mossdreams.com
FEATURES & ESSAYS
 

 By Robert Moss

 In contemporary discussion, when dreams are valued at all, they are often described as passive and entirely personal (i.e. subjective) experiences. In the Dream School, however, we recognize that dreaming can be a highly active undertaking, in two important senses:

•  As active dreamers, we travel consciously and intentionally into the dreamspace for healing, initiation and adventure. The royal road for this type of Active Dreaming opens through the gateway of remembered dreams and visions which we proceed to reenter (or borrow, with permission, from fellow-dreamers)

• As dream advocates and dream teachers, we work actively to open a space for people in all walks of life to share and honor their dreams and grow dreams for the good of the community

 Similarly, while we recognize that dreams may indeed be deeply personal, we observe that dreaming can be quite transpersonal as well. Dreaming, we encounter a host of beings and entities who are more than simply aspects of our personal unconscious (though we may all be related in the great web of multidimensional life).

 We have learned that dreaming is a path of limitless adventure. Active Dreaming is not only about understanding sleep experiences (though we greatly prize the spontaneous dreams that come uninvited, showing us what we need to know). As active dreamers, we work with the whole spectrum of dreaming and visionary experience, including attending to the symbols and synchronicities of waking life – which will speak to us in the manner of dreams if we only pay attention.

 In our practice, we marry the best of modern dreamwork techniques – above all the recognition that the only “expert” on dreams is the dreamer herself – to powerful shamanic techniques for shifting consciousness and embarking on conscious dream journeys.

 Dreaming is daily practice. Active Dreaming is a discipline, to be studied and practiced on many levels. The core techniques have emerged from my personal practice and teaching over several decades. Core techniques of Active Dreaming include:

         -           the “lightning dreamwork” technique which enables people tell their dreams, receive helpful and non-intrusive       feedback and embark on appropriate action in a minimum amount of time in everyday environments

-           dreaming true, which involves scanning for precognitive content in dreams and determining appropriate action to fulfill or avoid the possible futures foreseen in dreams as well as conscious scouting into the future

-           dream reentry and tracking – deepened and accelerated through shamanic drumming - to clarify messages, dialogue with dream characters and dream the dream onward for resolution or adventure

-           conscious dream travel into multidimensional reality

-           shared dreaming and group dream travel (grand adventures that provide mutual validation and scientific evidence of the objective reality of other dimensions)

-           the practice of dream healing on many levels, from using dreams for diagnosis and as sources of imagery for self-healing to conscious journeying into the dreamspace to help shift the energy system in the direction of health

-           soul recovery – using dreams to identify where a part of our energy and identity may have been lost through past trauma, and journeying into the dreamspace to bring it home

-           dreamwork to help the dying to make their transition with grace

-           creative dreaming – releasing the artist/writer/inventor/creator within us by tapping into the dream source and getting into flow with our best dreams

-           dream theatre – the pinnacle of improv and a fount of joyful and healing energy

-           the dream transfer technique, a powerful way of bringing healing imagery to those in need of a dream.