Dream Visions

Dreams vs Reality | Blog Your Blessings

I just found a great quote on dreams and dreaming that I think sums up the teachings of Robert Moss, lama Tenzin Wangyal, and other dream researchers and teachers often quoted on this blog on the topic of active dreaming.

It may sound flippant at first, but I think it is well worth thinking about. What do you think?

There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other. —Douglas Everett

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

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Defining “Dreams” | Blog Your Blessings

The fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy reminded me of a famous RFK quote: “There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (also assassinated 40 years ago this year) said, “I have a dream…” In fact, he said that on several occasions about different dreams.

Both men were using dream to mean something that they wanted to have happen. At first that may seem to be a different usage from the “dreams” we have at night. But take a second look.

John Lennon said, “A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.”

Lennon also wrote, “Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.” That was his dream.

In some cultures, to have a good dream, as in the dreams RFK, MLK, and John Lennon had for the good of their people, is to be obligated to work to make that dream come true. And in reading about the Senoi people of Malaysia, the Tibetan lamas, lucid dreamers of many cultures, and dreamworkers like Robert Moss, we have found that dreaming can cause things to happen. So the two definitions of dreams (day dreams and night dreams) begin to merge.

In Europe and the U.S. in recent centuries we have been taught to think of night-time dreams as passive experiences, surreal and fantastic, having nothing to do with “real” life. Now we know that we can learn to use our night-time dreams to help make our daytime dreams come true.

What could be more of a blessing than that?

Senoi Dreamwork | Blog Your Blessings

I’m still reading Creative Dreaming, the wonderful dreamwork book by Patricia Garfield, Ph.D., that I reviewed in a previous post.

I keep finding more and more good information in it. In particular, there is a whole chapter on Senoi dreamwork that is worth the price of the book all on its own.

The Senoi are often mentioned in connection with dreamwork, but often without much or any explanation of who they are and why they are important. The Senoi are a tribal people of what is now called Malaysia.

Back in the 1930s and 1940s, the Senoi were studied in their homeland, while they still lived in their traditional way. What the anthropologists discovered was startling!

The Senoi were a peaceful people who lived in the midst of warring tribes, and everyone let them alone! Despite their entirely peaceful ways, they were considered to be powerful magicians by surrounding tribes. So no one in the other tribes wanted to mess with the Senoi.

What was the source of their power? Senoi life was centered on dreams and dreamwork!

Each morning everyone in the extended family shared their dreams. They helped each other interpret their dreams, and they trained their children in dreamwork.

From babyhood on, Senoi were trained to control their dreams and to use what they gained from dreams to live a happy, peaceful, creative, and fulfilling life.

If a Senoi child had a nightmare, she or he was coached in turning the nightmare around, killing and/or befriending the dream enemy, and demanding a gift. The gift must be a song, poem, artwork, play, or invention that could be brought back and shared with the village.

Senoi dreamers learned to pursue pleasure, including sex, and to enjoy adventures in their dreams. Always, they were to bring back creative gifts to share with the community.

The most famous writing about the Senoi was published in the late 1940s by an anthropologist named Kilton Stewart. What he had learned from the Senoi (and learned to practice himself) was so amazing that others began to attack his work. They said it could not be possible, or true.

Unfortunately by then Kilton Stewart was dead. His mentor, another anthropologist had also died without leaving many notes.

Others went to Malaysia and were told by authorities that Stewart was wrong. By then, according to Garfield, the Senoi had been forced out of their ancestral lands by the new Malaysian government and forcibly resettled in camps, where they were forced into lifestyles that destroyed their old ways.

The new government did not want it to be known that they had so persecuted and oppressed such a peaceful and creative people. So the researchers who had set out to debunk Kilton Stewart were easily convinced that there had never been a Senoi society like the one Stewart so vividly described.

Patricia Garfield had written about the Senoi and had tried their methods. She knew that they worked.

Determined to find out the truth, Garfield went to Malaysia herself and persevered until she found independent guides and translators who would go with her. She sought out the remaining Senoi and interviewed them carefully.

She describes that adventure in her book. Kilton Stewart was fully vindicated by the testimony of older Senoi who described their traditional life in their old homeland exactly as he had. Stewart was right!

For more on exactly how to use the Senoi dreamwork methods to enhance your own life, and that of your family and friends, you really should read the book, Creative Dreaming.

I feel very blessed to have found Creative Dreaming, and I think you will, too.

Creative Dreaming | Blog Your Blessings

When I started working with dreams, years ago, Patricia Garfield was one of the two best authors on dreamwork that I found. She is a clinical psychologist who also works with her own dreams.

Currently I’m reading the second edition of her book, Creative Dreaming, and I highly recommend it.

Garfield’s books are different from those of Robert Moss (Conscious Dreaming, Dreamgates, and Dreaming True). She spends a bit more time explaining the research that has been done on dreams and the methods that she recommends for getting/shaping the dreams you want.

She writes very clearly and simply, so her books are fun to read and easy to understand. I also think that she is a bit more detailed in explaining how to work with dreams. So it seems easier to understand her methods and put them into practice.

Garfield gives great practical advice on transforming nightmares into pleasant dreams. She also has a lot of interesting information on how to use dreams to get answers. And she devotes a whole chapter to Native American beliefs about dreams and visions, and what we can learn from their methods.

