It is commonly agreed that dreamcatchers began with The Anishinaabe peoples who are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples present in the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States. Dreamcatchers have 3 basic elements, web, feathers and beads.

The web catches and destroys bad dreams before they reach the sleeper. The feathers allow good dreams to pass through, they gently slide down them all of the way to the sleeper, and the beads symbolise the spider, the origin of the dreamcatcher, the web weaver itself. The story is….

A grandmother, Nokomis, sees that her grandchild is about to kill a spider and stops him just in time. The spider, grateful to Nokomis for saving her life, rewards the woman by spinning her a magic web, a protective gift to keep her dreams peaceful and good.

That was the first dreamcatcher.