The new ‘Lucid Dreaming, Lucid Living Deck’ is created by mother- daughter duo, Norma J. Burton and Nisha Burton. This deck was created with the intention to function as a teaching tool for a practitioner wishing to learn how to lucid dream and for the practical tarot reader. After spending a few weeks with the deck myself, and sharing it with others here are my thoughts on this oracle.
On first impression, the deck is stunning and alluring. The packaging is sturdy and secure and functions well as a storage box for the deck and the book. The cards themselves feel nice, though there is a slight tendency for the cards to curve with usage. If you don’t mind your cards gaining some flexibility quickly, it shouldn’t be much of an issue.
Concerning the content, the book itself provides a good amount of information for each card, making it conducive for in-depth readings and with its simple yet beautiful designs- gives much way to intuition for messages as well.
The card meanings are also split into three sections: Lucid Dream Teaching, Lucid Living Message and Reversed Meaning. As this deck promotes the ability to guide one through lucid dreaming, the first section ‘Lucid Dream Teaching’ offers said guidance. The second part, ‘Lucid Living Message’ provides guidance written in a more familiar style of what you’d expect when looking up card meanings. Same can be said for the Reversed meanings.
What I do appreciate in the card meanings is they all connect back to the vision of this deck, and deliver it. They provide amazing information about how to further know the self, the dream-state, and providing concrete activities to strengthen one’s sense of inner knowledge, therefore assisting the Seeker to achieve the ability to lucid dream. (If so they seek)
Something I found very interesting with this deck is the way the cards themselves are categorized. They are split into three: the black cards, the white cards and the starry night cards.
This deck has the flexibility in providing a message/advice for making progress through lucid dreaming abilities and in providing more practical messages for Seekers not necessarily concerned with their lucid dream skills. So there’s something for everyone and this deck can cater to a variety of readers.
The first 22 cards are the black cards, also referred to as the ‘Lucid Dream Journeys’ cards- which correspond loosely to Tarot’s Major Arcana. In this oracle, the first 22 cards are outlining the journey and progression of the budding lucid dreamer. Each category corresponds to ‘…different valuable aspects of lucid dreaming.’ as stated in the book.
Pictured above are the first 22 cards (minus card 20, for no particular reason)
The next category are the white cards- which are also called the ‘State Checks, Stabilizing and Reality-Shifting’ cards. These cards offer practical information on waking practices for improving lucid dreaming and for attaining a consistent sense of lucidity in your life.
As described in the book, the three different areas covered within the white cards again, are:
State Checks: “A state check is an action you conduct during the day to ‘check’ what ‘state’ or reality you are in- dreaming, awake, or out of body.” (p.14)
Stabilizing: “The stabilizing cards teach you how to stabilize and prolong your lucid dreaming experiences” (p. 14)
Reality Shifting: ” The reality-shifting cards teach you various techniques for remaining conscious while crossing over from waking state to the dream state.” (p.15)
These cards cover a lot of territory and I appreciate the layers of meaning available within each card.
The last batch of cards are the starry night cards, also referred to as the ‘Guides and Guardians’ cards. As described in the book, these cards function to, “…relate to the archetypal energies you encounter in lucid dreaming..” They can also be applied to the archetypal energies we see at play within our waking realities.
I showed this deck to a few fellow witches and friends, to get their first impressions. Here is some of the feedback they had- which was unanimously glowing reviews:
“I love the look and feel of this deck!”
“These cards feel nice!”
‘This artwork is beautiful.”
“Ooooh I like these cards.”
A friend and I did a two card reading with this deck and found the answers given to be much more insightful than initially expected. The experience we had with Spirit was beautiful and I believe using this deck supported us into receiving the message just as needed. It proved rather cathartic for both of us. Two other fellow witches performed readings for themselves with this deck and found it to deliver for their queries.
With all said, I give this deck a 4.8 out of 5 if you will- the only reason for the -.2 is I wish the cards didn’t bend as easy. But that is just my personal preference. Other than that, this is an amazing deck to dive into a lesser delved into topic, packaged in a quite popular format. Have I mentioned how beautiful these cards are?
The dreamer holds on to the dragon’s tail. It lifts her out of the mundane and back into the memory of her dreams. The metaphor of “catching the tail of the dragon” for dream recall illustrates how even if you can only grab a single hair from the dragon’s tail, the whole world of dream will open up to you”
p. 32 Card Description: ‘Dream Recall | 1’