Legend of the Dream Catcher
The Old Ones tell that dreams hold great power and drift about at night and to keep the dreamer safe, the Dream Catcher is hung above their sleeping place.
Dreams traveled the web paths, the bad dreams lost their way and were entangled, disappearing with the first rays of daybreak.
The good dreams, knowing the way, passed through the center and were guided gently to the sleeping ones.

 

 

Legend of the Dream Catcher

        Long ago when the word was young, an old Lakota spiritual leader was on a high mountain and had a vision. In his vision, Iktomi, the great trickster and teacher of wisdom, appeared in the form of a spider. Iktomi spoke to him in a sacred language. As he spoke, Iktomi the spider picked up the elder's willow hoop which had feathers, horsehair, beads and offerings on it, and began to spin a web.

        He spoke to the elder about the cycles of life; how we begin our lives as infants, move on through childhood and on to adulthood. Finally we go to old age where

        we must be taken care of as infants, completing the cycle. "But, Iktomi said as he continued to spin his web, "in each time of life there are many forces" some good and some bad. If you listen to the good forces, they will steer you in the right direction. But, if you listen to the bad forces, they'll steer you in the wrong

        direction and may hurt you. So these forces can help, or can interfere with the harmony of Nature. While the spider spoke, he continued to weave his web.

        When Iktomi finished speaking, he gave the elder the web and said, "The web is a perfect circle with a hole in the center.
Use the web to help your people reach their goals, making good use of their ideas, dreams and visions.

        If you believe in the great spirit, the web will catch your good ideas and the bad ones will go through the hole.

        The elder passed on his vision to the people and now many Indian people hang a dream catcher above their bed to sift their dreams and visions.

        The good is captured in the web of life and carried with the people, but the evil in their dreams drops through the hole in the center of the web and are no longer a part of their lives.

        It's said that the dream catcher holds the destiny of the future.

 

 

When I was learning of the reason for the dream catcher I was told it this way.

That the dream catcher came about because of the shields .
You see everyone knew of the protective powers of the shield that hung at ready outside the lodge so it was natural that they would want its protective powers over them as they slept.
Naturally the men would not allow their shields to be inside for they might need them for protection of the people so someone took the branch of a willow tree and bent it round to form a shape just like the shield.
They used sinew and formed it to look like Grandmother Spiders web to catch the dreams in and to tie in objects to attract the dreams.
Both good and bad dreams were caught.
They attached feathers to the dream catcher for the good dreams to travel down into the head of the one sleeping but the bad dreams were not able to use the feathers so they remained stuck until morning and when the sun came up they disappeared like the morning dew.

The Origin of the Dream Catcher by JoAnn.

 

 

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