Robert Moss

Robert Moss is another spiritual guru person. I think he might be the last for awhile. Tomorrow, I have an actress.

I wrote about Moss before in this old entry, because he had some part in how I become all obsessed with Australia. He was one of the catalysts.

Moss is into dreams...something I've been interested in most of my life.

I usually have pretty vivid dreams. I write them down almost every night.

I know a little bit about Moss already. He was born in Australia...Queensland, I think. He was a sickly child. I think his illness caused some early out-of-body experiences (or for any atheist readers, ILLUSIONS of out-of-body-experiences).

I think he had some Aboriginal friends when he was a child, and maybe he was influenced by their spirituality. Later, he moved to New York State. If I recall correctly, New York called to him...sort of in the same way that Australia may have called to me.

Well, Lord Wiki says I'm wrong. Moss wasn't born in Queensland. He was born in Melbourne. That's weird. I really get a strong Queensland feeling, and I don't mean a psychic thing. It's more of a memory thing. Maybe he MOVED to Queensland at some point?

And I don't get a Melbourne vibe from him.

Moss was born in 1946. He's two years older than my mom.

I was right about the illness. Lord Wiki doesn't mention the OBE thing though. He just says that Moss traces his dream interest to that time.

For school, Moss went to Scott College Melbourne. It's a boy school. Right now, the school is doing Jesus Christ Superstar. I love that musical! I've been watching clips of it on YouTube. I love the 1973 version, but I've also started watching a more modern production. I love their version of "Could We Start Again Please"?

I guess the Moss family eventually moved to Canberra. Robert went to Canberra Grammar School. He could have gone as a boarding student. Maybe the family didn't move?

Moss did his university studies in Canberra as well, at the Australian National University. He got a BA, then an MA. For a short time, he taught Ancient History. I guess then his degree was in history.

After teaching a bit, Moss went to London to further educate himself. He started doing some PhD research, but then the magazine The Economist wanted to hire him. Why did they want a ancient history guy? Or perhaps one of his degrees had been in history, and the other had been in economics?

From 1970 until 1980, Moss was an editorial writer for that magazine, and he wrote for other prominent magazines as well. Plus, he also did some TV commentary stuff.

In 1971, Moss wrote a paper that he presented to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Lord Wiki says he was one of the first to warn about the incoming threat of international terrorism.

When Moss was twenty-five, he published his first book. It was called Urban Guerrillas.

What would our world be like if we

knew for sure there 

was life after death, and 

we could easily talk to our 

dearly-departed on the Internet?

The Dead are Online a novel by Dina Roberts 

In 1980, Moss moved to the world of fiction. He co-wrote a novel called The Spike. From Lord Wiki's description of the book, it seems the novel is somewhat pro-right and anti-left. It's about the liberal media bias.

Interesting.

With that information, and knowing Moss spoke out against terrorism....it seems he might be more politically right. I guess I expect spiritual guru people to be more on the left.

Later Moss, published some bestselling novels. One of them was Moscow Rules, and the other was Carnival of Spies.

It looks like Moss mostly wrote spy novels.

I'm not sure what happened to Moss in the early and mid 1980's. But then in 1986, he decided to move to New York. Lord Wiki said he started to have special dreams. They were in a language he didn't understand. He soon found out they had a connection to the Mohawk language. I guess the Mohawk is a Native American group. Yeah. Here we go.....

I think the move to New York, and the dreams, changed his whole direction in life. He switched gears from spy novels to historical novels. And he started working with dreams.

Moss calls his dream ideas Active Dreaming. There are four parts.

1. Dream Sharing in a group, but with the idea that the dreamer is the final authority on their own dream.

I really like that! I think psychologists, friends, and dream dictionaries can help give insight. But in the end, our opinion is what matters most.

2. Reentering the dream to gain more insight. From what I remember reading, this is done with Shamanic drumming. When I read about this, it sounded so intriguing...awesome. I loved the idea of consciously going into a dream...by choice. I tried a few times to do it. I never had any success.

3. Group Dreaming. This is when people enter the same dream together. It would be great if this was easily possible. Then I could visit my far away friends on a frequent basis...without buying an expensive plane ticket.