This is a great book, and I’ll probably write more about it later. Meanwhile, give it a try, and let me know how it works for you.

Creative Dreaming was published several years ago, so you should be able to find it in the library. You can definitely find it on Amazon, where I got mine.

Sorry I haven’t blogged for awhile. I got a new job—but with a long commute. Then I got sick. I’ll get back on schedule with blogging as soon as I can.

Meanwhile, I feel really blessed to have a great job, working with fun people.

Conscious Dreaming by Robert Moss | BYB

Conscious Dreaming by Robert Moss is currently my favorite book on dreams and dreamwork. You can see that my copy is pretty battered. I not only use it; I also carry it around and share it with others.

Born in Australia, Moss has recorded, studied and followed his dreams for decades. His dreams led him to England and then to the United States, from a career as a successful journalist and best-selling novelist to a teacher of dreamwork and author of dream books.

His dreams even led him to buy a particular house in a particular town in Upstate New York. Then they led him to Native American elders who could help interpret them. The elders told him that he was dreaming the traditional shamanic dreams of their people.

Moss’s books are clearly and simply written, easy to read, and filled with vivid, true stories of people and their dreams. There are lucid dreams, shamanic dreams, and dreams of future events.

Best of all, he explains clearly how to work with our dreams, how to help others interpret their dreams, and how to work actively with dreams, going back into the dreams to get more information. It is amazing how so much information and instruction can be so entertaining to read.

Moss and his dream groups use a nine-step program for understanding and working dreams. They use contemporary techniques derived from indigenous cultures around the world. His method helps you understand your past, shape your future, get in touch with your deepest desires, and receive guidance from your higher self.

Moss believes that dreams prepare us for future events, so that we can avoid disasters or at least be prepared to cope with traumatic events. And he tells some compelling stories that seem to prove his point.

His skills as both a top journalist and a best-selling author show through in his writing. It is clear and easy to understand. You won’t notice his skill perhaps—this is not showy writing—but you will enjoy the book more and understand the concepts more easily because of it.

He takes ancient wisdom and methods that have stood the test of time and makes them easy for modern people to understand and use. That is quite an accomplishment, and he can do that because he has experienced it himself.

Robert Moss is not just reporting on other people’s ideas and experiences. He is a master of dreamwork (though very unassuming about it), and he is able to explain it so that we can understand it.

After reading any of Robert Moss’s dream books (and you’ll be happy to know there are others), you will probably want to gather a few people into a group to work with dreams together. By following his instructions, you can do that—and have fun doing it.

If you do start your own dream group, or if you have one now that you work with, please stop by and leave a comment to let us know what you are doing and how it is going.

I hope to someday be able to take one of Robert Moss’s dream workshops. Now that would be blessing! Meanwhile, I feel wonderfully blessed just to be reading his books.

Go Into Your Friends’ Dreams? | Blog Your Blessings

I’m blessed with friends who are interested in actively exploring their dreams. We’ve been working together with the Robert Moss book, Active Dreaming.

On December 8 we will gather to work again with an exercise from the book, called “Dream Tracking.” We will actively journey into each other’s dreams to help find answers to dream meanings.

Last time we did that, it was interesting and fun. We figure this time we will do even better, having had some experience. I’m looking forward to it.

I am grateful to have friends who are willing to experiment with new ideas and experience new things. And you? What are you grateful for in this season of gratitude? And how does it relate to your dreams?

Dreaming a Better Future into Being

In his books, Conscious Dreaming, and Dreaming True, author Robert Moss writes about active dreaming, a shamanic practice of creating a better future by deliberately, actively dreaming it.

If that sounds fantastic, consider this: particle physicists tell us that there may be many possible futures. Common sense tells us that our future is determined by our choices and our actions, but active dreaming can also help make our choices real.

How do we tell the difference, though, between actively choosing the future (besides the actions that we take in daily life), and simply daydreaming? I think it is by how things actually turn out.

That means we don’t know for sure until it happens, but we can improve our active dreaming by focusing on the positive results. That’s called gratitude.

If you actively dream a certain future that you have chosen, and you take whatever practical actions in daily life reality to make it happen, and it does happen, expressing gratitude is important, whether you are grateful to the Universe, to Divine Mind, or to whatever spiritual system you believe in.

The old-fashioned way of saying that is “count your blessings.” Counting your blessings and expressing your gratitude is actually a potent metaphysical practice. That’s why it is taught (often without explaining the real purpose) by so many religions and spiritual teachers.

That brings me to the point of this post. A group of bloggers from many different religions and belief systems has formed an alliance, called Blog Your Blessings, to promote a good future for Earth and all her peoples.

Members of the group are pledged to blog about their blessings each Sunday as a way of expressing more positive energy in the world. If you are interested in the group and the Blog Your Blessings posts, you will see a list of links to the members’ blogs on the lower right corner of this page.

Blogging your blessings seems particularly appropriate at this time of year, but it is really a form of feedback to strengthen your practice of actively choosing a better future. That’s why I joined the group.

To join Blog Your Blessings, sign up at Blue Panther’s blog.

I am very grateful to have found the Blog Your Blessings group and for the work that they are doing. That’s the blessing I’m blogging about this week.