“Is all that we see or seem, but a dream within a dream?” – Edgar Allan Poe

“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?” – Ernest Hemingway

Hey there all you cool cats and kittens – let’s make a Love Dream! This is a spell to ensure you dream of the love object of your choice, and is the most popular variant of the traditional Dreaming True spell.

If this seems weak in comparison to the physical act of love, consider this – it is an entirely guilt-free method of safe sex, with no difficult conversations or trips to the STD clinic the next morning. If you can master the Love Dream, you can delete your Tinder account.

What we are aiming for is a form of lucid dreaming, combined with a magical process to intertwine your dreaming mind with that of your love object. If done correctly, it should have an effect on them, also.

So if you wish to haunt somebody’s dreams, read on!

Lucid dreaming can be practiced by anybody with enough focus to concentrate on the process. It’s a very useful discipline to master, especially if you suffer from nightmares or sleep paralysis.

Start training yourself by keeping a dream journal. Fill it in immediately when you awake. The process of recalling and writing down your dreams will help you achieve self-awareness of your dream life, and connect you more firmly to your dream state.

In waking life, occasionally pause to ask yourself – “Is this a dream? Am I awake now?” and test yourself by looking at a clock or reading a phrase of text, looking away, then looking back. Is it the same time? Does it say the same thing? If you are dreaming, the time or text will usually have changed. Pinch yourself. Can you feel it? Look at yourself in a mirror. Do you look as you expect? Look at your hands. Are they your hands?

By doing this enough in waking life that it becomes habitual, it will start to become easier to test yourself in your dreams by the same methods. If you can get to the point where you realize that you are dreaming, you will, with practice, be able to direct your dreams in any way you choose.

As you lay you down to sleep, repeat silently to yourself a mantra that will encourage you to lucid dream. Something as simple as “To sleep, perchance to dream…” works well.

Now, for the specific Love Dream ritual.

Love Dream Cloud Cocktail

1/2 shot of Hendricks gin, which has rose and cucumber notes

1 & 1/2 shots of rose liqueur – I used Lanique, made of attar of roses

Cloud topping

200 ml rosewater

2 grams soy lecithin (you can order this online very cheaply)

If you can’t find rosewater (try a Polish or Turkish shop), you can spike plain water with rose flavouring. You could add pink food colour if you prefer a pastel foam, and I’m using edible wafer petals to garnish.

Intone: “Oh, Lady of Delight, in thy name and of thy Ministers of Love, do I proceed in this work of Love”. Scatter rose petals across the work surface.

Burn a rose-scented candle.

Combine gin & liqueur in a cocktail shaker with ice, then leave the shaker in the freezer to chill while you create a foam topping, which represents clouds.

The clouds, moving across the sky that you and your desired one both sleep beneath, serve to connect you to each other.

Somewhere out there….

Using an immersion blender (the type like a pepper grinder with blades at the base), blend the soy lecithin and rosewater in a small deep bowl.

You will have to lift the blender to the upper part of the liquid surface to incorporate as much air as possible so that a foam forms on the surface.

Once you have enough cloud for your needs, let it sit for a minute to set.

Strain the shaker into a glass, scoop the firm foam from your bowl and dollop it onto the top of the drink.

Intone: “By this act, I draw (their name) and myself into a bond of love and desire.”

Drink, whilst clearly visualizing the image of your dream lover. If you have a photograph, gaze upon it.

Listen to appropriately dreamy music

Drinking it through a straw is recommended, so that you can blend the cloud topping with the rest of the potion as you go.

The process is best performed on a Friday at 8am, 3pm or 10 o’clock at night. As our potion is intoxicating, the 10pm time slot is recommended. The moon should be waxing full.

We are using roses for this as they are the flowers most closely connected with the Lady of Delight, who is the Power you are appealing to.

She is known by many names – Astarte, Aphrodite, Parvati, Flora, Freya. She is the mistress of the moon and the realm of Venus.

In all operations of romantic love, it is her presence you must invoke, by whichever of her names you find most significant.

As you lie in bed, waiting for what dreams may come, visualize the goddess as clearly as you can, with long streaming hair, crowned with roses, a white dove perched on her right hand, surrounded by clouds. Scatter rose petals on your pillow.

Apart from the associative symbolism of these flowers, they also give off a subtle magnetism which is peculiarly in accord with works of this nature.

If you have a photograph of your dream lover, place it beneath your pillow. If you don’t have a photo, write their name on a piece of paper and use that instead.

When you have a clear image of the Goddess in your mind, visualize the face and body of your lover, as clearly as you can. Repeat your lucid dreaming mantra.

This would be a perfect song to listen to as you drift off….

Fall asleep, and dream on. Following people on Twitter or stalking them on Facebook is for amateurs. WE are the music-makers… and we are the dreamers of dreams.