{"id":6051,"date":"2014-07-30T18:21:48","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T22:21:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/?p=6051"},"modified":"2014-07-30T18:21:48","modified_gmt":"2014-07-30T22:21:48","slug":"the-dream-path-to-healing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2014\/07\/the-dream-path-to-healing.html","title":{"rendered":"The dream path to healing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/files\/2014\/07\/flower-gate-2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-6052\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/80\/2014\/07\/flower-gate-2-300x243.jpg\" alt=\"- flower gate 2\" width=\"300\" height=\"243\" \/><\/a>In our dreams, we have access to a personal doctor who makes house calls, provides an impeccable diagnosis of our physical, emotional and spiritual condition, and doesn\u2019t charge a cent. If we are not in touch with our dreams, we are missing out on a tremendous resource for self-healing. Here\u2019s why:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The body talks to us in dreams. It shows us what it needs to stay well and previews possible symptoms long before they manifest. If we recognize these messages from the body, and act on them, we may be able to avoid painful and costly medical intervention further down the trail.<\/li>\n<li>Dreams are also experiences of the soul, and show us the spiritual sources of wellness and illness. The Iroquois say that dreams reveal the \u201csecret wishes of the soul\u201d \u2013 as opposed to the narrow agendas of the ego. If we honor the soul\u2019s purpose, as revealed in dreams, we move towards health and balance. In traditional Iroquois practice, it is the duty of the community to listen to dreams in order to help the dreamer to identify and honor the wishes of the soul.<\/li>\n<li>Our dreams provide us with fresh imagery and energy for self-healing.<\/li>\n<li>By going back inside our dreams and consciously reshaping our inner dramas, we may be able to help shift the body in the direction of health.<\/li>\n<li>Dreams invite us to reclaim vital soul energy lost through pain or grief or addiction. Absence of dream recall is sometimes a symptom of soul loss. Dreams in which we encounter a younger version of ourselves or return again and again to earlier scenes from our lives may be invitations to bring home parts of our energy and identity that went missing.<\/li>\n<li>We can bring through dream guidance for others as well as ourselves.<\/li>\n<li>Dreams give us a direct line to sacred sources of guidance and healing. In sacred sleep, the ancients not only sought diagnosis and healing images; they sought a direct encounter with the Divine Healer. We can ask for dream healing in the same way.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here\u2019s how to bring the energy and magic of dreams into daily life, in four easy steps:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Make a date with your dreams<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Before you go to sleep, write down an intention for your dreams. Make this a <em>juicy <\/em>intention \u2013 eg \u201cI would like to be healed\u201d or \u201cI want to meet my soulmate\u201d or simply \u201cI want to have fun in my dreams and remember.\u201d Have pen and paper ready so you can record something whenever you wake up. Write your dream in a journal later, give it a title and see if you can come up with a personal motto or \u201cbumper sticker\u201d distilling the message or quality of the dream.<\/p>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li><strong>Share dreams with a partner<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Regular dream sharing is wonderful fun, builds heart-centered relationships, brings us fresh perspectives on our issues and helps to nudge us towards taking appropriate action to honor our dreams. You\u2019ll want to begin by creating a safe space where you and your partner will give each other undivided attention. Whoever is sharing a dream should tell it as simply and clearly as possible, giving the dream a title. The partner then asks a few simple questions. Start by asking how the dreamer felt when she first woke up \u2013 the first feelings are usually an excellent guide to the general character and urgency of the dream. Ask the dreamer whether she recognizes any of the elements in the dream in waking life, and whether any parts of the dream might possibly be played out in the future.<\/p>\n<p>You are <em>not<\/em> going to tell each other what your dreams mean. You don\u2019t want to steal the dreamer\u2019s power, or to lose the energy of the dream in verbal analysis. You can offer helpful, non-intrusive feedback by saying to each other, \u201cIf it were my dream, I would think about such-and-such.\u201d Finally, you\u2019ll want to ask the dreamer, \u201cWhat are you going to do to honor this dream?\u201d<\/p>\n<ol start=\"3\">\n<li><strong>Act on your dreams<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Dreams require action! If we do not do something with our dreams in waking life, we miss out on the magic. Real magic consists of bringing something through from a deeper reality into our physical lives, which is why <em>active <\/em>dreaming is a way of natural magic \u2013 but only if we take the necessary action to bring the magic through. Keeping a dream journal and sharing dreams on a regular basis are important ways of honoring dreams and the powers that speak through dreams. Here are some more suggestions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>create from a dream<\/em>: turn the dream into a story or poem. Draw from it, paint from it, turn it into a comic strip<\/li>\n<li><em>take a physical action<\/em> to celebrate an element in the dream, such as wearing the color that was featured in the dream, traveling to a place from the dream, making a phone call to an old friend who showed up in the dream<\/li>\n<li><em>use an object or create a dream talisman to hold the energy of the dream: <\/em>A stone or crystal may be a good place to hold the energy of a dream, and return to it.<\/li>\n<li><em>use the dream as a travel advisory: <\/em>If the dream appears to contain guidance on a future situation, carry it with you as a personal travel advisory. Summarize the dream information on a cue card or hold it in an image you can <em>physically <\/em>carry.