4. Using synchronosity in our own daily life. Paying attention to the signs.

I'm really into that.

My most recent coincidence was this. Jack and I play these better-than-Mad-Libs games called Wacky Web Tales. They're so fun! Anyway, we did a bunch a few weeks ago. Then we forgot about it. Yesterday I remembered them, and I suggested to Jack that we play again. He eagerly said yes. The problem is we both forgot which story we had left off on. We ended up doing three our four stories that we had already done. But we didn't know they were the same story until after we filled in the nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc, and saw the completed story.

For one story, I used toe when they asked for a singular noun. I was just using words that popped into my head. Well, it ended up I had used that EXACT same word in the exact same place we had used it last time. We once again ended up with a story of Jack and his friend finding a toe in the park. It was bizarre.

Between 1996 and 2009, Moss has published nine books on dreaming. I have the first one. Conscious Dreaming. I should probably read some more of them....someday.

Well, I'm done with Lord Wiki. I need to do some cleaning, and then I'll read some other stuff....

Okay. Here's the Robert Moss website. There's a brief biography page which says he did have childhood out-of-body experiences. So I was right about that.

The time in his life that brought the big spiritual change was 1987-1988. Mine started in 2004. I think it was between 2004 and around 2006 that I got all into the spiritual stuff. Slowly, it drifted into this Australia thing.

Moss offers dream schools. It actually sounds like something I might like. Well, maybe not. It's actually workshops to help people become dream teachers. I don't think I'd want to do that. I think I'd rather take a workshop led by one of these trained dream-teachers.

There are a bunch of other workshops though. Most of them are in New York. But there is going to be one in February in Dallas. I might look into it. It might be a fun little weekend getaway. I should see if they have one a little farther, actually. We could do a driving trip.

There's one in Colorado in May. Tim wants to do another biking race there. That would be funny if they were on the same weekend.

I actually feel somewhat validated going to one of these. We were going to attend a homeschooling conference in September, but we decided not to go. So we saved money there. The funny thing is, the last time we went to the homeschooling conference, the one seminar I enjoyed had nothing to do with homeschooling. Instead, it was a discussion on dreaming. That event lasted about an hour or two. Would I want to go to an all day thing? Probably not.

But I'll think about it.....

I'd probably be more comfortable at home reading books by Moss and having my own dreams. Plus, he has some advice and information on the website. Maybe I'll read some of that now.

Here's his article about dreamwork and dream sharing.

Moss says, In commenting on dreams that are shared with us, we often commit the error of trying to impose our own projections and associations, or ask questions that violate the dreamer’s privacy.

I think I'm guilty of this. When someone tells me their dream, or I read about it on their blog, I immediately want to try to interpret it. This might be because I want other people to interpret MY dreams. I have some dreams that seem symbolic, but I have no idea what it could mean. I'm hoping someone could give me some insight. So I guess I figure other people might want the same thing.

Basically, Moss feels we should all do more dream sharing, but not in a way that's pushy and/or intrusive.

Moss provides some guidelines in dream sharing.

He says we should title our dreams. I started doing that about a year or two ago. I use the same types of titles I used for my Australia trip reports...inspired by A.A. Milne. My dreams this week include:

Dreams..in which we take care of Tara,
Lucid Dreams...in which I don't get far,  
Dreams....in which I try to figure out Tim's job 
Dreams...in which Rhonda Byrne might not be Australian 
Dreams....in which Grandma Bea is happy,
 Dreams...in which Tracey and Gina are Visiting.

Moss says three questions should be asked of the dreamer.

1. How did you feel when you woke up? I usually feel tired when I wake up...or I feel excited about starting my day. But I'm not sure it has a connection to my dream. What Moss seems to be getting at is the emotions surrounding the dream. I personally feel the question could be phased better. Anyway, I do think the emotions surrounding the dream are very important. I once dreamed that Anthony Hopkins threw me in a swimming pool. It was one of my rare that-special-feeling dreams. But I can't convey that by simply describing the actions. If I say Anthony Hopkins throws me into a pool, who would get whether it was funny, scary, adventurous, spiritual, etc.

The next question is regarding reality checks. Moss says this is to determine if a dream is literal, symbolic, or an experience in a separate reality. I'm wondering if he's referring to astral travel in the latter.

