I might be some kind of otherkin, but I'm still trying to figure out what kind. I keep exploring dreams I've had or am having to see what themes keep coming up. Are there any that seem like real past-life memories? What am I consistently drawn to? (Nature, water, and especially the sea are some things.) What animals and symbols resonate for me? What do these symbolize? Are there things that used to scare me in dreams, that now attract me instead? Are the symbols and themes that resonate most strongly with me consistant with ones associated with some particular mythical being? Do I feel like my astral body could have wings or a tail or some other shape? Is this feeling consistent? or is it more likely just some idea I'm projecting at the moment? Are my usual thoughts, feelings or reactions consistent with those of a particular non-human being? Can these thoughts, feelings and reactions be explained with more mundane explanations? (The more unusual and more convoluted explanations are less likely to be real.)The 2 posssible types of otherkin I keep thinking I could be are lamia and Anunnaki alien.
1. When I was in college and feeling frustrated about always dreaming of being a vampire, I asked a dream guide in a lucid dream, "Am I a human pretending to be a vampire or a vampire pretending to be a human pretending to be a vampire? Who am I? What am I? Who am I? What am I? Who am I? What am I?" The guide responded with "Inanna-lamia, Inanna-lamia, Inanna-lamia. " I woke and thought that was weird. I didn't know what it meant, and still don't, but it seemed significant.
2. I had a dream in college about Lamia being a sort of ancient muse who inspired Keats and Yeats.
3. I had a couple of dreams of being an alien who crashed on Earth with others of my kind. We looked human. In one of these I had a sister who said "I hate humans". In the other one, we were in ancient times and went into a coastal city that looked Minoan or possibly Sumerian.
4. I often have dreams of evil aliens trying to take over the Earth. But when I get close to them, they either treat me like I'm one of them or try to turn me into one of them. (I think dreaming of being an alien could just symbolize feeling like I'm not like other people.)
5. I had a couple of times last year when the word "Anunnaki" popped into my head. I looked it up online and found those alien conspiracy sites where people equate the Sumerian Anunnaki with Elohim, Watcher Angels and Nephalim. (After doing some online research, I think the Watcher Angel and Nephalim myths come from the earlier Sumerian myths.)
6. I once had a dream of sea serpents coming through into our world from another dimension in the ancient past. Last year I had a couple dreams about friendly, protective sea serpents. I also had dreams about sharks, and in one dream the shark seemed sort of like a guardian or symbol of spiritual transformation.
7. I have an affinity for nature, for water, and especially for the ocean. I recharge my "batteries" at the river or by the ocean.
8. I see my primary Goddess as having a strong ocean aspect. When I was a child, I thought of and talked to the Pacific Ocean as if it were a goddess. In my dreams, a great primal sea is one way that my Goddess manifests to me.
9. In the past, I used to be scared of the ocean in my dreams, but I'm not any more.
10. In the past, I used to be scared of pits full of snakes or swamps full of crocodiles/alligators in my dreams, but I'm not anymore. Ever since I dreamt last year of a friendly black snake that I equated with the goddess Persephone, I see snakes as being symbolic of personal transformation and wisdom.
11. Spiritually, the Mother Goddess I relate best to is one of the Primal Ocean. In ancient times this force was often represented as a sea serpent (such a Tiamat). The serpent is an almost universal symbol of the original creative force. The spiral of the serpent is the spiral of the great mystery of the cycle of Life, Death, Transformation and Rebirth. The double serpent (such as Dumballa and Aiyda Wedo in Voudou) is also the double helix of DNA, the natural source of Life and Evolution on our planet.
Lamia and lamiae are represented in various ways in myth an folklore.
1. The earliest aspect of Lamia in history was as a Lybian ocean goddess with a shark or sea monster aspect.
2. In myth and legend, she is a being who can change shape between that of a serpent and a beautiful woman, who can travel in her dreams, who creates illusions, seduces men and then "eats" them or drinks their blood. (Drinking blood is often a metaphore for taking life-force.)
