{"id":3045,"date":"2011-08-07T06:49:51","date_gmt":"2011-08-07T10:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/?p=3045"},"modified":"2011-08-08T07:50:27","modified_gmt":"2011-08-08T11:50:27","slug":"in-praise-of-dream-fragments-tale-of-a-red-blob","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/08\/in-praise-of-dream-fragments-tale-of-a-red-blob.html","title":{"rendered":"In praise of dream fragments: tale of a red blob"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Many of us in our society are undergoing a prolonged dream drought. Losing connection with night dreams is a serious malady of soul, in the eyes of indigenous elders. If you have lost your dreams, it may be because you have lost a vital part of your soul, the part that is the dreamer.<\/p>\n

Still, when I hear someone say, “I don’t dream,” I decline to despair. I remind them that all they are saying is, “I don’t remember.” If they insist thay they have no dreams, I encourage them to consider carefully whether this is entirely correct. Maybe they recall a dream from many years ago, say from early childhood. This could be a portal for very rewarding exploration, It could even put someone who has lost their dreams back in contact with the child dreamer in their soul.<\/p>\n

Before you bind yourself to the statement that you don\u2019t remember your dreams,\u00a0think carefully about whether you are telling yourself and others the truth. Even the most dream-deprived among us often retain\u00a0something<\/em>\u00a0from the night, a wisp, a fragment, a word, a sense of color, a snatch of song. I have found it can be remarkably productive to play with the tiniest leftover from an otherwise lost banquet. This can even break a dream drought.<\/p>\n

Take the case of the red blob. A woman who attended a week-long retreat with me that began with morning dream sharing and creative writing and storytelling from dreams became more and more frustrated as the week went along. She was in a very difficult life passage; she had recently lost her job and had a host of other worries. Here she was at a retreat where people were having fun with their dreams, and she had none to share. She had been suffering from a very protracted dream drought, she told us, and by day three, though attempting my homeplay assignments in dream incubation (asking for dreams) she still had none to share.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you sure?\u201d I challenged her. \u201cI bet, if you think about it, you have something from last night.\u201d<\/p>\n

She shook her head.<\/p>\n

I encouraged her to think again. \u201cOkay,\u201d she almost spat, \u201cI got a blob. Just a blob. How do you like that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA blob? I think that\u2019s very interesting. What color was it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike a blob of red paint? Like house paint?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike oil paint.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat comes to mind when you picture a blob of red oil paint?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother\u2019s palette.\u201d Memory started streaming through. She was suddenly back in a scene from childhood. Her mother was a professional artist. The dreamer (as she was now becoming) was about nine years old, and something terrible had happened, and she was desperate for her mother\u2019s love and attention. But when she burst through the door of her mother\u2019s studio, weeping, her mother yelled at her to get out, reminding the little girl that she was under strict instructions never to disturb her mother when she was working.<\/p>\n

We were at a place of deep emotion, and potentially deep healing. From the vague memory of a blob, we had come to the place where the soul of the dreamer and the energy and imagination of a lovely young girl could be reclaimed, and\u00a0a frightened nine-year-old could be supported and counseled in her own time of need, since as active dreamers we can reach across time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many of us in our society are undergoing a prolonged dream drought. Losing connection with night dreams is a serious malady of soul, in the eyes of indigenous elders. If you have lost your dreams, it may be because you have lost a vital part of your soul, the part that is the dreamer. Still,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,13,5,2,46,3],"tags":[146,320,467,67],"class_list":["post-3045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-active-dreaming","category-dream-symbols","category-dreams","category-dreamwork","category-healing","category-imagination","tag-dream-fragments","tag-emotional-healing","tag-red-blob","tag-robert-moss-workshops"],"yoast_head":"\nIn praise of dream fragments: tale of a red blob - Dream Gates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/08\/in-praise-of-dream-fragments-tale-of-a-red-blob.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In praise of dream fragments: tale of a red blob - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Many of us in our society are undergoing a prolonged dream drought. Losing connection with night dreams is a serious malady of soul, in the eyes of indigenous elders. If you have lost your dreams, it may be because you have lost a vital part of your soul, the part that is the dreamer. Still,…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/08\/in-praise-of-dream-fragments-tale-of-a-red-blob.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-07T10:49:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-08-08T11:50:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/files\/2011\/08\/red-blob2.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robert Moss\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"In praise of dream fragments: tale of a red blob - Dream Gates","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/08\/in-praise-of-dream-fragments-tale-of-a-red-blob.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"In praise of dream fragments: tale of a red blob - Dream Gates","og_description":"Many of us in our society are undergoing a prolonged dream drought. 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He is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. 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. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. His nine books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Dreamer's Book of the Dead, The Three \"\"Only\"\" Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates, Active Dreaming and Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole. His most recent book is The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse. Over the past 20 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 depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Brazil and Austria and leads a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. He 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 the Diane Rehm show on NPR. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman's Drum.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.mossdreams.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/author\/rmoss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3045"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3054,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045\/revisions\/3054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}