Are you one of the lucky people in North America who got to see the Northern Lights earlier this month (as I am writing this) or in recent years as we have been in a solar maximum period?
Despite dreaming of the aurora borealis for many years, I have still not arrived at the future evening in which I am certain I will see them, a future dusk in a suburban neighborhood somewhere. I still chase them, hoping to meet up with the dream image, and I still text my kids when the NOAA indicates there is a chance the Lights might extend down to New Jersey.
The auroras have been in the news the past few years, but what I don’t see in the news is mention of various studies that have been done on the connection between solar storms, geomagnetism, and our health, both physical and mental. It may be helpful to individuals at risk for stroke, heart trouble, migraines, and mental health episodes to know that there is evidence that solar weather can trigger stroke, affect atrial fibrillation, trigger migraines, and may impact the incidence and severity of mental health episodes. Just as we can take preventative steps with our diet and lifestyle (ie. limiting your caffeine to regulate your heart rate or lower anxiety), we can pay attention to the solar weather in a way that may be supportive to our physical and mental well-being.
I also haven’t see any news stories about the connection between solar storms and dreams! And that’s what I want to focus on briefly today, as I have noticed a significant increase in precognitive dreams during the recent solar storms, which I assume is connected to the coronal mass ejection that hit Earth.
There have been research papers written on the connection between geomagnetic storms and dreams, with the late Dr. Michael Persinger taking a very strong interest in the subject. Persinger (along with Blake Dotta) wrote at least one paper suggesting geomagnetic events can cause time distortion, which may be a cause for precognitive dreams. I found a link to another paper, co-written with renowned dream therapist and researcher Stanley Krippner on the CIA web site, on the correlation between dream telepathy and solar activity. There are others published online (Google solar weather and dreams) and some of the research has been documented in books authored by Persinger, Krippner, and others.
I was late to this knowledge about solar storms’ impact on Earth and human health and perception, and only found my way to the research via my interest in migraine auras. I have been a migraine sufferer since my late teens, but started tracking the incidence and presumed triggers of my migraines 11 years ago. Along the way, I began to notice for myself a connection between solar storms and getting an aura. As a result of tracking my migraines and noticing this link (along with other triggers), I’ve been able to take preventative measures when I know it’s going to be “geo-stormy”. As an example, if it’s a certain time of the month in my hormonal cycle, and I’ve missed out on a good night sleep, and there’s a solar storm coming … well, I better be really careful with bright lights on a reflective surface because seeing those could send me over the threshold and I’ll get a migraine. Fortunately, between my tracking, prevention, and use of Chinese medicinal herbs and acupuncture, I’ve been able to significantly reduce the incidence and intensity of migraines.
As for solar storms and dreams … this week has probably been the most pronounced for me in terms of recognizing a correlation between strong solar weather and my own experience of precognitive dreams. Three nights in a row, I’ve dreamt dreams with clear connection to images, phrases, and people I would perceive only the next day, many hours later into the future. The starkest one for me was dreaming of staying at an AirBnb in what I thought was Brussels (a city I have never been to, don’t know much about, nor have any meaningful connection to or awareness of) and the next day seeing a post on social media of a news story mentioning Brussels. (You can read in my recent article how dreaming of future social media posts is often the way individuals start to realize they might be a little bit psychic.)
Why does any of this matter? It matters because it reminds us how much more there is for us to learn and understand about the connection between environmental factors, such as solar weather, and our health. It matters because it suggests that there is still so much science that is yet to be shared with the general public either in the news or in educational settings, and we must educate ourselves in order to connect the dots in a way that can benefit our health and well-being. It matters because it demonstrates how much sleep and dreaming is a part of our physical and mental well-being, that can be heavily influenced by our environment. It matters because it exemplifies how there is more to reality than we perceive with our five senses while awake — dreaming and remembering our dreams can alert us to this fact, and help us feel and perceive more expansively.
Our dreaming is not separate from us or our health. In fact, our dreaming is critically important and relevant to our well-being. We can learn to remember the dreaming part of our experience, to feel it, and to integrate it into our lives.
There are cultures who recognize and honor the role of dreams and dreaming in our experience of life and selfhood. Here in the West, less so; but I am hoping to be part of a movement that shifts that.
And finally, as a dreamwork practitioner, mystic, and writer, I find creative inspiration in the Northern Lights, hidden to us during the day and appearing only to us in the night, under certain environmental conditions. I am drawn equally to the possibility of one day witnessing such magnificent beauty myself, as I am to the poetry of the science of the phenomenon: electrically charged particles carried by a solar wind bumping into Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field, heating it up, causing it to glow.
My dreams enable me to experience a taste of the aurora borealis as an image, while my belief in precognition infuses me with the hope that I will be able to one day live into this image and take it in with my whole body.
