Mugzy

I believe dreams are not something that your imagination is creating, it's actually, like, passing information. Or something you are actually going through, you know what I mean? It's not like an imagined thing. It's something that's spiritually connected.

I can remember my dreams in detail, everything about my dreams. I know when I was younger, it was very hard to remember dreams. But me, I can remember everything about a dream. To me, it's like, it's more than a dream. It's something that I'm seeing and I'm actually, like, participating in and going through. Whether it's my spirit or whatever, whether I'm in a different place, it's actually really happening because, like I said, I don't forget it.

Especially in a Native culture, like, dreams to us are very powerful, right? And we take them as messages from, like, our spiritual world, right? Let's say we have our spirit helpers and to get a message across to us, they will show us in dreams, right? If we do a ceremony and we ask them to give us a message, you know, we ask them questions, we want a message, it'll either come to us in a dream or it'll even come to us through animals. They'll come up and they'll do something, and in your mind, it relates to what you're trying to get an answer for, right?

Dreams are very powerful to my culture anyway. You know what I mean? I don't know about other people, how they interpret dreams. I know there's books where you read “What does this dream mean? What does that dream mean?” But it's all in what you take from the dream, like the knowledge you get from it, or the information you get from it. It's just like reading the Bible, right? It's not about the story that's on the page. It's about the meaning behind the story, how you interpret it, what it's telling you about the morals of spirituality and, and how you're supposed to act and not act. It's a way of being, right?

Even in the Bible, they talk about dreams, right? They say, “Oh, I saw this and this.” And people think it's a dream, but it's not. Like Job. When Lucifer tested him and made a deal with God, and he says, “I bet you he won't have your back.” I mean, he bet “He won't stay loyal to you, still hold you in high regard if this happens to him.” So, God was just, “Oh, yeah, he will still praise me.” Or, like, “I'm his God, you will not deter from me.” You know what I mean? So, they had that deal, and you can do whatever you want to him, but except kill him, right? So, I read that, and I take that, like, as almost a dream.

Yeah, I read the Bible a few times. I studied a lot of religions because I grew up with people contradicting my own culture. Like the whole thing with them taking my people and putting them in Residential Schools. So, you know, there was a period when I was younger where my mother started sending us to church, right? I grew up on reserve for six years. And I knew my culture, right? I spoke my language and, and then she, um, broke up with my father over… I don't know, some stuff that happened. And she ran away with us, and we ended up in Toronto. So, it was a big change. I got here when I was like eight years old. It was like, “Wow.” You know, I'd never seen people of other races, you know, ethnicities. I see, you know, a black person, and I'm like, “Wow, why is he so dark?” You know? [Laughs]. I didn't know, right?

I went from not believing in spirituality and not believing all that, to like... and it helped with having dreams, right? So, like I said, [because of] my culture, the messages I got from the dreams, I took those dreams and the messages I got from them. And I used that knowledge in my life. What I got from my dream, I used it in my life and, and to help me move forward and gain knowledge. 'Cause I was on a path of destruction, right?

To me, [dreams] were messages from like, a spiritual realm, you know? And like I said, it's weird. I don't know. It's not weird, but it's how I see things, you know what I mean?

I used to have the same recurring dream all the time. My mother told me a story when I was younger about her and my dad. They were driving—this was on Manitoulin—and were driving from partying somewhere, right? It was the middle of the night. And my dad lives near a cemetery in his town, right? And I guess they were driving by the cemetery. And somebody in white ran across the front of the car and he ended up hitting them or whatever, hitting this thing, whatever it was. And it was white, I guess. And they saw it fly into the ditch. And my mother said, “Richard, stop the car.” And he stopped the car, and he kept going back and forth to see if he hit somebody, right? And there was nobody there or whatever. But all of a sudden the flash of white was in the rearview mirror. They saw something run behind the car, back the other way. My mother got really scared. So, she told him, “Just drive, just drive!”

And this is the story she tells me [when] I was 10 years old, right? And to this day—I don't really talk to her anymore 'cause we had a falling out, right? And, and that also has to do with like spirituality stuff. But when she told me about it, I think she put some negative energy, like, towards me, right? 'Cause after she told me this story, I kept having this dream where I'd walk out on my dad's porch—like a deck in front of his house. I grew up in Toronto, and then for the summers, my mother would send me to his place. And the cemetery, you could see from his deck, right where the corner is, it's about a kilometer up the road.

And well, I'll finish telling you what she told me. She told my dad to step on the gas and get out of there to get back to his house, right? So, he did that. And while he did that, she said tree stumps just appeared in the middle of the road, like trees that were falling and broken, but they were in the middle of the road. And, and there's a lot of stories about Manitoulin Island, people have a lot of stories to share about things that they've seen and happened down there. In our culture, we have a practice they call bear walking, right? And that has to do with dreams. Like they can come into your dreams with this bad medicine, right? The [ones that] practice bad medicine. Like we use medicines, but they use it in a bad way, right? But when they do use it in a bad way, it always in the end backfires on them. They know that it's gonna come back on them like twofold or tenfold, right? Like, it's not gonna be good, but they do it anyway.

