mossdreams.com
March 2008
 

THOUGHTS CAN HEAL YOUR BODY
Read Robert's new article in Parade Magazine (March 9) [more]


DREAMING THE DEATH OF THE SECOND NORMAN KING OF ENGLAND
The year is 1100, and William II, called William Rufus (William the Red) is the second Norman king of England. He’s a rapacious, rowdy, brawling character who has earned a lot of opposition, including that of the great scholar Anselm who is now Archbishop of Canterbury. The king has forced Anselm into exile. Anselm has a vision: the “saints of England” are applying to God to deal with the Norman thug on the throne. God summons Saint Alban, the first martyr of England, into his presence and hands him a flaming arrow. God says, “Behold the death of the man you complain of before me.” Saint Alban takes the arrow and says he will deliver it to “a wicked spirit”, so the arrow will be “an avenger of sins.” In Anselm’s vision, the arrow is thrown from the sky and comes down like a fiery comet.At the same time, or soon afterwards, William Rufus was struck by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest; he died the same night. [more]


A DREAM THAT RESTS HEAVY ON YOUR MIND
Dream, Visions and Signs in Slave Narratives Collected for the WPA
By Wanda Easter Burch
Between 1936 and 1938, more than 2,300 first person accounts of slavery were collected as part of the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The interviewers used a standardized set of questions designed to mine the memory of former slaves, most of them in their 70s or 80s at the time they were interviewed.  They were asked about dreams and visions and “signs”. There are relatively few lengthy dream reports among the narratives, perhaps because of the general way the questions were asked. An interesting feature of the narratives is that the former slaves do not draw strong distinctions between dreams and “signs”; they received messages in the dream world, and from the world around them. The most important messages often involved contact with the dead and glimpses of the future. [more]

DREAM DIAGNOSIS AND DREAM Rx
Our bodies know what is going on inside them, and they speak to us about this in dreams, which often diagnose developing illness before physical symptoms are detected. By working with these diagnostic dreams, we can often deal with a problem before it has reached a critical phase – and sometimes avoid painful and costly medical interventions. [more]

JAZZ IS DREAMY, DREAMING IS JAZZY
When a jazz musician takes off on a riff of improvisation, what goes on in his brain is very similar to what happens in dream sleep. In an enterprising new NIH study, Charles Limb and Allen Braun used MRI technology to examine what happens in the brain when jazz musicians improvise, as compared to brain activation patterns when they stick to well rehearsed tunes. [more]