{"id":5061,"date":"2012-09-13T13:39:43","date_gmt":"2012-09-13T17:39:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/?p=5061"},"modified":"2012-08-21T16:43:29","modified_gmt":"2012-08-21T20:43:29","slug":"three-causes-of-dream-drought-in-our-modern-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/09\/three-causes-of-dream-drought-in-our-modern-lives.html","title":{"rendered":"Three causes of dream drought in our modern lives"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>As a society, we are undergoing a protracted dream drought, and for most human cultures, this is a very serious condition, because it means we have lost touch with the three great gifts of dreaming: (1) our ability to see into the future; (2) our ability to call on dreams for diagnosis and healing and above all (3) our ability, through dreaming, to maintain a personal connection with spirit, with the God we can talk to.<\/div>\n

It’s through dreams, say the Navajo, that humans keep in touch with the spirit realm. If you have lost your dreams, say the Iroquois, you’ve lost part of your soul. “It is an age-old fact,” declared the great psychologist C.G.Jung in his last major essay, “that God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions.”<\/p>\n

There are three main reasons for the dream drought in many modern lives:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0Bad habits<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The rhythms and routines of a typical urban life simply don’t support dream recall. Too often, we are jolted awake by alarm clocks – or bed mates, or kids who need to get to school – and stumble out into the world, fueled with caffeine, to try to get through our rounds of deadlines and obligations.
\n2.\u00a0Fear and regret.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

We run away from our dreams because we think they might be telling us something we don’t want to hear – about the dark side of ourselves, or trouble or illness ahead \u2013 missing advisories that could help us do better,
\nAlternatively, we dream of something wonderful .But when we wake up we tell ourselves we can\u2019t manifest what we enjoyed in our dreams. So we kiss off the dreams, forgetting that if we dream it we may be able to do it.<\/p>\n


\n3. Artificial sleep cycles.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Very often our concept of a good night’s sleep is at odds with our dreams. We are told we need to spend seven or eight hours each night in uninterrupted sleep. This idea would have amazed our ancestors. Before the advent of artificial lighting most humans experienced “segmented sleep” divided into at least two distinct cycles \u201cConsolidated sleep\u201d, as we experience it today, isn\u2019t natural and does not support dreaming.<\/p>\n

How do you break a dream drought?<\/p>\n

Set yourself a juicy intention for the night and whenever you wake up, write something down. You don\u2019t remember a dream? Record something anyway, like your first thoughts or feelings on waking. That way you are saying to your dream source: I\u2019m here, I\u2019m ready to play. Be kind to fragments. That wisp of a dream \u2013 maybe just a color or a funny word \u2013 can be a clue that can lead you to interesting things. And remember you don\u2019t have to go to sleep in order to dream. When you pay more attention to synchronicity in waking life, you may find your night dreams open up too.<\/p>\n

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

As a society, we are undergoing a protracted dream drought, and for most human cultures, this is a very serious condition, because it means we have lost touch with the three great gifts of dreaming: (1) our ability to see into the future; (2) our ability to call on dreams for diagnosis and healing and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,25,4,5,20],"tags":[145,1805,96,216],"class_list":["post-5061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conscious-dreaming","category-conscious-living","category-dream-recall","category-dreams","category-history-of-dreaming","tag-dream-drought","tag-dream-recall","tag-iroquois","tag-navajo"],"yoast_head":"\nThree causes of dream drought in our modern lives - 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\/2012\/09\/three-causes-of-dream-drought-in-our-modern-lives.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Three causes of dream drought in our modern lives - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As a society, we are undergoing a protracted dream drought, and for most human cultures, this is a very serious condition, because it means we have lost touch with the three great gifts of dreaming: (1) our ability to see into the future; (2) our ability to call on dreams for diagnosis and healing and…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/09\/three-causes-of-dream-drought-in-our-modern-lives.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-09-13T17:39:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-08-21T20:43:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/files\/2012\/08\/drought.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":"Three causes of dream drought in our modern lives - 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\/2012\/09\/three-causes-of-dream-drought-in-our-modern-lives.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Three causes of dream drought in our modern lives - Dream Gates","og_description":"As a society, we are undergoing a protracted dream drought, and for most human cultures, this is a very serious condition, because it means we have lost touch with the three great gifts of dreaming: (1) our ability to see into the future; 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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\/5061","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=5061"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5075,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061\/revisions\/5075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}