I think there was something that happened. My mother was raised by her great uncle, and apparently he practiced that stuff, right? And my mother had ten siblings, and they were all put up for adoption. So, she doesn't know who her dad is. And it's pretty sad, like, whatever, like, that's why they say Natives, we have intergenerational trauma, right? What she went through and what her mother went through, her mother went to residential schools, right? And her mom ended up having ten kids, and none of them know who their fathers were. She kept one of my aunties. And that was it. I only met three aunties and one uncle—and my mother.

The recurring dream was I'd be on my dad's porch. After my mother told me the story about them hitting the tree stumps... I'll finish this, the story, slowly. So, when my dad ran through the tree stumps, they actually physically damaged the car

So, he ran over the tree stumps that appeared in the middle of the road, and he stepped on the gas, and he hit the tree stumps, and they hit it so hard that it damaged the bottom of the car. The axle and everything. So, he had to glide down the road, and they made it to the driveway. And she told me this too, I don't know why. And she said it was a, um... what do you call it? A malevolent entity, or whatever, that they met that night, right? After she told me this, I kept having this dream. And it was me going out onto his porch, looking towards the cemetery. And I had the same dream ‘til I was 28, from when I was 10. You know what I mean? And it was the same dream all the time. I'd walk out into my dad's big patio and I'd look and I'd see this malevolent being. And it was white and it was black, and I'd see it coming around the corner. There's a corner bend where the cemetery is, right? And my family's buried there. My grandfather's buried there. You know, my grandma's buried there. All my relatives on my dad's side.

So, it's coming from the cemetery. I'd see this in my dream; I'd see this malevolent being or whatever. And right away, I already felt this fear of it. Like, you know, I felt fear of it. And it was moving in an awkward way, right? It would be like, almost like, I don't know, like flashes of it. Like, when I'm looking at it, it's moving in a weird way where it's stopping, but I know it's acknowledging me. I could feel it, you know? And I'm looking at it and I look the other way.

And I’d look back at it and it’d be closer, and I’d look away and I look at it again, and it’d be closer. And I'm trying to call for my family members. Because I was in my dad's house by myself, and there was nobody there. So, I'd go out on the porch, and then all I see is this thing coming down the road, and it's getting closer and closer every time. I'm trying to call my dad's name and my mother's name, right? And then as soon as it got too close, I started running. I run off my dad's porch and I started running. And when I started running, then I felt like it was behind me.

In my dream, I could feel it almost grabbing me. So, in my dream, I'd run my hardest, you know. I'd run out of fear, you know what I mean? And I'm running so hard, I can almost feel it grabbing me, you know what I mean? Like, it's behind me. It's grabbing me. In my dream, I'm using all my everything. I have the adrenaline. I have to go as fast as I can. And I'd be across the bridge. And I'd make it to my grandmother's door. She had this shed in front of her main door. They built a shed in there where you could put the firewood and stuff. So, I'd reach my grandmother's screen door and I pulled it open right away because I could almost feel it grab me. And I turned around and right before I slammed the screen door, its face would be right there. You know what I mean? All the time, every time. And when his face would be right there, I'd start crying in my sleep. Right? And I would wake up and I'd be sweating. I'd be in tears. And I didn't know, like, I was embarrassed when it first started happening. It was like a thing that I just kept to myself, right?

I didn't know what it was or why this dream was happening. At the time I didn't know about like, talking to, like, we have what's called medicine and the spiritual people, right? And I wasn't in that mindset where, you know, things can happen where people can do this to you. You know, like, with the bad spiritual energy or whatever. So then, like, the dream kept happening.

Like for years it was happening. And, and I didn't know why. And it was always the same dream though. I'd be out on the porch, the exact same dream. And it would always be trying to chase me and trying to catch me. And I'd run to my grandmother's house again, and I'd always get to my grandmother's house, and I'd close the door. And it's always the same thing. It's always there, almost catching me, but never caught me, right? And it kept happening, over and over.

And I'm, like, why am I having this dream, man? So, I started reading books about it. Like, what do these dreams mean? But I couldn't find nothing about the dream I was having, I can describe it exactly in detail. And in my dream, it was like, I couldn't let this thing catch me, because if it did, I felt like if it caught me, it wasn't gonna be good. Right? Like, I couldn't get caught by this thing.

