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Reviewed 10 October 2026 · Calculation gmt584283-proleptic-gregorian-v1 · Prepared by the Mayan Astrology Calculator editors · Sources below

The 13 Numbers of the Tzolk'in, and Their Dreamspell "Galactic Tone" Names

Every day in the 260-day Maya count, the Tzolk'in (Chol Q'ij in K'iche'), has a number from 1 to 13 and one of 20 day signs. Both advance together, so a pairing such as 1 Imix comes back only after 260 days. [1] The numbers are traditional. The names many websites give them, such as "Magnetic" or "Cosmic", come from Dreamspell, a modern system begun in 1987. On this site your result shows the traditional number first and the Dreamspell name as a labelled alias. [2][3]

The 13 numbers at a glance

Each row links to a full page on that number: how scribes wrote it, where it appears in the historical record, upcoming dates, and its 20 day-sign combinations. Classic Maya words follow Kettunen & Helmke (2020: 48), and question marks are theirs. [4] Head-variant notes follow Morley (1915) and later research. [5]

No.	Bar-and-dot	Classic word	Head variant (short)	Dreamspell alias	One thing to know
1	•	jun	Many-part forehead ornament	"Magnetic"	Landa: the Yucatec count began on "Hun Imix"
2	••	cha'	Rare; only two examples known to Morley	"Lunar"	The current k'atun ends on 2 Ajaw (7 Sep 2032)
3	•••	ux / ox	Headband (fillet)	"Electric"	"3 Ik'" at San Bartolo, c. 100 BCE
4	••••	chan / kan	Square-irised eye, curling fang	"Self-Existing"	Creation date and 21 Dec 2012 are both 4 Ajaw
5	▬	ho'	Tun-sign headdress	"Overtone"	First number written with a bar
6	• ▬	wak	"Hatchet eye"	"Rhythmic"	Early Long Counts: 6 Reed, 6 Knife
7	•• ▬	huk	Scroll under the eye (one example)	"Resonant"	San Bartolo "7 Deer", the oldest securely dated record
8	••• ▬	waxak	Ajan, the maize god	"Galactic"	Waqxaqib' B'atz' ceremony in highland Guatemala
9	•••• ▬	balun?	Dots on cheek or around mouth	"Solar"	Most common head numeral (Cycle 9 dates)
10	▬ ▬	lajun	Skull; its jaw adds 10	"Planetary"	Jaw turns heads 3–9 into 13–19
11	• ▬ ▬	buluch / buluk	Earth deity (Stuart 2024)	"Spectral"	Our $7 sample report is 11 Ik'
12	•• ▬ ▬	lajunchan?	Not yet identified	"Crystal"	The least documented number
13	••• ▬ ▬	uxlajun / oxlajun	Own head, or 3-head with 10-jaw	"Cosmic"	13 Ajaw is always followed by 1 Imix

Bar-and-dot column: a dot is 1 and a bar is 5. Carvers usually placed the dots above or beside the bars. [5]

[Design note: render the bar-and-dot column as SVG numerals, not text characters]

Number first, sign second

The two cycles run side by side. The numbers go 1 to 13 and start again, "1 following immediately 13". The twenty signs run from Imix to Ajaw and start again. [6] Because 13 and 20 share no common factor, every number meets every sign exactly once in 260 days. [1] So your number is not a separate horoscope stacked on top of your sign. It is half of the name of a single day, such as 11 Ik' or 4 Ajaw.

A run of thirteen days, from a 1 to the next 13, is called a trecena, a word Spanish chroniclers used for "a group of thirteen". [7] Dreamspell calls the same run a "wavespell", though its runs fall on different dates because it counts differently (see below).

The current trecena

This table shows the trecena that opened on 10 October 2026 (GMT 584283), with the Dreamspell reading of the same dates for comparison. [3][8]

Date	Traditional day	Number page	Dreamspell (modern)
10 Oct 2026	1 Imix	Number 1	Kin 45, Red Rhythmic Serpent
11 Oct 2026	2 Ik'	Number 2	Kin 46, White Resonant World-Bridger
12 Oct 2026	3 Ak'bal	Number 3	Kin 47, Blue Galactic Hand
13 Oct 2026	4 K'an	Number 4	Kin 48, Yellow Solar Star
14 Oct 2026	5 Chikchan	Number 5	Kin 49, Red Planetary Moon
15 Oct 2026	6 Kimi	Number 6	Kin 50, White Spectral Dog
16 Oct 2026	7 Manik'	Number 7	Kin 51, Blue Crystal Monkey
17 Oct 2026	8 Lamat	Number 8	Kin 52, Yellow Cosmic Human
18 Oct 2026	9 Muluk	Number 9	Kin 53, Red Magnetic Skywalker
19 Oct 2026	10 Ok	Number 10	Kin 54, White Lunar Wizard
20 Oct 2026	11 Chuwen	Number 11	Kin 55, Blue Electric Eagle
21 Oct 2026	12 Eb	Number 12	Kin 56, Yellow Self-Existing Warrior
22 Oct 2026	13 Ben	Number 13	Kin 57, Red Overtone Earth

