I was talking last week about the faceless ones in my dreams, figures who had no individual characteristics but represented the pure power of the archetype. Other words for these pure powers might be energies, or spirits.

When peoples throughout the ages have sought to engage with these spirits, they have given them faces and names. Different traditions choose different faces and names, according to their culture, to represent the same essential qualities.

So, for example, in Ancient Greece Demeter was the goddess of harvest, but in Ancient Egypt this essence of harvest/mother/nature was called Isis.

After my first encounters with the faceless ones, I began to dream about gods and goddesses. Often, their names were unfamiliar to me in waking life, so it felt as if I was dipping a deeper stream. This experience will be familiar to a lot of dreamers, of words we have no conscious knowledge of coming to us for the first time in dreams.

One night I dreamt that Thoth was in my study. I had a vague notion that Thoth sounded like some kind of devil, so it spooked me. But when I looked him up, I found he was, amongst other things, the Ancient Egyptian god of scribes. The universal spirit of writing, in the shape of Thoth, had taken up residence in my writing room. Sweet!

A week later, by a happy synchronicity, I found a figurine of Thoth in a seaside nick-nacks shop, amongst the beach mats and sunglasses. I brought him home and now, if I ever feel disheartened or directionless as a writer, he inspires me with the pure power of writing.

Have you ever dreamt about gods, goddesses or other religious symbols?