The last time I had it, well, I got outta the penitentiary, right? I went to the penitentiary and stuff. Through my growing up, I ended up committing like a bunch of crimes and stuff and going to Young Offenders when I was 14. And you know, like, we had, um, a falling out. My mother got kicked out and stuff like that. And, you know, I don't really want to get into that, but it kind of made me really very defensive about people, very wary, cautious about people. Because a lot of things happened within my family where it's like, I can't even trust my own family. If my family does things like this to me, you know, can I trust other people, you know what I mean?

It made me very antisocial around people. I had a big shield up, you know? People wanted to know stuff about me. I'm, like, why? You know what I mean? Like, what's your intent? Like, what do you want to know something about me for?

A lot of things happened [after I got out of jail]. Like I said, I was trying to find myself on a spiritual level. Like, I was stuck in between like, spiritually, who was I, like, as a person? There was a point where I was ashamed of being Native, right? Because it's like, going to the city and stuff and seeing how society was acting towards my people and stuff. From my point of view, it's like, people looked at my people... I

don't know. We weren't actually people to be respected, you know what I mean? To be acknowledged. We're looked at like a lower person, you know, like a savage, I guess you could say. Right? That's what they used to call it. So, you know, as a teenager, I was having an identity crisis, you know? I used to lie to people. They say, “You Native or are you Spanish? Or you are Asian?” I'd say I'm something different, you know what I mean? I say, “No, I'm not Native,” you know. But then as I got older, I went to Thunder Bay and I went to a treatment center.

I was still having this dream through the years, and I never brought it up to anybody, right? Because I was trying to figure it out on my own. Like, I was just thinking maybe it's just something that happened to me that I don't remember. But then I got into my culture again. I went to Thunder Bay and I met this guy. I had to go to treatment center. When I was younger, I used to be a Native dancer. Like I said, until I moved to Toronto, that's all I knew, my culture, right? So then as a teenager, I had substance abuse problems, just, you know, because I watched that growing up. I was allowed to drink when I was 12 years old. My mother let me drink. So, I'd sit at the table with the adults and drink with them when I'm 12, right? So, I got pictures of me when I'm a little kid holding a bottle of beer and, you know what I mean? So, drinking just made me... but it was weird 'cause I was born with FAS, right? Fetal alcohol syndrome. But I don't feel like there's nothing wrong with me. My mother drank with me until I was born. Right? In those days, I guess they just saw that as a normal thing, right?

So, like I said, I started getting into my culture and to the spirituality of things and started talking to elders in medicine. And I'm like, so now this is why I say dreams connect to your spirit and your life, right? That's why I say dreams are very powerful. You have to look at them and what they mean, and you know, they're happening for a reason. It's not just something that pops into your head. You can't forget about it. You're having it for a reason. You're having it for a purpose, right?

So, then I took it as, well, this thing's after me, why is it after me who sent it after me? You know? So, I'm trying to figure out, okay, when did I start having this dream? And it came to my mother telling me that story. So, you know what I mean? I don't think, there's no reason she would put anything like that on me. Why would she do that? But that's the only thing that I can connect to when I started having the dreams: when she told me that story. And it was weird. She sat me on the table, and she told me this story. And after she told me that story, I started having this dream. And then I moved to Thunder Bay, and I got into my culture at a treatment center when I was a teenager.

I take the messages that I get from [dreams] very, very seriously. And I incorporate it into my life, that something's gonna happen or not gonna happen. Like, if it's a warning—like I had a dream about my baby mother, right? At a time when we were having a rough time with lots of kids. I had this dream, another dream, and I actually wrote her a letter. I was in jail, and I wrote her in detail about this dream, and what I thought it meant.

The dream was this guy took me to this abandoned house on Spadina [Road]. And Spadina is where the Friendship Center is. But that's where her sister lives. And my daughter’s at Donna Reed school there, and her sister was down the road there, but they have all these frat houses, okay? And this guy, for some reason, he brought me to an abandoned frat house, one of these big old Victorian houses or whatever. Big houses. And inside the house was like, condemned, right? But I can remember that we were walking down the same street that her sister lived. We walked in the house, and this guy brought me in there, and he's a Native guy. I can describe him to a T. He's a big chubbier Native guy with a ponytail. And he had long hair in a braid in the back. And he had a shaved undercut, and he had high cheekbones, and he was chubbier, right? He had chubby cheeks. And he had glasses and this long black trench coat on. And I can remember looking at his trench coat, and I could see the red stripes that went down his sleeves, and they came to a design on his wrist, almost like a tribal loops, right? This is how detailed my dream was.

And I'm like, wow, that's a weird coat. I was on this dusty couch. It was dusty in there. There was a hole in the floor. It was like an abandoned old house, right? And then, um, he pulled out this rattle and all this stuff, right? And in our culture, the turtle rattle is very powerful. We don't use them in the everyday, like at powwows. We only use them in ceremonies, right? So, it's a turtle rattle. It's a shell of a turtle, right? So, yeah, they're very powerful, like when you use them and can you only use them for ceremonies, whether it's for curing or for bad, right?