3. Some early Greek representations of lamiae show them as winged bird-women akin to harpies or striges. A winged aspect often represents something that can "fly" or travel in spirit form. (Maria Gimbutas says the prehistoric Mother Goddess of the primal seas is represented with both bird and serpent forms.)
4. Most representations of Lamia and lamiae are of serpent-women. A serpent aspect often represents Underworl d associations, something subtle that can sneak into one's presense, ancient fertility cults, arcane wisdom, immortality, and transformation.
5. Sumerian lili, lilu and lilitu spirits are succubi and incubi associated with the older fertility goddess Lilitu and the later fertility goddess Inanna. They're sometimes called "wind-demons" because air, wind, breath, spirit and life-force are synonymous concepts in most older cultures. (In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Ardat Lili is a "handmaiden of Inanna" or sacred prostitute who seduces and civilizes the wildman Enkidu.)
6. Akkadian Ardat lili and Irdu lili were succubi and incubi who suduced men and women in their sleep and could take the form of serpents in order to slip unnoticed into a house. The lilitu were thought to drain men of their life-force until they would eventually die. These men who wasted away were called bridegrooms of the lilitu. (Hebrew beliefs about Lilith and her children the lilim come from these beliefs.)
7. The Greek lamiea were usually seen as non-human beings who would try to seduce unwary men and then eat them. In earlier legends they were also seen as the ghosts of young women who had recently died.
8. Keats and Yeats both wrote about spirit women who both inspired creativity and drained a man of his life-force. "Lamia" and "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" were two of Keats' poems with this theme. Keats died young of a wasting disease. Yeats resisted his "dark muse" and lived to an older age.
9. The Basque lamia/lamiak/ laminak are faerie beings who live near caves, rivers and lakes. The females are beautiful women who comb their hair with golden combs and have the feet of ducks or other water birds. (This symbolizes their connection to water.) The males are builders of bridges and castles. Neither are particularity dangerous or mischevious.
10. The first view of Lamia (the Lybian sea goddess) is probably of a primal Goddess of Life, Death, Transformation and Rebirth. The serpent Goddess of Minoan Crete is a similar representation, and from her come the Greek myths of Demeter and Persephone. I think it's clear the Minoan Goddess evolved in part from the Goddess of Catal Hayuk. She must also be connected to the Primal Serpent Creator, since Minoan priestess or goddess figurines are often shown with snakes wraped around thier arms and waists. In some myths and rituals surrounding the cult of Demeter-Persephone- Hades, Hades is represented as a serpent. Since Persephone weds him, she also has to have a serpent aspect. (This is from Joseph Campbell's "Occident al Mythology".)
- In my persona as Persephone I also have associations with the mystery of the cycle of Life, Sex, Death, Transformation, and Rebirth. When a psi-vamp friend did a tarot reading for me, I had the Death card in a prominant position. He said I'm fascinated by Death and see it as comforting. He laughed and said I was "such a freaking otherkin". When I recently had him do a birth chart reading for me, "Sex and Death" were in similar prominant positions. He says I understand my own psychological Underworld very well, and because of this I also understand other people's psychological Underworlds (the secrets that make them tick). I think there's a good bit of truth to this assesment.
What am I in terms of otherkin? Why is is so hard for me to know my core Self? I know my Self better than most people know theirs. I see into my past lives. I know which deity forms I relate to. Yet, I can't be sure if I have a true otherkin nature, and if I do, what it is. Water is part of it. The Primal Sea is part of it. Feeling alien or "not of this world" is part of it. I like the idea of being lamia-kin, but I'm not really sure what this would be. It's not a common kin-type, though it does seem to fit with my dreamwalking, my attraction to nature, water and the sea, my psi-feeding through sex and dreams, and my resonance with the mysteries of Life, Death, Transformation, and Rebirth.
In my tarot reading, my friend said that where I show up, I bring change (symbolized by Death). I think there's some truth in this assesment too. - P.
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