Suddenly, I'm back in Exeter, N.H., in a proud,
19th-century house flanked by towering white pines, a home once owned by a
dealer in fine antiques and rare books. I'm entering a back room crammed with
"volumes of forgotten lore."
While browsing though this virtual dream library, I'm fully conscious of
being at home in a small, one-windowed room reserved for incubating dreams and
mediations. It's dusk. I can hear a wood thrush singing outside, and a warbler.
. . .
Thus begins the start of my adventure in "conscious dreaming,"
illustrating one of many intriguing methods taught by novelist, dreamworker and
shamanic practitioner, Robert Moss, in "Dreamgates: An Explorer's Guide to
the Worlds of Soul, Imagination and Life Beyond Death" (Three Rivers Press,
1998, paperback, $14).
" 'Dreamgates' is a course in human possibility," says Moss, who
describes part of his book as a flight manual.
His work is also a guided tour in active dreaming, an invitation to open new
portals in imaginal realms. Here, as we move through unmapped, inner terrain, we
may encounter "interdimensionals" who offer guidance "that we can
apply directly to the creative challenges in our lives," he says. Or, we
may experience a rich array of shape-shifting, time-folding events that are
"entirely real on their own level of reality."
Moss calls it "soul remembering," a process involving dream travel
to astral planes through which dreamers enter into "hidden orders of
reality." He provides numerous accounts of interior travels -- his own and
others -- which, when combined with intention, have sparked intuition, healing
and understanding.
"Consciousness is never confined to the body and brain," he says.
Part of the book is a history lesson in shamanic practices as taught since
ancient times. What's new, is Moss' fluid way of organizing a rich amount of
historical and experiential material in an eye-opening way.
"Poets and mystics have always known that the world of imagination is a
real world, a 'Third Kingdom' between the physical universe and the higher
realms of spirit -- and that it's possible to travel there and bring back
extraordinary gifts," he says.
Moss, who is also the author of "Conscious Dreaming," invites us
"to release blocks and open to creative flow through Active Dreaming."
One exercise is to journey to your personal dream library to seek inspiration or
to look up something you need to know: Back at the rare books library, I say
hello to the gruff but kindly dealer. He reminds me to enjoy the roses in the
side garden. His comment fills me with happy emotions.
Craning my neck, I see a book at the top shelf that looks useful and reach
for it. Its square, thick shape falls into my hands. It's not a book after all,
but a box of cassette tapes -- the training program Moss offers in the back of
his book! I'm both intrigued and disgruntled. "Gee," I think.
"Either these might be real useful, or Moss is one heck of a
promoter!"
I sense someone behind me amid the dim stacks and turn to look. It's Moss!
He's wearing his Indiana Jones-style explorer's hat and a khaki outfit. He is
calm, centered and a little flirtatious.
"This guy really gets around," I think. "Let's go outside and
talk in the garden by the roses," he says. As we talk, he offers insights
on how best to write my own book about dreams, rich ideas that I'm still
pondering.
Now and then, a ground-breaking book germinates in the night garden of our
dreaming. "Dreamgates," is one such work. Expect what sprouts from its
pages to be rambling, exotic, mystically fragrant and full of wise, good fun.
As we approach the new millennium, Moss believes, we have a chance to evolve
into a "multidimensional human . . . a more gifted and generous version of
our species. . . . To accomplish this, we need to marry the best of contemporary
science and scholarship to the techniques of Paleolithic psychology: conscious
dreaming, hypersensory perception and the care and feeding of soul."
Thorns also exist amid the rose garden of conscious dreaming, he cautions.
His advice about dream travel should alert the heedless without dampening
free-spirited adventurers.
If you enter "Dreamgates," be prepared to shrug off the dull and
dogmatic. Choose a flight path, check your baggage and lift off.
If you'd like to record your dream, use the "Dreamline" at
207-621-1300, Ext. 1090. Or, send your dreams, questions or comments to DREAMS,
c/o this newspaper. Or e-mail, dreams@uninets.net Please include your age, sex,
current relationship and occupation.
Copyright 1998 Hannah Seymour
All Rights Reserved
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