What the numbers do and don't tell you

The historical record tells us a lot about how the numbers were written and used:

• They were written two ways. Bars and dots appear in the earliest records, and portrait heads were used as an alternative in carved inscriptions. Morley found bar-and-dot Initial Series dates nearly 200 years earlier than head-variant ones (Morley 1915: 102–103). [5]
• They named people and places. K'iche' chronicles record lords called Wuqub' No'j ("Seven Thoughts") and B'elejeb' Kej ("Nine Deer"). Christenson says such names were likely the person's birth day, "a common practice at the time of the Conquest" (Christenson 2007: 246, 275). [9]
• They are still counted. Highland daykeepers in Guatemala keep the 260-day count, and its best-known ceremony falls on a number: Waqxaqib' B'atz', 8 B'atz'. [1][10]

What the record does not give us is a fixed personality for each number. We have not found a Classic, colonial or ethnographic source that gives "3" or "12" its own character the way modern tone guides do. The keyword sets attached to the numbers ("Purpose / Unify / Attract" for 1, for example) are published by the Foundation for the Law of Time as Dreamspell teachings. [11] Our pages keep the two apart: traditional material first, Dreamspell in its own labelled section.

About the name "galactic tone"

"Galactic tone" is Dreamspell vocabulary. José and Lloydine Argüelles introduced the Dreamspell system from 1987, and the Dreamspell kit appeared in 1990. [2] It gives each number a name (Magnetic, Lunar, Electric, Self-Existing, Overtone, Rhythmic, Resonant, Galactic, Solar, Planetary, Spectral, Crystal, Cosmic) and uses those names for the months of its 13 Moon calendar. [11][2] We keep the URL /galactic-tones because many readers search with that phrase. That does not make it a Maya term, and one Lake Atitlán culture site points out that this vocabulary does "not come from any Maya language or community". [12]

Dreamspell also counts days differently. It fixes 26 July 1987 as Kin 34, "White Galactic Wizard", and skips every 29 February. [8][2] That is why a Dreamspell calculator and this one usually show different numbers for the same birthday. On 10 October 2026 they differ by five. Read the full comparison →

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Questions

Which number is mine?
Enter your birth date in the calculator. The number is the first part of your day name, for example the 11 in 11 Ik'. Then open that number's page from the table above.

Is a higher number better?
No. The numbers count days. We have not found a traditional source that ranks them, and our reports do not.

Why does my number differ from another website?
Most often the other site uses Dreamspell, which follows its own anchor date and skips 29 February. A few use the 584285 or 584286 correlation, which shifts results by two or three days. [13] Our method is set out on the methodology page.

What about the 20 day signs?
Each sign has its own page. Start at the day-sign hub.

Sources

1. Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. "The Calendar System." Living Maya Time. https://maya.nmai.si.edu/calendar/calendar-system
2. "Dreamspell." Wikipedia (used for dates of the system and 13 Moon structure; cites Argüelles & Argüelles 1990). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamspell
3. Mayan Astrology Calculator. "Calculation Methodology and Cultural Scope." https://mayanastrologycalculator.com/methodology
4. Kettunen, Harri, and Christophe Helmke. Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs, 17th rev. ed. Wayeb, 2020, p. 48 (Table VI, Classic Maya numerals). https://www.mesoweb.org/resources/handbook/IMH2020.pdf
5. Morley, Sylvanus G. An Introduction to the Study of the Maya Hieroglyphs. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 57. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1915, ch. IV (pp. 87–103, "Bar and Dot Numerals" and "Head-variant Numerals"). https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Introduction_to_the_Study_of_the_Maya_Hieroglyphs/Chapter_4
6. Morley, Sylvanus G. An Introduction to the Study of the Maya Hieroglyphs. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 57. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1915, ch. III (pp. 41–43, 79–82). https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Introduction_to_the_Study_of_the_Maya_Hieroglyphs/Chapter_3
7. "Trecena." Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trecena
8. Foundation for the Law of Time (Galactic Research Institute). "The Wizard's Count and the Triumph of the Synchronic Order." Rinri Project Newsletter, Phoenix Edition, vol. 2, no. 1. https://www.lawoftime.org/pdfs/Rinri-II-2.1.pdf
9. Christenson, Allen J. Popol Vuh: Sacred Book of the Quiché Maya People. Electronic edition, Mesoweb, 2007 (of the 2003 print edition). https://www.mesoweb.com/publications/Christenson/PopolVuh.pdf
10. Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes de Guatemala. "La importancia Waqxaqib' B'atz en la cosmovisión Maya." 18 January 2025. https://noticias.mcd.gob.gt/2025/01/18/la-importancia-waqxaqib-batz/
11. Foundation for the Law of Time. "Learning the 13 Galactic Tones and 20 Solar Seals." https://lawoftime.org/infobooth/sealsandtones.html
12. AtitlanVida. "Two Distinct Streams: The Traditional Cholq'ij and the Dreamspell." https://atitlanvida.com/culture/tzolkin/traditional-vs-dreamspell/
13. Van Stone, Mark. "2012 FAQ." FAMSI. https://www.famsi.org/research/vanstone/2012/faq.html