Dreamer's Book of the Dead: A Soul Traveler's Guide to Death, Dying, and the Other Side

Chapter 2\ Dream Visitations\ It is not only possible and lawful, but an absolute duty on the part of mortals to keep up a loving intercourse with the loved ones who have gone before.\ W. T. Stead, Preface to After Death, or Letters from Julia (1909)\ The dead come calling for all the reasons that we visit each other in ordinary life—and for a few more interesting reasons. They come to deal with their unfinished business and pay off their debts. They come seeking forgiveness, or revenge. They come to tell us they’re okay, or that they are lost and afraid, or struggling with addictions, and need help. They come for closure and mutual forgiveness and blessing.\ They come to give us counsel and information, which is sometimes reliable and sometimes not. They may come to give us an urgent warning, or a health advisory, or to alert us to the location of a missing document. When our dead are fully alert to their new condition—and the gifts of seeing across time and space that go with it—they may be able to function as very accurate and helpful psychic advisers, if our channels are clear and we can receive their messages without too much static on the line. They may now want to give us early warning of events that may take place in the future—in the circumstances of our personal lives, or on the stage of the world. A visitation by the departed is often a hallmark of a precognitive dream, one that previews an event that will be played out at some point in the future.\ Where there is continuing love, as well as clarity, our dead may function as family angels, looking out for our best interests and those of our loved ones and family members.\ Our dead may come to us to make us aware that the soul has a life beyond the body. They may come to help us get ready for our own journeys beyond death.\ The Appearance of the Dead in Dreams\ In most dreams, the departed appear to be living, and very often the dreamer is unaware that the person he or she encounters is “dead” until after waking. The reason is that the departed are indeed alive, although no longer in the physical realm.\ The departed may appear as the dreamer remembers them from their last days of physical life, especially in the first dream encounters.\ We don’t change all at once after death. Sometimes we carry on as if we are in the same bodies and suffering the same limitations as before we died. Eventually we wake up to the fact that we have better options—change our ways, take on new bodies, and find our way to places of healing, growth, and higher educations.\ A man I’ll call Jim was anguished when he first started seeing his beloved sister, who died at twenty-nine, in his dreams. She had been paralyzed for twelve years prior to her death. In his initial dreams, he found her confined to bed, still unable to move around. He asked her if she was being healed, and she told him, “No.”\ I encouraged him to try to go back inside his dream—through the Active Dreaming technique called Dream Reentry—talk to his sister, lend her the full support of his love and strength, and encourage her to get up from her bed and experiment with walking in her new body. He felt uneasy about trying this. I suggested that his first step might be to imagine his sister was walking. “Just make it up. Picture her healthy and well, walking and running and dancing. Then carry those happy pictures with you when you go visit her, wide awake and conscious, inside the dream where you last saw her.” Jim remained skeptical, at first, reluctant—in the way of so many grownups whose inner child has been crushed by adults hostile to wonder—to turn his imagination loose. But when he was able to do this, his own little boy came back, the part of him that was open to wonder. And he was eventually able to take that wonder-maker with him to visit his dead sister in the space of a dream, and to take her hands and gently pull her from her bed, and to walk and skip and dance with her.\ I believe real healing was accomplished in this dream visit, for both the dead sister and the surviving brother.\ As a general point, this case reminds us to be aware that our dead appear to us not only as they are, or suppose themselves to be, but as we conceive them to be. By adjusting our own thoughts and expectations, we can not only see our departed loved ones in a new way but actually help them develop the ability to shapeshift their own forms and environments in fabulous ways on planes of reality where thoughts are things and imagination makes worlds.

