Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris): the oldest of herbs

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The last sovereign territory. You enter through the plants, through silence, through a return to the dreams of the elders.

What is mugwort?

Mugwort, Artemisia vulgaris L., is a tall perennial herb of the Asteraceae family, with leaves dark green above and silver beneath, that grows along paths all over Europe and Asia. The French call it armoise.

Its genus, Artemisia, also gathers wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), tarragon, white wormwood and prairie sagewort; sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua) is another species. INFUSE offers it on the Mugwort page.

Where does the name mugwort come from?

Pliny the Elder already hesitated: the name Artemisia would come from Artemisia, queen of Caria and wife of Mausolus, or, according to others, from Artemis Ilithyia, goddess of childbirth, because it was used above all for women's ailments (Natural History XXV, 73). Artemis is also the Greek goddess of the moon and of the hunt, and mugwort has remained the herb of the moon and of women.

The English word mugwort comes from Old English mucgwyrt, from a Germanic muggiwurti, "midge-wort"; the herbalist Maud Grieve also suggested moughte, the moth. The German Beifuß comes from Hildegard of Bingen's Biboz. Gerard, in 1597, reports that it is called Mater herbarum, the mother of herbs.

Why is mugwort called the oldest of herbs?

Because the Nine Herbs Charm (Nigon Wyrta Galdor), an Anglo-Saxon incantation copied in the 10th and 11th centuries into the Lacnunga manuscript, calls on it first: "Una þu hattest, yldost wyrta", Una you are called, oldest of herbs. The charm summons nine herbs against nine poisons and nine ills.

The first line speaks to it as to a person: "Remember, mugwort, what you revealed, what you established at the great proclamation." The plant is a presence to be invoked, the first of the list. The manuscript is kept at the British Library in London (Harley MS 585).

What do the old texts say about mugwort?

The old texts link it to women, to travel and to protection. Pliny reports that the traveller who carries it does not feel the weariness of the road. Hildegard of Bingen, in the 12th century, describes in her Physica a Biboz that is "very warm", whose juice is useful, cooked for the bowels and made into an ointment with honey for the skin.

In the Middle Ages it was gathered on St John's Eve and worn as a belt, the Cingulum Sancti Johannis, for protection (Grieve, 1931). Gerard, the English herbalist of 1597, records its name Mater herbarum.

In China, mugwort is ài cǎo, the plant of moxibustion: dried and rolled into cones or sticks, it is burned near points on the body. In 1998 a trial published in JAMA studied this moxibustion in pregnant women whose babies were in breech position (Cardini and Huang, 1998). In Japan, yomogi goes into spring sweets and steam baths.

Does mugwort make you dream?

The mugwort dream pillow and the evening tea for dreaming belong to a tradition carried by 20th-century herbalists (Gladstar, 1993), very much alive among today's dreamers. No study has yet measured its effect on dreaming, and Pliny, Hildegard and Gerard speak of it for other reasons.

Dreamers describe sharper, more colourful dreams that are better remembered on waking. Our own reports point the same way: mugwort makes the dream more present, and a well-remembered dream is the first step towards lucidity.

What does mugwort contain, and what does science say?

Its essential oil contains 1,8-cineole (2.6 to 17.6 %), camphor (up to 47.7 %) and thujone (α-thujone up to 3.18 %, β-thujone up to 1.19 %), with large differences from one region to another (Ekiert et al., 2020). The plant also contains bitter sesquiterpene lactones and flavonoids.

Thujone, known from absinthe, acts on the GABA-A receptor as an antagonist (Höld et al., 2000). No link between these compounds and dreaming has ever been established.

How do you prepare mugwort for dreaming?

At the House, we start with the gentlest way: a small sachet of well-dried leaves slipped inside the pillowcase, with nothing to drink. If the effect stays too faint, we move on to the evening tea.

• Tea: one teaspoon of leaves (about 2 g) in 250 ml of water just off the boil, around 80 °C, covered for five to ten minutes, then strained. Drink half an hour before bed, on its own or with a little honey.
• Dream pillow: a cotton sachet filled with dried leaves, under the pillow.
• As smoke: the leaves finely crumbled, as a base or added to a blend; its English name sailor's tobacco keeps this gesture.
• The rhythm: three nights a week at most, with a dream journal, over one moon cycle.

Amounts and formats: see the Mugwort page.

Mugwort, Calea, blue lotus: which plant to choose?

Mugwort is the dream plant that grows along our own paths, in Europe.

Our dreamers often pair mugwort with Calea or with blue lotus.

