18 dream plants — Ubulawu sangoma (Silene capensis, Uvuma, Mukanya, Ubhubhubhu, Uqume), lotus and water lilies of the Nile and Asia, the Mesoamerican lineage (Calea, Sinicuichi, Yauhtli, Maconha Brava), the Eurasian companions (Mugwort, Wild Lettuce, Wild Poppy, Passiflora, Entada). Origins named, lineages named, protocols by profile.
40 minRead →
Dream plants
Corn poppy, opium poppy, California poppy: how to tell three plants apart
Three flowers called poppy, three different plants. The corn poppy of the fields, the opium poppy and the California poppy differ in their alkaloids, their legal status and their use: how to tell them apart, and what the sources say.
5 minRead →
Dream plants
Silene capensis (Silene undulata), Undlela Ziimhlophe: the Xhosa dream root
Silene capensis (accepted name: Silene undulata) is a small perennial of the carnation family from southern Africa, ranging from Zimbabwe to South Africa. Xhosa diviners call it undlela ziimhlophe, "the white paths": its root, whisked into foam and drunk fasting, is taken "to strengthen the dream". No clinical trial has studied it.
12 minRead →
Dream plants
How to lucid dream: a step-by-step method
Lucid dreaming can be learned. The dream journal, reality checks, Stephen LaBerge's MILD technique, waking in the night and entering the dream from wakefulness: how to practise them, what the studies say, and the precautions to keep.
10 minRead →
All DREAM essays →