Dreaming of a shaman or medicine man shows you have pierced the bubble of the rational world we often live in or are trapped by and have entered a more basic and extended world of ancient people. It can be a world or a state of mind in which you find wisdom or healing. It can also be a condition in which you meet or become different animals that communicate with you. Or you recognise the sacredness of a great tree or a being. Perhaps you even hear a voice or voices speaking to you. None of this is a sign of an ill mind or even of madness. See Core Self

This is explainable if we realise we all developed from a  single cell, which is a seed from which all life forms evolved from, but such cells never become old or die because it is immortal, for it keeps dividing and doesn’t die. In dividing it constantly creates copies of itself, but as it does  so it gathers new experience, it changes what is copied, so becomes the ‘seed’ for multi-cellular organism. We all started from the original one cell, and we, you and I,  are the result of gathered experience.

No plant or creature grows from a dead seed, and each living seed carries within it all the past gathered from all its forebears. So, the seed in your mother’s womb is as old as and even older than human kind, and you carry that wisdom or memories in you. But in this life you developed a new brain, and the memories, education and programming you gathered this time are what you built your personality from, but beneath that is a very ancient self.

Finding this very ancient self, hidden as it is by all your personal thinking and opinions, you find you are free from all the painful emotions, suicidal urges and personal hurts. To explore it see Opening to Life

So in some dreams the medicine man is a link with your ancestral memories. See ancestors

Carl Jung tells of well educated people who experienced visions of strange fantasies and were deeply disturbed by them. He tells of a theologian who assured him the visions of Ezekiel were symptoms of a morbid state of mind, and that the voices Moses and the prophets heard were signs that they were all suffering from hallucinations. So when the theologian actually experienced similar ‘symptoms’ he felt enormous panic. Yet if this happened to people from older cultures they would say they had experiences communications that were helpful.

Another of Jung findings talking to an Indian cultured in yoga:

‘You don’t mean the commentator on the Vedas who died centuries ago?’ I asked. 

‘Yes, I mean him he said, to my amazement. 

‘Then you are referring to a spirit?’ I asked. 

‘Of course it was his spirit,’ he agreed. 

At that moment I thought of Philemon. 

‘There arc ghostly gurus too,’ he added. ‘Most people have living gurus. But there always some who have a spirit for teacher’

Unfortunately our present attitudes arising from our modern culture have far more mental disturbance and even psychotic behaviour amongst us than the older cultures that had little or no mental illness. The amount of mental breakdown in western societies is enormous. So dreaming of a shaman or medicine man is a blessing.

An African jungle dweller, for instance, sees a nocturnal creature by daylight and knows it to be a medicine man who has temporarily taken its shape. Or he may regard it as the bush soul or ancestral spirit of one of his tribe. A tree may play a vital part in the life of a primitive, apparently possessing for him its own soul and voice, and the man concerned will feel that he shares its fate. There are some Indians in South America who will assure you that they are Red Arara parrots, though they are well aware that they lack feathers, wings, and beaks. For in the primitive’s world things do not have the same sharp boundaries they do in our ‘rational” societies. See Collective Unconscious

Like other ancient cultures, dreams were seen by the Amerindians as having certain marked features that could be gained from them. There could be an initiatory dream such as we have already considered. There could also be dreams telling where to hunt; dreams showing a new ritual giving some sort of power such as warding off illness, or finding a new relationship with everyday life, or attracting a lover; dreams could show the use of a herb for medicine; dreams might be caused by some sort of evil within ones body, or an external evil such as someone wishing you harm or an evil spirit; there could be a shared dream with another person; the dream might be a revelation from someone who was dead and now in the spirit world; or a dream, it could be a map supporting and guiding the dreamer throughout their whole life. See Native Americans

Example: I was going through some sort of initiatory test with many other people. At one point I confronted a tree stump that spoke. It had a large lower lip of bark that could protrude. I gave it something to eat that it spat out. It said it wanted something “connective” I believe. I dropped some knitting wool in its mouth. This satisfied it. It had a huge amount of wool in its mouth, and I was concerned whether it could eat the stuff. Then it wrote out my report. The document was very grand, and it was written out with an atmosphere of great solemnity and legality. I had passed the test, but not with very high marks – maybe because I put the wrong stuff in its mouth first.

Example: I had a dream that I was talking to four Native Americans about hair cutting. The woman started speaking to me. I asked her what tribe they were from and she told me. She went on to tell me that their tribe was part of my ancestry.

The tallest of the men began asking me if he could cut my hair. I was a little stunned by the question and said no. He went on to explain that he didn’t want to cut all of it off, but just to trim the ends. He said that cutting or trimming it would be a new beginning for me, almost like starting over in my life. I told him that I was going to do it when I got home.

Example: Other less obvious but powerful forms of slavery are connected with belief systems, political or religious, especially those with a powerful hierarchy that lives upon the labour of others. Religious systems that take money from their followers, or guru systems that do the same use human desires, fears or longings to enslave the being of others. Those at the top, like drug barons, still live on the work and income of others. Usually quite rigid controls or dictates are a sign of this sort of slavery.

At one time I went into the ashram of a well known guru in India. There were armed guards at the entrance and around the high fence surrounding the ashram. Once inside I was shocked by the immense marble and gold temples showing millions of American dollars had been pumped into the guru’s account. Yet the guru that I had loved and admired was Sai Baba of Shirdi, who while much money was given him each day, at the end of the day he had nothing, for he had given it away to those in need.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does the native ask you anything, tell you or give you anything?

Have you any ancestors from a culture with different traditions?

Can you learn anything from your dream?