An Interview with Robert Moss

By Karen M. Rider

Robert Moss is the pioneer of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of shamanism and modern dreamwork. A prolific, lifelong dreamer, scholar and self-professed bibliophile, Moss also survived three near-death experiences in childhood, which made him profoundly aware that the physical world is not the only reality. Moss describes himself as “a dream teacher, on a path for which there has been no career track in our culture.” His career has taken him down the path of lecturer of ancient history at Australia National University, investigative journalist, bestselling novelist, and dream shaman. His bestselling books on dreaming, shamanism, and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Three “Only” Things: Tapping the Power of Dreams, Coincidence and Imagination and The Secret History of Dreaming. Robert leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming and an online dream school. His blog is one of the most popular at BeliefNet.com.

In this interview, Robert shares from his vast dream experiences. He discusses Active Dreaming and explains how dreaming is waking up to sources of guidance, healing, and creativity beyond the reach of the everyday mind.

What was your dream life like as a child?

As a child, growing up in my native Australia, I survived three near-death experiences. I’d been to another place and come back. It was hard to talk about these things in a military family. The first person I knew who was able to confirm my experiences was an Aboriginal boy. The traditions of his people, which he shared with me, teach that the dream world may be more real, not less real, than the world of ordinary physical existence. Our true spiritual teachers – and the nature of our soul’s purpose – are to be found in the Dreamtime.

When I was in high 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.

Growing up – childhood, adolescence, young adult – what was the comfort level of people around you relative to your interest and study of dreams?

It was a very conservative time in Australia when I was growing up. It wasn’t approved of, in my social class, to interact with the Abos (Aborigenese). I learned to lay low. It was a tremendous confirmation for me to return to Melbourne in 2002 to speak to 600 people about Active Dreaming.

Who were your mentors?

Main mentors and teachers of dreaming have been those in non-ordinary reality. I’ve been spoken to in Greek. Early mentors were historians at university. I learned to understand the whole human-what makes him tick. I look at the human as an entity in motion within the context of time. The late Manning Clark, the famous historian, was one of my primary mentors.  We didn’t focus on dreams but he taught me how to understand humans and human experience.

My most important teachers have been inside the dreamworld itself. In ordinary reality, my most important teachers have been my three daughters, especially when they were very young. Young children live very close to the dreaming.

How can we know the difference between dreams meant to guide us versus the ramblings of our sub-conscious mind?

Don’t throw anything out, initially. Don’t categorize. Every school of dreaming recognizes Big dreams and little dreams. Work and play with all of it until you learn discernment. Discernment comes with practice.

I encourage people to play with fragments of dreams if that is all you have. For example, one of my clients was blocked and could not recall dreams. She came to me with one fragment a “red blob.” We discussed texture of the blob. She said oil paint and we explored what does that mean. It was related to her mother’s art studio and how her mother didn’t make time for her as a child and she wasn’t allowed in the studio.

What was one of your Big dreams?

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. I started dreaming of an ancient Iroquois Indian arendiwanen, or “woman of power”, who insisted on communicating with me in . . . an archaic form of the Mohawk language and I needed interpreters to understand it. The Mohawk dream shaman reminded me . . . dreams show us what the soul wants, as opposed to the clutter of the everyday mind and the petty agendas of the ego. 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.

How has working within the Dreaming disciplines enriched your life, personally?

I have kept dream journals for most of my life, and have always used dreams and coincidence for guidance on an everyday basis. Navigating by synchronicity is the dreamer’s way of operating in everyday life. Coincidence has guided my life at every turn. I was invited as a keynote presenter at an international conference in the Netherlands in 1994 – the first world platform for my original Active Dreaming techniques – because I missed an airport shuttle and met someone on the “wrong bus.”

As a writer and teacher, I very frequently find direct inspiration in my dreams, and 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. I believe that dreams have saved me from possible death in car accidents on at least three occasions by giving me specific travel advisories I was able to use to avoid those accidents.

From which indigenous traditions does Active Dreaming originate?

Active Dreaming originates from my lifelong experience and practice as a dreamer. I have borrowed from many traditions, and incorporated some core shamanic practices such us the use of drumming to fuel and focus journeying and methods of soul recovery. My dreams have given me direct access to many ancient and indigenous practices. I have had the lifelong experience of dreaming in languages I did not know or knew imperfectly. Through study of the phrases I could retain I was able to open doors to different traditions including those of ancient Greece, spirit men of the Munanjalli in Queensland; a zyne (priestess) of Zemyna (the Earth Goddess of Lithuania); a Scots druid and the tree seers of medieval France.

What are the components of an Active Dreaming practice?

Active Dreaming core techniques emerged from my personal practice and teaching over several decades. Above all, is the recognition that the only “expert” on dreams is the dreamer herself.  The main areas of practice include: (1) a lively and helpful way to share dreams and take action to embody their energy and guidance in everyday life; (2) a method of embarking on conscious dream journeys, including shared dreaming and group dream travel; (3) a way of conscious living. Within this approach there are a number of techniques and levels of practice, ranging from methods to assist with dream recall, working with precognitive content, dream tracking, group dreaming and conscious dream travel, to name a few.

Understand Your Dreams-Tips from Robert Moss

(Adapted from Conscious Dreaming, by Robert Moss)

1.  Trust Your Feelings

Always pay attention to how you feel when you wake from a dream. Your feelings and bodily sensations may be your best guide to the importance of a dream, and its positive or negative implications.

2.  First Associations

In keeping a dream journal, get into the habit of jotting down your first associations with the dreams you record. What floats to the surface of your consciousness in the first minutes after waking may come from deeper levels of dreaming.

3.  Reality Check

Though dreams are inner experiences, they often contain accurate information about external reality. In both subtle and unsubtle ways, dreams incorporate signals from the outside environments.

4.  Dream Re-Entry

Dreams are real experiences, and a fully remembered dream is its own interpretation. The meaning of a dream is inside the dream itself. By learning how to re-enter dreams, you will develop the ability to clarify messages, resume contact with inner teachers, and resolve unfinished business.

5.  Dialogue with Dream Characters

One of the best ways to work out what your dream characters are telling you is to ask them.

6.  Tracking Your Dream Self

Who are you in your dreams? Are you the protagonist or simply an observer? The character who appears in all of your dreams, even if only as a witness, is you.

7.  Symbol Exploration

The dream source must often speak in symbols in order to carry us beyond the limitations of the everyday mind. Explore all such images.

8.  “What Part of Me?”

Dreams show us the many aspects of ourselves and help us integrate them. It is useful to ask “what part of me” different characters and elements in a dream might represent.

9.  Enact Dreams and Dream Imagery

Write a dream motto: Write a one-line statement that summarizes what the dream is telling you.

• Confirm dream messages: Especially if you dream seems to contain a warning about a situation looming up in external reality, you may want to take steps to check the information.
• Dream fulfillment or avoidance: If your dream seems to promise good things, try to figure out practical ways you can help to bring them to pass. If you don’t like a future event you have glimpsed in a dream, then consider how to get off the path that is leading you toward it.
• Rituals: Make a poem out of a dream report, draw or paint the images you have seen, or construct a personal shield or dream talisman.

Connect with Robert Moss at: mossdreams.com

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