He was shaking his turtle rattle at me over me. And he was saying something, in Native tongue, right? And he was looking at me and he kept shaking a rattle. And when he was shaking the rattle, I started feeling a pain in my stomach, you know what I mean? And I remember seeing a green glow on his face. It's like, the green glow was reflecting off his face, so he was like, sweating. Shiny. And the light was reflecting off the sweat, I guess. And he was shaking his rattle, and he was singing a song in his language. And I felt he was doing something to me, so I couldn't move. And I was feeling so much pain, right?

Like he was casting a spell. That's how I interpreted it. And I'm like, what are you doing? I kept feeling like hotter, hotter, hotter, you know. It was burning. I was trying to fight it off. Like get away from me, you know? And outta nowhere, he stopped. And I turned my head, and out of the room came the mother of my kids. And I looked at her and I'm like, “Yo, Celine. What are you doing here? Like, get away from this guy,” you know? But she didn't even hear me. She couldn't hear me. And she just walked out, and she smiled, and she was just looking at him, and he looked at her, and I'm stuck on the couch.

I was, like, paralyzed, right? And I'm trying to move with all my strength, and why is this guy doing this to me? Like, who are you? You know? Then his face looks familiar, you know? It's like I seen this guy before. Like, I thought, I know him. It was like, in my mind I'm thinking, as soon as my baby mother walks in the room, that's the reason why he's doing it. He's obsessed with my baby mother, and he wants her, so maybe he’s doing stuff to her to affect me, to get me away from her. Because when I was telling her get away from him, she wasn't acknowledging me. So, to me, it's like he had control over her already.

I woke up and I was in the Toronto South, the medical unit, right? I was there in a cell with one of my friends, actually. His name was Ian. He comes here sometimes. I woke up and right away, I was hot. I was pouring with sweat. I told him right away the dream, you know what I mean, in detail like that, like everything that happened. And I'm like, what do you think, man? I said, I gotta write my baby mom a letter. Like, I gotta get to her before this happens, you know what I mean? I gotta warn her, you know? So, I wrote her a letter right away and I wrote her in detail. This guy, I described him, and I said, this is what happened.

So I said, listen, you got to get some help for this guy. Get this guy away from me. 'Cause this guy's coming after you. Right?

Like I said, it was too real. Physically it did something to me. So, when I got out, I ended up seeing her, and like “Did you talk to your sister about that?” And she goes, “No.” And I thought to myself, the way she was interacting with me, I thought, “Oh fuck. It's already too late.” You know what I'm saying though? Like, this is not the mother of my kids. Like, you know what I mean? I'm, like, what's wrong with you? I said, you need to see a medicine man. So I tried to arrange it. She kept saying some guy's name. I don't know this guy's name. She kept saying the same name over and over. “I need to talk to this guy. I need to talk to this guy.” A medicine man I guess she used to see. And I'm like, who the fuck is this guy? Like, what do you mean you have to see this guy?

I didn't get a chance to find out who this guy was that she kept saying, but it got to a point where I was asking, do you know a guy who looks like this? You know, I describe this guy, you know, the high cheekbones and the glasses and the chubby high cheekbones and the shaved undercut with a braid. He wears a black leather long trench coat, you know, you know what I'm saying though?

This guy kind of told me, “Yo, I know a guy who looks like that and he, and he's in a powwow scene.” And I'm thinking, this guy is the guy. But then the mother of my kids passed away, right?

Before that, she had these rings in her bathroom. She had a Freemason ring in her bathroom, right? And I'm like, where'd you get this ring, man? Because like,[we weren’t together then and], she's doing drugs. To me, it's like somebody was after her because of that dream. And I have to try to do something. I'm trying to get her to go see a medicine man. And she kept saying this other guy's name. It got me so angry. I'm like, stop with this fucking guy you're talking about. I even tried asking Mom, who the hell is this guy, whatever the fuck his name is? So, I try to get her to see the medicine man, so that, and in our culture that's important. It's like seeing an Exorcist, you know what I mean? Almost.

So, after that dream, it got to a point where it's like, I lost her already. It wasn't her, you know what I'm saying? That's sad to say. That wasn't her, you know what I mean? Every time I seen her, it's like she would be there in the beginning and then it would be some other personality. And this person I didn't get along with. It wasn't the person I fell in love with, the mother of my kids. It was like some other fucking control or something, you know what I mean?

And I don't know if that has to do with it, but I got that message and what was gonna happen from my dream first, right? The dream was 100% accurate. It's like, I knew something like that was gonna happen. So that's why I was trying to get her to help.

That's why dreams are very powerful to me. I take them in as messages. They are a part of our spirituality. The spirit world is telling you. That's how they communicate.