<\/li>\n<li><em>go back into the dream<\/em> to clarify details, dialogue with a dream character, explore\u00a0 the larger reality \u2013 and have marvelous fun!<em>\u00a0<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"4\">\n<li><strong>Go back inside your dreams<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Our dreams may offer us gifts of power and healing that we can only claim by going back into the dreamspace and moving beyond fear or irresolution. We may need to go back inside a dream to overcome nightmare terrors, to clarify whether the dream is about a literal or symbolic car crash, to talk to someone who appeared in a dream, to reclaim our own lost children, to use a personal image as a portal to multidimensional reality \u2013 or simply to have more fun!<\/p>\n<p><em>Dream reentry <\/em>is one of the core techniques that I teach and practice. If you would like to experiment, start by picking a dream that has some real energy for you. It doesn\u2019t matter whether it is a dream from last night or from 20 years ago, as long as it has juice. Get yourself settled in a comfortable, relaxed position in a quiet space and minimize external light. Focus on a specific scene from your dream. Let it become vivid on your mental screen. See if you can let all your senses become engaged, so you can touch it, smell it, hear it, taste it. Ask yourself what you need to know, and what you intend to <em>do<\/em> inside the dream. And let yourself start flowing back into the dreamspace\u2026<\/p>\n<p>In my Active Dreaming workshops, we use shamanic drumming &#8211; a steady beat on a simple frame drum, typically in the range of four to seven beats per second \u2013to help shift consciousness and facilitate travel into the dreamspace. The steady beat helps to override mental clutter and focus energy and intention on the journey. If you are doing dream reentry at home, you may wish to experiment with the <a href=\"http:\/\/http:\/\/www.psycheproductions.net\/robertMoss2.html\" target=\"_blank\">drumming CD<\/a> I have made specifically for dream travelers.<\/p>\n<p>photo: Path of Flowers (c) Robert Moss<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In our dreams, we have access to a personal doctor who makes house calls, provides an impeccable diagnosis of our physical, emotional and spiritual condition, and doesn\u2019t charge a cent. If we are not in touch with our dreams, we are missing out on a tremendous resource for self-healing. Here\u2019s why: The body talks to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,18,9,24,5,2,19,12],"tags":[1813,1764,87,496],"class_list":["post-6051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-active-dreaming","category-dream-diagnosis","category-dream-incubation","category-dream-interpretation","category-dreams","category-dreamwork","category-healing-dreams","category-meaning-of-dreams","tag-dream-diagnosis","tag-dream-doctor","tag-dream-reentry","tag-lightning-dreamwork"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The dream path to healing - 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\/2014\/07\/the-dream-path-to-healing.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The dream path to healing - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In our dreams, we have access to a personal doctor who makes house calls, provides an impeccable diagnosis of our physical, emotional and spiritual condition, and doesn\u2019t charge a cent. If we are not in touch with our dreams, we are missing out on a tremendous resource for self-healing. 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Here\u2019s why: The body talks to&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2014\/07\/the-dream-path-to-healing.html","og_site_name":"Dream Gates","article_published_time":"2014-07-30T22:21:48+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/files\/2014\/07\/flower-gate-2-300x243.jpg"}],"author":"Robert Moss","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2014\/07\/the-dream-path-to-healing.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2014\/07\/the-dream-path-to-healing.html","name":"The dream path to healing - Dream Gates","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2014\/07\/the-dream-path-to-healing.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2014\/07\/the-dream-path-to-healing.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/files\/2014\/07\/flower-gate-2-300x243.jpg","datePublished":"2014-07-30T22:21:48+00:00","dateModified":"2014-07-30T22:21:48+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/#\/schema\/person\/941740e4115cce34706832d06aa76b6b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2014\/07\/the-dream-path-to-healing.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2014\/07\/the-dream-path-to-healing.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2014\/07\/the-dream-path-to-healing.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/files\/2014\/07\/flower-gate-2-300x243.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/files\/2014\/07\/flower-gate-2-300x243.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2014\/07\/the-dream-path-to-healing.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The dream path to healing"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/","name":"Dream Gates","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Robert Moss","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/#\/schema\/person\/941740e4115cce34706832d06aa76b6b","name":"Robert Moss","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/777\/7770e3a2cde4458084d9a31237336b92x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/777\/7770e3a2cde4458084d9a31237336b92x96.jpg","caption":"Robert Moss"},"description":"Robert Moss describes himself as a dream teacher, on a path for which there has been no career track in our culture. 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\/6051","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=6051"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6053,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6051\/revisions\/6053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}