Is mugwort dangerous?

As a light tea, mugwort is a common herb; a few precautions matter. It was once used to bring on menstruation, labour or miscarriage (Ekiert et al., 2020).

• Pregnancy: abstain, throughout pregnancy.
• Breastfeeding: abstain, for lack of data.
• Allergy to the Asteraceae or to mugwort pollen (ragweed, chamomile, celery): caution; it can also irritate the skin.
• Anticoagulant treatment: medical advice before the plant.
• Essential oil: never internally; it is far more concentrated than the dried leaf.
• The law: mugwort is freely sold in France. Check the law in your country.

What do people say about mugwort?

From China to the Celts, those who gather it have their own words for mugwort.

• Herbalists of the Wise Woman lineage, such as Robin Rose Bennett, say it holds the door of the night open, without pushing.
• The soldiers of Rome, the story goes, slipped its leaves into their sandals against the weariness of long marches.
• The druids, it is said, wove it into a crown for St John's Day; the physicians of Myddfai in Wales, and the yamabushi, the mountain monks of Japan, are also said to have kept it close.
• In China, moxibustion is credited to the legendary physician Bian Que; at the Dragon Boat Festival, bunches of mugwort tied with calamus are hung above doors to keep evil spirits away (Rätsch, 2005).
• The herbalist Susun Weed, who carried the Wise Woman revival from the 1980s, calls it cronewort, the herb of the wise old woman, and the writer Sophie Strand places it in the lineage of Artemis: a lunar plant that teaches how to live in the body through its passages.
• It is hung over the threshold of houses; from Europe to the Americas, it is asked to guard the passage.
• Dreamers say that with it the dream turns crystalline: more colour, more remembered dialogue, sometimes a presence.

What do dreamers who tried mugwort report?

Of the 174 night reports left by our customers, 8 are about mugwort: 5 describe an effect on dreams, including 4 more vivid dreams, and 3 better sleep. Two people say they sought lucidity without reaching it (count from September 2026).

"the herb does give you stronger dreams that are also easier to recall. I haven't had any luck with lucid dreaming" — Mirna

"I dream a lot more now, and yet I actually feel fully rested after sleep." — anonymous review

Every report, plant by plant: our dreamers' accounts.

Where to find mugwort, and how to recognise it?

INFUSE offers Mugwort as wild-harvested whole dried leaves, gathered in France. Good dried mugwort keeps grey-green leaves with a silvery underside and a bitter, camphorous smell when crushed; brown or scentless, it has aged.

Mugwort opens the list of the herbs of witches and cunning folk; the others, one by one, with their sources: witch herbs.

Sources

• Pliny the Elder. Natural History, book XXV, 73 (Latin text, LacusCurtius).
• Lacnunga, Nine Herbs Charm (Nigon Wyrta Galdor), British Library, Harley MS 585, 10th-11th century. en.wikipedia.org
• Hildegard of Bingen. Physica, 12th century, chapter Biboz.
• Gerard J. (1597). The Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes, chapter "Of Mugwort".
• Grieve M. (1931). A Modern Herbal, entry Mugwort.
• Ekiert H. et al. (2020). Significance of Artemisia vulgaris L. (common mugwort) in the history of medicine and its possible contemporary applications substantiated by phytochemical and pharmacological studies. Molecules 25(19):4415. doi:10.3390/molecules25194415
• Höld K.M. et al. (2000). α-Thujone (the active component of absinthe): γ-aminobutyric acid type A receptor modulation and metabolic detoxification. PNAS 97(8):3826-3831. doi:10.1073/pnas.070042397
• Cardini F., Huang W. (1998). Moxibustion for correction of breech presentation: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA 280(18):1580-1584. doi:10.1001/jama.280.18.1580
• Gladstar R. (1993). Herbal Healing for Women. Simon & Schuster.
• Rätsch C. (2005). The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants. Park Street Press, entry Artemisia vulgaris.
• Weed S. (1989). Healing Wise. Ash Tree Publishing.
• Bennett R.R. (2014). The Gift of Healing Herbs. North Atlantic Books.
• Strand S. (2022). The Flowering Wand. Inner Traditions.
• Wikipedia, Artemisia vulgaris. en.wikipedia.org

Further reading

• The best herbs for lucid dreaming, the guide to dream plants
• Dream herbs
• Calea zacatechichi, the leaf of God
• Blue lotus, the sacred flower of Egypt
• Undlela Ziimlophe, the root of the white paths
• Yauhtli, the cloud herb
• Our dreamers' accounts

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