Acknowledgments Introduction: Pioneers of Death Prologue: The Night When the Veil ThinsI Dreaming with the Departed 1 The Presence of the Dead 2 Dream Visitations 3 Thirteen Reasons Why the Dead Come Calling 4 Night Travels among the Departed 5 Healing Our Relations with the Dead 6 Spiritual Release 7 Assisting the Imaginations of the DeadII The Poet as Guide to the Other Side 8 A Friend in the House of Time 9 Through the Muslin Walls 10 The Bureau of the Spirits 11 Eminent Victorians Report from the Other Side 12 Spiritual Gravitation and the Mingling of Minds 13 Visioning the Western Book of the DeadIII Dreaming the Way from Death to Birth 14 Houses of Death and the Art of Dying 15 Death and Rebirth through the Goddess 16 Taking Flight 17 The Crossing 18 Way of the Heart 19 Getting a Life on the Other Side 20 Active Dreaming to Help the Dying 21 Soul Choices and Parallel LivesAppendix I: Dreaming ResourcesAppendix II: The Dream Reentry TechniqueNotes Bibliography Index

\ Larry Dossey“Since time immemorial, dreams of the dead have been a common occurrence. Our scientifically based culture has attempted to close this door of communication, but has failed; dreams of the dead continue to occur, as always. Robert Moss sheds light on how to enter this doorway and benefit from the wisdom and comfort that often result from these experiences.”\ \ \ \ \ David Spangler“The Dreamer’s Book of the Dead is one of the finest books I have read in many a year. It offers deep and healing insight into the journey beyond death, which will be a help to anyone who has lost a loved one. More than that it offers wisdom for living our lives in powerful and spirit-filled ways. With each new book, but especially with this one, Robert Moss adds to his reputation as one of the greatest spiritual teachers of our time. Outstanding!”\ \ \ Catherine Shainberg“Robert Moss’s ambition to give us a Western Book of the Dead has been fully realized in this captivating and inspiring guide to the land of the dead. Moss shocks and thrills by revealing the hidden truth—that the Otherworld is in fact the familiar landscape of our dreams, where we go every night. There we can, if we intend it, meet up with our lost loved ones and encounter the great mentors of the past. Moss’s own mentor is the great Irish poet W. B. Yeats, with whom he has in-depth, meaningful conversations. \ “Moss reminds us that by our night dreaming and waking dreams we prepare for the great journey to the world beyond the mists the Celts call the Blessed Isles. Our dreams are the measure of what we aspire to, and it is in this life, through practicing our imagination, that we can draw our roadmap and our destination. For a better death and life beyond death—but also for a better life in the world of the living—do not miss this extraordinary book from a true Western Master.”\ \ \ \ \ \ Mary K. Greer“An important work for a world in which we quickly dispose of our dead and move on—or don’t, being left isolated with our grief in the only existence we know. Robert Moss shows us how false a view this is. He opens us to the other side of life—to our multi-dimensional existence through which we travel every night. Learn to become a voyager of the imagination where you can meet with loved ones and guides in a place as true as this one. Take a guided tour of the land of the dead, as recorded by explorers through the centuries. Learn how to communicate with and assist the dead and let them help you. \ “This book is filled with stories from people who have taken Moss’s workshops and discovered for themselves the knowledge and serenity that comes from contact with the other side. It also reveals the mentoring relationship that Moss established with William Butler Yeats, demonstrating how such a communion with spirits (whether within or without) can be a source of strength and encouragement. An inspiring book that should be close at hand for whenever the other world comes calling or we have need of knowledge of the other side.”\ \ \ \ \ \ Victoria Vlach"Here are tools and guidance to help truly begin to heal that relationship with death/dying."\ \ \ \ \ Bonnie Cehovet"I found this to be an important work for anyone who wishes to work with dreamtime, for what ever reason. . . . it gives the reader a way to go into their dreams, to become a part of their dreams, and to make their dreams work for them. If you want to work with your dreams, and you want to understand the death experience, then this is the book for you."\ \ \ \ \ Eva Yaa Asantewaa"Moss is a compelling, generous teacher with an astonishing depth and breadth of esoteric knowledge. Approach The Dreamer’s Book of the Dead when you’re ready to go slowly and absorb its heady, powerful themes and meditations."\ \ \ \ \ Lee Prosser"This nonfiction book is identified as a soul traveler's guide to death, dying, and the other side, and it is precisely that! It has a gusto and life all its own. Robert Moss is to be congratulated on a fine work, one that is informative and enjoyable to read."\ \ \ \ \ The Midwest Book Review"Dreamer's Book of the Dead is nearly an escort service, offering insights on dreams, the afterlife, and healing."\ \ \ \ \ Marilis Hornidge"It's a book which lingers in the back of your mind for a long time after you've read it. Don't give it away. . ."\ \