Conscious Dreaming: A Spiritual Path for Everyday Life [Paperback]

Robert Moss (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 7, 1996

Written by a popular leader of dream workshops and seminars, Conscious Dreaming details a unique nine-step approach to dreams, especially precognitive and clairvoyant ones, that uses contemporary dreamwork methods and techniques developed from shamanic cultures around the world.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

This is more and better than just a book about how to remember and understand dreams, although it is that kind of book and as good as any such recently published. Moss covers all the expected terrain, from how to train the mind to recall its nightly narratives, through how to unravel meaning from them, to how to start and sustain a dream group. But his book excels because he extends its purview to include shamanic dreaming, dreams of dead loved ones, healing dreams, angels, and spirit guides. Moss explores these more esoteric matters with great skill. Taking his cue from ancient and tribal traditions that see in dreams more than a set of symbols connected to individual psychology, Moss offers evidence that in dreams we connect with the transpersonal. Thus, an angel in a dream could be the dreamer's better self--or a real angel, come to help the dreamer through life's challenges. Moss' unusual approach to a perpetually intriguing subject is likely to appeal to a wide spectrum of readers. Patricia Monaghan

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; 1st edition (May 7, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 051788710X
• ISBN-13: 978-0517887103
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #280,489 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert Moss is the pioneer of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of shamanism and modern dreamwork. 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 and a lively online dream school. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. His eight books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Three "Only" Things: Tapping the Power of Dreams, Coincidence and Imagination, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates and Active Dreaming: Journeying beyond Self-Limitation to a Life of Wild Freedom.

Moss describes himself as "a dream teacher, on a path for which there has been no career track in our culture." He identifies the great watershed in his adult life as a sequence of visionary events that unfolded in 1987-1988, after he decided to leave the world of big cities and the fast-track life of a popular novelist (already the author of four New York Times bestsellers, including Moscow Rules) and put down roots on a farm in the upper Hudson Valley of New York. Moss started dreaming in a language he did not know that proved to be an archaic form of the Mohawk language. Helped by native speakers to interpret his dreams, Moss came to believe that they had put him in touch with an ancient healer - a woman of power - and that they were calling him to a different life.

Out of these experiences he wrote a series of historical novels (The Firekeeper, Fire Along the Sky, The Interpreter) and developed the practice he calls Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of contemporary dreamwork and shamanic methods of journeying and healing. A central premise of Moss's approach is that dreaming isn't just what happens during sleep; dreaming is waking up to sources of guidance, healing and creativity beyond the reach of the everyday mind.He introduced his method to an international audience as an invited presenter at the conference of the Association for the Study of Dreams at the University of Leiden in 1994.

Core techniques of Active Dreaming include

The "lightning dreamwork" process, designed to facilitate quick dream-sharing that results in helpful action; the use of the "if it were my dream" protocol encourages the understanding that the dreamer is always the final authority on his or her dream
Dream reentry: the practice of making a conscious journey back inside a dream in order to clarify information, dialogue with a dream character, or move beyond nightmare terrors into healing and resolution
Tracking and group dreaming: conscious dream travel on an agreed itinerary by two or more partners, often supported by shamanic drumming
Navigating by synchronicity: reading coincidence and "symbolic pop-ups" in ordinary life as "everyday oracles".

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 64 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Top Notch, Plus Practice, Practice June 15, 2002

By Frank MacEowen

Format:Paperback

Industrialized people such as ourselves are people who have inherited a profoundly distubing situation that has two faces: one is the destruction of our environment, the other are our atrophied spiritual senses, what I call our Otherworldly senses. Moss' book breathes new fire into our situation, calling on us to re-enliven a dreaming culture every bit as in tune with our souls and the living earth as the Australian culture that influenced him in his younger days, and the Scottish-Celtic druidic culture that shaped his ancestors. The problem with some of the other reviews I have read of this book are two-fold: instant, jaded disbelief, and what seems to be a lack of follow through on a pivotal point that Robert makes time and again: that success with active dreaming requires an active dreaming practice. Practice. The book Conscious Dreaming is a profound introduction (or shall I say, reintroduction) of an ancient way of relating to our dreams and ways for apprehending a greater fluency with non-ordinary reality. Anyone interested in dreams or incorporating a more shamanically-based dreaming practice into your life should consider CONSCIOUS DREAMING part of your required reading.

