Tuesday, November 10, 2015

"You can go back to your dream now," she said


Esalen Institute, Big Sur, California

In the middle of the night, I stirred awake, then let myself relax into the drifty, liminal state between sleep and awake. Soon I was traveling in a lucid dream, roaming night landscapes.
   I set purpose and direction by repeating to myself, I am in a place of healing and creation.

   I floated, more than walked, to a set of massive stone steps going down to a sandy beach, where waves broke gently against the shore. At the base of the steps, I felt I needed to turn left. I found that there were people here. Some were gathered in front of a vendor's stall, set up in a niche between the pillars of the carriageway above us.  
   Curious objects were on the vendor's table: tall, cylindrical pottery vases.They were brown in color with a design that resembled the weave of basketry, perhaps two or three feet high. I wondered if they were urns for ashes of the dead, or vessels for votive offerings. I looked again at the structure around and above the stall. I realized it was the remains of a Roman aqueduct.
   "Robert." I heard my voice, spoken in a flutelike woman's voice.
   I turned to try to find the speaker. She appeared to me first in drifting robes, like a woman of the desert. I had a glimpse of her in modern, smart casual clothes, cashmere sweater and skirt. She slipped away, looking over her shoulder to make sure I followed.
    In the peak scene, she was holding me and bouncing me like a baby, at the head of a happy conga line of dancers. I felt nourished and joyful.
    She told me, "You can go back to your dream now."
    I found this shocking, and thrilling.
    I thought I was in a lucid dream. She seemed to be telling me I had moved beyond dream states into a separate reality.
    
As I traveled back to my resting body in the bed, in a physical reality between the Pacific Ocean and the redwood forest, I tried to hold the scenes from my adventure in my mind. Some escaped me, but what remained gave me several interesting leads. I need to search for pottery vases like the ones in my dream. I need to think about whether the location with the Roman aqueduct could be one of the places where I currently travel - like Montpellier in Languedoc - or a place where I will go in the future, or a place in another reality. I will remain open to further contact with the mysterious woman who gave me healing and led me to question, yet again, the nature of dreaming and of reality.
     I will add last night's experience to my long list of examples of how a figure in a lucid dream may alert us to the fact that a dream is rarely "only" a dream and may be a full experience of a world beyond the ordinary senses.
 
Photo: Garden Goddess at Esalen by RM. The woman in my lucid dream did not look like this version of the goddess, but something of the divine mother trails about her.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello Robert,
I just wanted to tell you thanks for the work you do and the books you bring into form. This looks very inviting and appropriate for me right now. I've purchased Sidewalk Oracles and should get it in a couple days. Are you able to take questions online at any time or some way in particular? I'm just wondering if there's a best order to purchase the books. Dreaming the Soul Back Home is calling to me as well. Must I do this type of dreaming before working through the Oracles book?

Thanks again!
Cathy
ps. I've signed for your SHift Network seminar, looking forward to hearing your wisdom.

Robert Moss said...

Hello Cathy,

I think you will find that Sidewalk Oracles is a great place to jump in to these waters. When the new Shift course begins, you'll find that the "secret" Facebook page associated with the course will be a grand place to get helpful feedback on your questions and reports not only from me but from a lively and spirited international community of active dreamers. Please follow your intuition on where next to go among my many relevant books. Here's a guide to what I have on offer: http://mossdreams.blogspot.com/2015/08/for-dream-reader.html

Anonymous said...

Thanks Robert, and I did receive Sidewalk Oracles and it's beckoning with such a pull it's sort of like the kid in me knows already what's in it, what's in that fun amusement park where she's already been and is wondering WHY her grown up is holding back. She's got me by the hand and she's pulling hard to go in there, into that book! I'm reading it and she's pulling harder but alas there are dishes piling up so I'll take a break, a short one, and then enter that park tent flap doorway with her...

I'm looking forward to meeting with others on that FB page as well.

Take care and a big hug in gratitude!
Cathy