Moss suggests also that we consider whether the dream might happen in real life. Could it be a warning?

My own dreams are splattered with stuff from my waking world. I dreamed of Rhonda Byrne the night before I planned to write the entry about her. I was nervous about that blog post.

The third question is to ask what the dreamer would like to know about the dream. That's usually easy for me. I usually want to know. What the hell does that dream mean, and why did I dream it?

Why did I recently dream about someone carrying a baby through the rain?

Why did I dream I had Michael Myers locked in a basement? (maybe because Halloween is approaching?)

Why have I been having recurring dreams that we're back in Australia, and we have only a few days left there?

Why did I dream that I received fake snakes in the mail from an Australia chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation?

With the Moss dream sharing method, one responds to another person's dream by saying If it were my dream..... Using those words supposedly is less intrusive. I personally don't feel it's necessary. If someone tries to interpret my dream, I don't get the feeling that they think they're ideas are the RIGHT ideas. I think they use words like Maybe it means, or it could mean..... That's enough for me. I'd probably be taken aback (and offended) if someone said What you're dream means is.... But I've never encountered that. I think most people understand that dreams are open to interpretation. There's no right answer.

Oh! There's a fourth step thing. How did I miss that? I thought there was only going to be three. Moss thinks we should ask how the dreamer plans to take action. Yikes. Am I supposed to take action on all my dreams? Well, that puts a lot of pressure on me.

He does say that writing down dreams is a good step. But he feels we should do more.

We don't have write a best-selling novel about each dream. But we can do small honorary things. We can do a draw, writing a poem, wear a color featured in the dream, call someone we dreamed about, etc.

Well, I probably think that writing down my dreams is enough for the most part. If something stands out, I might let it inspire me to do something.

My whole Australia obsession came from dreams. So, there you go. I did that. I have a whole damn blog.

Here's another article called "Spend More Time In the Twilight Zone". This is that weird inbetween time between sleep and awake. All kinds of weird things jump into my head at this time, and I've even had a few hallucinations.

Moss says we should try to dwell in this state for longer periods. I do need to do that more often. I went through a stage of paying close attention to what I saw in these states, but lately I've neglected it a bit.

The scientific term for these states are hypnagogia. They can occur before dreaming, or after.

Moss says these stages are conducive to paranormal events....so it might be similar to the trance that a psychic goes into. He says:

When you let yourself slip into the twilight zone, you may have the impression that someone is waiting for you or has something to tell you. When I lie down and close my eyes, I sometimes have the impression of a whole cast of characters waiting for me to arrive.

I can relate to that. I think it does feel that way for me sometimes. Sometimes I think it's all random, but usually I feel like I'm receiving messages.

But some of the stuff that pops into my head is so random and meaningless to me....I sometimes suspect that I'm just getting random junk from other people. I'm absorbing their crap, and then trying to make sense of it.

You guys probably think I'm totally weird and crazy now. Well, good. If you hadn't thought that already, you obviously hadn't been reading close enough.

So now you know.

Moss has his own blog! I'll read some of that.

I'm finding his writing here a bit hard to follow....at least the first two entries. There's one that seems to be saying that there's astral beings on the moon. It all gets a little bit too weird for me. But I guess it's a possibility. Maybe there ARE luna people.

Here's another entry about the moon. Moss says, The Moon may be a cold desert to NASA cameras, and under the boots of astronauts, but what goes on there has a tremendous effect on human minds and on Earth affairs.

I don't think there'a been widely accepted scientific evidence regarding the moon and human behavior. But I do think Moss has a good point. When I heard of the moon bombing thing, my scientific self was rather thrilled. Wow! Astronauts did something to the moon!
But now that I think of it.....

The moon plays a part in a lot of people's spirituality. I know it's very important to Wiccans, at least.

Is it okay to just go and bomb the moon?

Maybe it's like climbing Uluru.

It's disrespectful.

We don't have to believe what other people belief. But I do think we should be respectful towards their artifacts and symbols. Now does this mean we shouldn't have any scientific interaction with the moon? No. I don't think so. I think we just need to go about it carefully and respectfully.

