DREAM ADVENTURES

Robert Moss is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original method of dream work and healing through the imagination. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming and a lively online dream school. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a bestselling novelist, journalist, and independent scholar. His seven books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Three “Only” Things,  and Dreamgates: Exploring the Worlds of Soul, Imagination, and Life Beyond Death. 


Moss’s Active Dreaming is an original synthesis of contemporary dreamwork and shamanic methods of journeying and healing. A central premise of Moss’s approach is that dreaming isn’t just what happens during sleep; dreaming is waking up to sources of guidance, healing and creativity beyond the reach of the everyday mind. He introduced his method to an international audience as an invited presenter at the conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams at the University of Leiden in 1994
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Over the past fifteen years, he has led seminars at the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, Bastyr University, John F. Kennedy University, Meriter Hospital, and many other centers and institutions. He has taught in-depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Lithuania, Romania, and Austria and leads a three-year training course for teachers of Active Dreaming. He leads popular online dreamwork courses at www.spirituality-health.com, writes the “Dream Life” column for Spirituality magazine, and hosts the Way of the Dreamer radio show at www.healthylife.net.


He has appeared on many TV and radio shows, ranging from Charlie Rose and the Today show to Coast to Coast, and including The Diane Rehm Show on NPR, Michael Krasny’s Forum on KQED San Francisco, The Faith Middleton Show on Connecticut Public Radio, and CBC’s Tapestry program. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman’s Drum and Beliefnet.com.


He is a former history professor who has become a “dream archeologist." 


He says while “archeology” is often understood to be the science of unearthing and studying antiquities, the root meaning is more profound: it is the study of the arche, the first and essential things. The practice of “dream archeology” requires mastery of a panoply of sources, and the ability to read between the lines and make connections that have gone unnoticed by specialists who were looking for something else. It requires the ability to locate dreaming in its context – physical, social and cultural. And it demands the ability to enter a different time or culture, through the exercise of active imagination, and experience it from the inside as it may have been. These are the skills we need to excavate the inner dimension of the human adventure.


There is a growing line of dream practitioners who are training people to "control" their dreams. Some use the method of pre-sleep suggestion to get your unconscious mind to focus on a type of dream you want to take in REM sleep. Others suggest that what troubles a person before they sleep will find its way into their dreams as a brain's mechanism on how to solve problems or cope with waking issues. There are a few people who can control their livid dreams like a Hollywood director. In these situations, a person may not actually be totally asleep but may be in a stage between daydreaming and actual sleep. A light sleeper may be in more control of its conscious library of thoughts, ideas and images to enhance a dream experience.


It would be revolutionary for people to be able to control their dreams. 


But science still does not fully comprehend why humans dream. Most theorize that dreams take away from the active mind's routine waking tasks. It is a method of "re-charging" the body's energy levels and healing properties. The brain would normally continually be at full active levels like revving a high performance engine. But in order to calm it down, the human body rests or sleeps so the brain engine does not overheat. Other researchers think the brain is a very complex bio-chemical computer which needs to de-fragment its files every night in order to remember information, thoughts, memories and functions. Occasionally, people in dreams may "see" strings of numbers, letters or images zip through their mind's eye like a computer screen compiling lines of program code.


Spiritualists believe that in sleep, a person's soul awakens to analyze its host and to express its beliefs to the subconscious mind. In this view, a person and his or her soul are partners in life. One is in the physical world, the other in the inner, unseen, intangible world of self. The soul may be considered the "inner voice" that some people hear when having to make hard, split second decisions. The soul may also be the instinct and mechanism to protect yourself from yourself, through the use of fear, anxieties and survival modes.


In either situation, human beings for some reason crave adventure. In the real world, most people live real dull lives. Everyone craves some level of adventure, surprise and out-of-comfort-zone accomplishments. Dreams may be the easiest and safest avenue for the human mind to meet those needs of adventure. But at a certain point, humans who think about having new adventures get depressed if they do not have the courage of taking a chance and physically going out to do it. This holds true in the stress and introversion in personal relationships. Sometimes pulling the trigger and asking someone out can open the door to a great adventure or blow up in one's face. The fear of rejection and being hurt is one of those hard wired traits that holds most people back and makes the security blanket of their fantasy dreams harder to break because they can get what they want in their adventure dreams without being hurt by another person.


Most people would say that is living a false life. Life itself is an adventure that one has to take the reins and ride in the real world.