{"id":6152,"date":"2015-10-24T12:20:30","date_gmt":"2015-10-24T16:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/?p=6152"},"modified":"2015-10-24T12:29:00","modified_gmt":"2015-10-24T16:29:00","slug":"back-to-basics-1-why-dreaming-is-important","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2015\/10\/back-to-basics-1-why-dreaming-is-important.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Dreaming Is Important"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/files\/2014\/12\/otomi-charms-2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-6157\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/80\/2014\/12\/otomi-charms-2-198x300.jpg\" alt=\"- otomi-charms 2\" width=\"198\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>A dream is a wake-up call. It takes us beyond what we already know. Dreams are the language of the soul, and they are experiences of the soul.<\/p>\n<p>There are \u201cbig\u201d dreams and \u201clittle\u201d dreams, of course. In big dreams, we go traveling and we may receive visitations. We travel across time \u2013 into the future and the past \u2013 and we travel to other dimensions of reality. This is reflected in the words for \u201cdream\u201d that are used by indigenous people who have retained strong dreaming traditions and respect for dreamers. Among the Makiritare, a shamanic dreaming people of Venezuela, for example, the word for dream is \u201cadekato,\u201d which means \u201ca journey of the soul\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Most societies, across most of human history, have valued dreams and dreamers for three main reasons. First, they have looked to dreams for contact with a wiser source than the everyday mind \u2013 call that God, or Nature, or the Self with a great big Jungian S. Second, they have looked to dreams as part of our survival kit, giving us clues to possible future events we may want to avoid or enact. Third, they have known that dreaming is medicine, in several important senses. Dreams show us what is going on inside the body, often before physical symptoms present. When we do get sick, dreams are a factory of images we can use for self-healing.<\/p>\n<p>In indigenous cultures, dreaming is central to diagnosis and healing. From the Otomi Indians of the state of Puebla in Mexico, we have this marvelous account of a shaman named Don Antonio who used dreams as a medical text<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When I became a shaman, I began to see how to cast out illness my dreams. It was like looking at a printed page. The shaman receives knowledge, what sorts of illness one person has, what sor<span class=\"text_exposed_show\">t another has, in his dreams&#8230;Learning how to cure from dreams is like being taught to read as a child, You ask your teacher, &#8216;What is this or that called?&#8217; and your teacher tells you&#8230;In this way you receive knowledge about illnesses. These things are revealed to you in your dreams&#8230;As you&#8217;re curing the patient your dreams tell you what the problem is and who are the enemies who caused the illness. Your dreams tell you what is needed for the cure.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Source for Don Antonio quote: \u00a0James Dow, <em>The Shaman&#8217;s Touch: Otomi Indian Symbolic Healing. <\/em>Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1986. 51-52.<\/p>\n<p>Photo:\u00a0Otomi protective figure made with amate paper (bark cloth) in Sam Noble Museum, University of Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A dream is a wake-up call. It takes us beyond what we already know. Dreams are the language of the soul, and they are experiences of the soul. There are \u201cbig\u201d dreams and \u201clittle\u201d dreams, of course. In big dreams, we go traveling and we may receive visitations. We travel across time \u2013 into the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,10,5,20,7,22,42],"tags":[1799,1798],"class_list":["post-6152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-active-dreaming","category-conscious-dreaming","category-dreams","category-history-of-dreaming","category-lucid-dreaming","category-shamanic-dreaming","category-shamanism","tag-don-antonio","tag-otomi-indians"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why Dreaming Is Important - Dream Gates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Dreaming Is Important - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A dream is a wake-up call. It takes us beyond what we already know. Dreams are the language of the soul, and they are experiences of the soul. There are \u201cbig\u201d dreams and \u201clittle\u201d dreams, of course. In big dreams, we go traveling and we may receive visitations. We travel across time \u2013 into the&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2015\/10\/back-to-basics-1-why-dreaming-is-important.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-10-24T16:20:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-10-24T16:29:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/files\/2014\/12\/otomi-charms-2-198x300.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":"Why Dreaming Is Important - Dream Gates","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why Dreaming Is Important - Dream Gates","og_description":"A dream is a wake-up call. It takes us beyond what we already know. Dreams are the language of the soul, and they are experiences of the soul. There are \u201cbig\u201d dreams and \u201clittle\u201d dreams, of course. In big dreams, we go traveling and we may receive visitations. We travel across time \u2013 into the&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2015\/10\/back-to-basics-1-why-dreaming-is-important.html","og_site_name":"Dream Gates","article_published_time":"2015-10-24T16:20:30+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-10-24T16:29:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/files\/2014\/12\/otomi-charms-2-198x300.jpg"}],"author":"Robert Moss","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2015\/10\/back-to-basics-1-why-dreaming-is-important.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2015\/10\/back-to-basics-1-why-dreaming-is-important.html","name":"Why Dreaming Is Important - Dream Gates","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2015\/10\/back-to-basics-1-why-dreaming-is-important.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2015\/10\/back-to-basics-1-why-dreaming-is-important.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/files\/2014\/12\/otomi-charms-2-198x300.jpg","datePublished":"2015-10-24T16:20:30+00:00","dateModified":"2015-10-24T16:29:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/#\/schema\/person\/941740e4115cce34706832d06aa76b6b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2015\/10\/back-to-basics-1-why-dreaming-is-important.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2015\/10\/back-to-basics-1-why-dreaming-is-important.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2015\/10\/back-to-basics-1-why-dreaming-is-important.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/files\/2014\/12\/otomi-charms-2-198x300.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/files\/2014\/12\/otomi-charms-2-198x300.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2015\/10\/back-to-basics-1-why-dreaming-is-important.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Why Dreaming Is Important"}]},{"@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\/6152","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=6152"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6238,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6152\/revisions\/6238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}