Dreaming the soul's path: a two-part interview with Robert Moss for New Life Journal.

Robert Moss is a world-renowned dream explorer, a shamanic counselor, a bestselling novelist and a former magazine editor and professor of ancient history at the Australian National University. His deep engagement with the Dreamtime springs from his early childdhood in Australia, where he survived a series of near-death experiences, and has deepened through his visionary encounters with his Celtic ancestors and an ancient Native American woman of power. He teaches Active Dreaming--his pioneer synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism-all over the world and is the founder of a contemporary mystery school. His many books include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamgates, Dreaming True, Dreamways of the Iroquois, and The Dreamer's Book of the Dead. Visit his website at www.mossdreams.com. New Life Journal recently had the opportunity to speak with Robert in preparation for his upcoming Asheville, NC workshops (see Live, Laugh & Learn in this issue for info).

How did you come to dedicate your life to dreaming, dream sharing, and dream teaching?

The dream world is my home base! As a child, growing up in my native Australia, I survived three near-death experiences that made me very strongly aware that the physical world is not the only reality. The first person I knew who was able to confirm my experiences was an Aboriginal boy who came from a tradition that teaches that the dream world may be more real, not less real, than the world of ordinary physical existence, and that our true spiritual teachers--and the nature of our soul's purpose--are to be found in the Dreamtime.

I have kept dream journals for most of my life and have always used dreams and synchronicity for guidance on an everyday basis. When I was in nigh school, I found that I could sometimes dream exam questions before I took the exams, which certainly eased my way! I came to recognize that our dreams are constantly coaching and rehearsing us for challenges and opportunities that lie in the future. As a writer and teacher, I very frequently find direct inspiration in my dreams, and also the solution to practical problems such as choosing a publisher or selecting a workshop venue or rehearsing for issues that will come up within the workshop itself.

Although dreaming has been central to my life, I did not make the decision to become a dream teacher--a path for which there is not (yet) a career track in Western society--until I moved to a farm in upstate New York in the mid-1980s and started dreaming of an ancient Iroquois Indian arendiwanen, or "woman of power," who insisted on communicating with me in a language that was not my own. This proved to be an archaic form of the Mohawk language. The Mohawk dream shaman reminded me that dreaming is all about soul, that our dreams show us what the soul wants, as opposed to the clutter of the everyday mind and the petty agendas of the ego, and that it is the duty of decent people in a humane society to create and hold a space where dreamers can tell their dreams and can then be helped to take action to honor the wishes of the soul.

My dreams of the ancient woman healer and of soul recovery led to a BIG dream--a watershed dream--that Finally gave me the courage to give up previous definitions of success.

What are the essentials that we need to know and/or do to open to dream guidance?

We need to know that through dreaming, we have a direct line to the sacred depth of our lives. In dreaming we can communicate directly with our departed loved ones and our authentic spiritual guides. Through dreams, we can reach the God we can talk to.

We learn and practice discernment as we work with our dream experiences. We'll want to learn some basics of psychic protection, so that our personal space is not open to just anything that is wandering about.

We'll need to recognize that the final expert on any dream is the dreamer herself (or himself). You won't find the meaning of your dreams in any dream dictionary, and you'll be giving up the power and the magic if you let someone else tell you what they mean. Sure, dreams are often puzzling and we can use some feedback. I teach a very simple and fun process by which we can give each other non-authoritarian feedback on dreams and guide each other to take creative and healing action to bring the dream energy into the physical world.

Another of the open secrets of dreaming is that dreams require action, not just talk.

Your work focuses on reclaiming ancient dreamways. What can we learn about the dreaming from ancient and indigenous cultures?

In the language of ancient Egypt, a dream (rswt) is literally an "awakening." For many ancient and indigenous cultures, as for Active Dreamers today, dreaming is not fundamentally about what happens during sleep. Dreaming is fundamentally about waking up to a deeper realty. This can happen when we are asleep or when we are awake, or in an altered state of consciousness.

From this perspective, being a "dreamer" (a highly respected function, by the way) not only means that you are active in your sleep dreams and remember them, but that you can embark on wide-awake conscious dream journeys and that you are constantly alert to the dreamlike play of symbols and synchronicities in everyday life.

Another shared understanding of ancient and indigenous traditions is that in dreams, we go traveling, and we receive visitations, that in dreaming, we are not at all confined to the body or the rules of physics, but can fly off to other times and other dimensions and may play host to visitors who are similarly unrestricted by physical laws.

Go into the words used for "dream" in different cultures and you'll find that--as with the Egyptians--the ancients were quite clear that dreaming is about far, far more than Western psychology generally grasps. For example, an Iroquois phrase that means "I dream" also means "I bring myself good luck." The implication is that if you don't dream, you will be unlucky because you won't be present at the creation of the events and situations that will manifest in your life.

What do you do if you don't remember your dreams?

A couple of suggestions. First, give yourself a juicy intention for the night. "I want to have fun in my dreams and remember," will do just fine. Or, "I ask for healing." Or, "I want to go to Paris tonight." Or if you must--"I want to rehearse for the job interview next week." Write down your intention and make sure you are ready to record whenever you wake up. If you don't have a dream when you wake up, relax. Wiggle around in bed. Sometimes a dream comes back as you get your body into the position you were in when you were dreaming. If you still don't have a dream, write down whatever you are thinking and feeling. You may be catching something that lingers from the dream and you are telling your dream Source, "I'm here. I'm ready to receive." Let's note that we often solve things in our sleep even when we don't remember the dreams. Einstein woke with the Special Relativity Theory clear in his head even though he seems to have lost the dream that helped give it to him.

Second, play the synchronicity game. Say there is a special theme on which you would like guidance, or a question in your life that needs an answer. You can carry that question or theme in your mind (and maybe on a piece of paper). The first unusual or striking thing that enters your field of perception will be guidance to you from the world, a direct message to your soul. You are now operating as a wide-awake dreamer. Not only will you have fun and get amazing guidance; you'll discover that when you start playing with coincidence, your dreams will come out to play with you again.

Read New Life Journal's May 2006 issue for the second half of this exclusive interview.

Jennifer Hinton, M.A. is a European trained shamanic practioner. She has taught shamanism and dreamwork throughout the U.S. and Europe. You can contact tier at Practice for Shamanism and Ritual at 828-669-0180 or [e-mail].