I must admit that some of what Moss writes is a little TOO out there for me. As I said in a previous post, I feel kind of stuck in the middle between spiritual guru-people and atheists.

I guess it's all a little bit too weird for me. But you know. It's all perspective. What I say is probably too weird for some other people. And there's probably people who say stuff that is too weird for Robert Moss.

There's a part of me that thinks Moss has totally lost touch with reality. But who knows. Maybe he's MORE in touch with reality. Maybe us other people are blind to it all.

You never know.....

I honestly feel mentally torn right now. There's a part of me that thinks all these spiritual gurus are off their rockers...that these people are having some kind of mass delusion and brainwashing other people. Another part of me feels that these occultists and gurus truly know and understand things that I'm not a part of....that I could BE a part of if I opened up my mind enough.

Anyway. It doesn't matter. I've never had any luck actively pursuing spiritual stuff. I try, and end up falling flat on my ass. Everything spiritual that happens to me....happens without me asking for it. It just comes to me. So if I'm meant to join in these moon-people parties, I guess it will happen.

Here's an interview with Moss. It's on a blog dedicated to creativity.

The blogger asks Moss if he's always been a vivid dreamer. He says, In my early boyhood in my native Australia, my dreams got me through crises of illness and I had indelible dream visions of traveling to worlds beyond ordinary reality.

It's interesting that with these dreams, he still chose a very mainstream life. I mean I wouldn't picture a child like that growing up to work for an economy magazines. If they wrote novels, I wouldn't imagine them writing spy stuff.

He did have Aboriginal friends. So, I didn't dream that one up. It seems his friendship with them is what gave him the idea that dreams can be spiritual. I think we often have to turn to Indigenous cultures to get to this idea. Our Western society's ideas about dreams seem to be dominated by psychology and neurology. Then there's the huge influence that the Judeo-Christian religions play in our lives. I don't think dreams are highly valued in our local churches and synagogues. We might give attention to Joseph's dreams...or other Biblical guys. But is any value or attention given to our own dreams?

I think I might have talked about some of this in my previous post about Robert Moss. I'm having Deja Vu....not the spiritual type, but the type in which I really DID probably do the same thing twice.

I guess I could go back and read that entry in its entirety. Maybe later.....

Moss is asked how dreams make him more creative. He says he's received ideas for both his nonfiction books and novels. I can relate to that.

Moss gives advice to people who don't remember their dream. It's the basic stuff. Have an intention to remember. Write the dream down when you awake......

I wonder if this actually works.

I've always been good at remembering my dreams. It's pretty much a no-effort.

A lot of times people give advice to people who are not naturally-inclined with something. They make it sound so easy. But IS it that easy?

Is having vivid dreams and remembering them something ANYONE can tap into? Or is something we're born with? Do any of you not remember your dreams well? Maybe you can experiment for me! Any volunteers?

Moss has an idea that sounds fun to me. He says we should ask a question. Then open our eyes to any synchronosity stuff. I've done this with my dreams before. I ask a question before I fall asleep, then I use my dreams to get answers. The problem is I'm horrible at interpreting.

My problem with all this is fairly simple. If I like the answers I'm receiving, I say Oh! It works! My spirit guides are talking to me! If I don't like what I'm seeing, I say Oh, it's just a bunch of random meaningless crap.

Actually, since I'm a negative person....it's probably more often the opposite. If the information makes me too happy, I become very skeptical. If the information is negative, I often accept without question. This happened to me recently. I had some questions about my relationship to someone, so I consulted my online tarot card membership. The answers I received were VERY negative....dreadful. I got the BAD cards. So I immediately believed it all. A few days later, I started remembering that those Tarot cards rarely work for me. They usually give me answers that I can't at all connect too. There's rarely anything from that site that rings true for me. Still, I go to it when I feel desperate for answers. I should probably stop doing that.

I'd be better off paying attention to my dreams and synchronocity stuff.

Well, I'd love to spend more time on this subject. But it's 2:30, and Jack wants to eat lunch. Plus, I have more cleaning to do.

In the meantime, I'm going to try that question thing. It sounds fun. I'll try to be open-minded and accepting of the answer....whether it's not what I want to hear, or it's too much of what I want to hear.

Read my novel: The Dead are Online