How to Break a Dream Drought Book Giveaway!
We are giving away a copy of Active Dreaming: Journeying Beyond Self-Limitation to a Life of Wild Freedom by Robert Moss. Check out this sneak peak from the author and dont forget to leave a comment for your chance to win the book!How to Break a Dream Drought
By Robert MossHave you lost touch with your dreams? Is your dream recall limited to fragments that fade away as you hurry off into the business and traffic of the day? Relax. Here are some fun and easy ways to renew and refresh your relationship with your dreams:1. Set an intention for the nightBefore sleep, write down an intention for the hours of dream and twilight that lie ahead. This can be a travel plan (I would like to go toHawaii or I would like to visit my girlfriend/boyfriend). It might be a specific request for guidance (I want to know what will happen if I change my job). It could be a more general setting of direction (I ask for healing or I open myself to my creative source). You might simply say, I want to have fun in my dreams and remember.Make sure your intention has somejuice. Dont make dream recall one more chore to fit in with all the others.
If you like, you can make a little ritual of dream incubation, a simple version of what ancient seekers did when they traveled to temples of dream healing like those of Asklepios in hopes of a night encounter with a sacred guide. You can take a special bath or shower, play a recording of the sounds of nature or running water, and meditate for a while on an object or picture that relates to your intention. You might want to avoid eating heavily or drinking alcohol within a couple of hours of sleep. You could get yourself a little mugwort pillow in folk tradition, mugwort is an excellent dreambringer and place it under or near your regular pillow.2. Be ready to receiveHaving set your intention, make sure you have the means to honor it. Keep pen and paper (or a voice recorder) next to your bed so you are ready to r! ecord wh en you wake up.Recordsomething whenever you wake up, even if its at3 a.m.If you have to go to the bathroom, take your notebook with you and practice doing two things at once. Sometimes the dreams we most need to hear come visiting at rather anti-social hours, from the viewpoint of the little everyday mind.3. Be kind to fragments.Dont give up on fragments from your night dreams. The wispiest trace of a dream can be exciting to play with, and as you play with it you may find you are pulling back more of the previously forgotten dream. The odd word or phrase left over from a dream may be an intriguing clue, if you are willing to do a little detective work.
Suppose you wake with nothing more than the sense of a certain color. It could be quite interesting to notice that today is a Red Day, or a Green Day, to dress accordingly, to allow the energy of that color to travel with you, and to meditate on the qualities of red or green and see what life memories that evokes.4. Still no dream recall? No worries. If you dont remember a dream when you first wake up, laze in bed for a few minutes and see if something comes back. Wiggle around in the bed. Sometimes returning to the body posture we were in earlier in the night helps to bring back what we were dreaming when our bodies were arranged that way.If you still dont have a dream, write something down anyway: whatever is in your awareness, including feelings and physical sensations. You are catching the residue of a dream even if the dream itself is gone. As you do this, you are saying to the source of your dreams, Im listening. Talk to me.You may find that, though your dreams have flown, you have a sense of clarity and direction that is the legacy of the night. We solve problems in our sleep even when we dont remember the problem-solving process that went on in our dreaming minds.5, Remember you dont need to go to sleep in order to dream.
The incidents of everyday life will spea! k to us like dream symbols if we will are willing to pay attention. Keep a lookout for the first unusual or striking thing that enters your field of perception in the course of the day and ask whether there could be a message there. Sometimes its in your face, as happened to a woman I know who was mourning the end of a romance but had to laugh when she noticed that the bumper sticker of the red convertible in front of her said, I use ex-lovers as speed bumps. After this incident, she had started recalling dreams again, and had several to share in the new class. She had dreamed she was in Washington DC, at a conference on transportation. As we explored this dream, she revealed that she had a friend in Washington and that her current work mostly consisted of arranging conferences. But I know nothing about transportation except maybe how to drive the wrong way down a one-way street.When we start paying attention to the dreamlike symbols of the day, we often reopen our connection to the dreams of the night.Related: 7 Common Dreams, 6 Ways to Reap the Benefits of Dreams, Why Do We Forget Our Dreams?Robert Moss is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original method of dreamwork and healing through the imagination. Born in Australia, his fascination with the dreamworld began in his childhood, when he had three near-death experiences and first learned the ways of a traditional dreaming people through his friendship with Aborigines. A former professor of ancient history, he is also a novelist, journalist, and independent scholar. His eight books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Three Only Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates and the newly-published Active Dreaming. Visit him online at www.mossdreams.com.Based on the book Active Dreaming. Copyright 2011 by Robert Moss. Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. www.newworldlibrary.com or 800/972-6657 ext. 52.WIN THE B! OOK! Ent er a comment for your chance to win a copy of Active Dreaming: Journeying Beyond Self-Limitation to a Life of Wild Freedom by Robert Moss. Winner will be selected May 31. Good luck!