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome book on working with dreams November 11, 2004

By Laura De Giorgio TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

At the time I read this book for the first time - I have particularly appreciate the section that deals with working with nightmares and the simple and true statement that "nightmares are unfinished dreams". The book provides practical methods that work with "finishing the dreams" and effectively stopping the nightmares - and it works. Sometimes, though, the appearance of a nightmare may call for some active action in one's daily life, instead of just "finishing the dream" and this book does further provided methods for getting insights into the messages that dreams are attempting to communicate.

This books is a rich resource of techniques and numerous case histories to inspire you not only to explore your dreams but to embark on wild and wonderful advetures, beyond anything you may have thought about before.

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Shamanic Dreamwork at its best! May 26, 2005

By Deanna Joseph VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I loved this book, and found it to be a very "shamanic" dreamwork manual. It has wonderful exercises for both the beginning and more advanced dreamworker and includes everything you could imagine, from dream incubation, dream reentry and working with nightmares to shape-shifting, meeting deceased loved ones, angels and psychic self defense.

Conscious Dreaming has much to offer both the beginning and more advanced dreamworker and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in finding out more about their inner world of the Dreamtime.

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow! September 20, 2003

By Donna Katsuranis

Format:Paperback

It's very simple, really. This book changed my life. Robert Moss' basic rule of dream exploration is NEVER to let anybody tell you what your dreams mean. Such integrity is what has attracted me to the practice of Active Dreaming.

In Conscious Dreaming, Mr. Moss explains very clearly how to work with dreams and create one's Own dictionary of symbols. What's important to me might not be important to you. He delves appropriately into dreaming with the departed, and into precognitive dreaming - things that drew me to dream work to begin with. He illustrates in practical terms how we can return to night dreams in a waking state and look around some more - or possibly change things if we don't like them! Haven't we all had dreams that we wish we could have enjoyed for longer, or nightmares that we would change if we could? A dear friend used to have horrific nightmares. The kind that had him punching holes in the bedroom wall. Since he has read this book and been sharing his dreams using Robert Moss' Lightning Dreamwork process, his frequency of nightmares is Way down (1 or 2 per Year, rather than per Week). I asked him Why he feels this change has taken place. He replied "Because I'm finally paying attention and honoring my dreams!" To me, this is Healing at its most basic - SELF-Healing! The seeds of which are all very skillfully set forth in this one little book.

Mr. Moss now has a series of videos from Psyche Productions called "The Way of the Dreamer". They expand beautifully on Conscious Dreaming, showing the history that brought the author to dream work, and depicting very clearly the practical applications of the principles illustrated in the book. And listening to Robert Moss speak is a remarkable experience in itself!...

I have given this book to many friends over the years, and it's my sincere hope that everyone who reads it will begin to Pay Attention to their dreams! Read more ›

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This Book is Amazing June 25, 2000

By Jason Howard

Format:Paperback

Robert Moss certainly knows how to dream- he talks about Aboriginal, Celtic and Native American shamanic and dreaming practices, as well as his own dreams and the dreams of memebers of his Active Dreaming workshops, and explains how the average person can use dreams to make the most of their everyday life. He shows why dreaming is so important, how to make it a fun and enjoyable experience, and gives tips on exploring the dreams and symbols of your dreams (note: Moss does not take symbols on a dry Freudian level- according to Moss, symbols may have different meanings for different dreamers, and some symbols are transpersonal). His discussion of shamanic dreaming goes far beyond any book I've read before (except, possibly, "Dreamgates", another book by Moss.) This is one book I could not put down.

There is one slight weakness in this superb book (if you want to call it a weakness)- he doesn't fully explain the methods of shifting consciousness into the dream state. Complete beginners might even be wondering exactly what it means to "shift consciousness". However, this is information you can find in nearly any other dream or astral projection book (as well as slews of internet sites), and Moss opts to go a step further- by showing the reader that the dream world is a real world, full of real characters and real things- perhaps more real than physical reality.