By Robert MossHave you lost touch with your dreams? Is your dream recall limited to fragments that fade away as you hurry off into the business and traffic of the day? Relax. Here are some fun and easy ways to renew and refresh your relationship with your dreams:1. Set an intention for the nightBefore sleep, write down an intention for the hours of dream and twilight that lie ahead. This can be a travel plan (I would like to go toHawaii or I would like to visit my girlfriend/boyfriend). It might be a specific request for guidance (I want to know what will happen if I change my job). It could be a more general setting of direction (I ask for healing or I open myself to my creative source). You might simply say, I want to have fun in my dreams and remember.Make sure your intention has somejuice. Dont make dream recall one more chore to fit in with all the others.
If you like, you can make a little ritual of dream incubation, a simple version of what ancient seekers did when they traveled to temples of dream healing like those of Asklepios in hopes of a night encounter with a sacred guide. You can take a special bath or shower, play a recording of the sounds of nature or running water, and meditate for a while on an object or picture that relates to your intention. You might want to avoid eating heavily or drinking alcohol within a couple of hours of sleep. You could get yourself a little mugwort pillow in folk tradition, mugwort is an excellent dreambringer and place it under or near your regular pillow.2. Be ready to receiveHaving set your intention, make sure you have the means to honor it. Keep pen and paper (or a voice recorder) next to your bed so you are ready to r! ecord wh en you wake up.Recordsomething whenever you wake up, even if its at3 a.m.If you have to go to the bathroom, take your notebook with you and practice doing two things at once. Sometimes the dreams we most need to hear come visiting at rather anti-social hours, from the viewpoint of the little everyday mind.3. Be kind to fragments.Dont give up on fragments from your night dreams. The wispiest trace of a dream can be exciting to play with, and as you play with it you may find you are pulling back more of the previously forgotten dream. The odd word or phrase left over from a dream may be an intriguing clue, if you are willing to do a little detective work.
Suppose you wake with nothing more than the sense of a certain color. It could be quite interesting to notice that today is a Red Day, or a Green Day, to dress accordingly, to allow the energy of that color to travel with you, and to meditate on the qualities of red or green and see what life memories that evokes.4. Still no dream recall? No worries. If you dont remember a dream when you first wake up, laze in bed for a few minutes and see if something comes back. Wiggle around in the bed. Sometimes returning to the body posture we were in earlier in the night helps to bring back what we were dreaming when our bodies were arranged that way.If you still dont have a dream, write something down anyway: whatever is in your awareness, including feelings and physical sensations. You are catching the residue of a dream even if the dream itself is gone. As you do this, you are saying to the source of your dreams, Im listening. Talk to me.You may find that, though your dreams have flown, you have a sense of clarity and direction that is the legacy of the night. We solve problems in our sleep even when we dont remember the problem-solving process that went on in our dreaming minds.5, Remember you dont need to go to sleep in order to dream.
The incidents of everyday life will spea! k to us like dream symbols if we will are willing to pay attention. Keep a lookout for the first unusual or striking thing that enters your field of perception in the course of the day and ask whether there could be a message there. Sometimes its in your face, as happened to a woman I know who was mourning the end of a romance but had to laugh when she noticed that the bumper sticker of the red convertible in front of her said, I use ex-lovers as speed bumps. After this incident, she had started recalling dreams again, and had several to share in the new class. She had dreamed she was in Washington DC, at a conference on transportation. As we explored this dream, she revealed that she had a friend in Washington and that her current work mostly consisted of arranging conferences. But I know nothing about transportation except maybe how to drive the wrong way down a one-way street.When we start paying attention to the dreamlike symbols of the day, we often reopen our connection to the dreams of the night.Related: 7 Common Dreams, 6 Ways to Reap the Benefits of Dreams, Why Do We Forget Our Dreams?Robert Moss is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original method of dreamwork and healing through the imagination. Born in Australia, his fascination with the dreamworld began in his childhood, when he had three near-death experiences and first learned the ways of a traditional dreaming people through his friendship with Aborigines. A former professor of ancient history, he is also a novelist, journalist, and independent scholar. His eight books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Three Only Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates and the newly-published Active Dreaming. Visit him online at www.mossdreams.com.Based on the book Active Dreaming. Copyright 2011 by Robert Moss. Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. www.newworldlibrary.com or 800/972-6657 ext. 52.WIN THE B! OOK! Ent er a comment for your chance to win a copy of Active Dreaming: Journeying Beyond Self-Limitation to a Life of Wild Freedom by Robert Moss. Winner will be selected May 31. Good luck!
