The Power of Story II

I finished Robert's new book and wrote the following as a review on Amazon; since most of it is new thoughts on my reading experience, I'm sharing it with you, as well.

Robert Moss’ new book “The Boy Who Died and Came Back” is reminiscent for me of reading Carl Jung’s “Memories, Dreams and Reflections.”  It’s not quite an autobiography, it’s more like being allowed to follow a seasoned explorer of the dreamscapes through the life memories, events and encounters with the Unconscious, in Jung’s case, more like the Multiverse in Robert’s, that have shaped their teaching and practice.

Robert Moss is a master storyteller. The many stories about dreaming adventures in his new book open new windows for anyone interested in lucid and conscious dreaming. The book offers possibilities like dreaming our way into ancestral realities that can be accessed through the parallel universes of dreaming where all time is NOW.


It’s a very easy read, especially for someone who finds dreams and dreaming a fascinating topic. Robert Moss began teaching his own dream approach “Active Dreaming” in the mid-80s and has been refining this rich synthesis of modern dreamwork with ancient and shamanic dream practices ever since in the workshops that he teaches around the world and in his numerous books on the subject.


This book allows us to travel into the dreaming of people around the globe; it’s global Active Dreaming in action. As a certified and practicing teacher of Active Dreaming, I appreciate the many examples of journeys he’s led in so many lands because they inspire new dream plans for my own workshops.  As a dreamer, I appreciate the inspiration I’ve found in these pages for conducting further experiments of my own in the dream worlds 

From this book, I’ve also come away with a deeper reverence for Nature and learned new ways to connect with Her in waking and dreaming. Many of the stories Robert shares illustrate how we can dream with the land we inhabit. What some might call Eco-dreaming today is part of Active Dreaming as a practice remembered from indigenous peoples, ancient and contemporary, around the world.  Nature speaks through signs, symbols and dreams, listening to these helps us attain the balance our race must reach and maintain if we’re to survive on this planet.  If we pay attention, we dream with the land we inhabit and perhaps we visit the lands our ancestors inhabited in order to return with wisdom and healing to apply in our waking lives and in our communities. 

Robert calls his method  “Dream Archaeology.”  My favorite chapter on this wonderful theme is chapter 40: “Dreaming with the Goddess” where he pays tribute in beautifully compelling and poetic prose to both the Goddess, Mother of all Lands and all People, and to the great scholar of ancient Europe and Goddess traditions, Marija Gimbutas. The stories of his dream adventures conducting workshops in Gimbutas’ native Lithuania in this and the following chapters are among my favorite in the book. “Dream archaeology gives us ways to grow her (Gimbuta’s) vision, to enter into authentic communication with keepers of ancestral wisdom, to find clues to meaning and leads for original research – and to help heal the collective and cultural soul loss that blights our age.” RM P. 284 “

The Boy Who Died and Came Back” is both a dreaming primer for beginners and an esoteric dream map for seasoned dream explorers.  It’s a rich read for the senses, too; his descriptive prose is beautiful. Telling us about a dream circle he led in the Adirondacks, on a wonderful Garnet Mountain during a lunar eclipse he writes:


“We danced until the return of the light.  The sun’s light, reappearing at the bottom of the moon’s disk, rolled up like a drop of liquid gold over the face of a bronze mirror.” P.292


As a long time student of Robert’s, I know that a central focus of his work is resurrecting the Art of Dying for our modern Western society. Making Death your ally is an ancient teaching and one that he writes and teaches about frequently. This book takes you “Through the Moongate” and into the Multiverse. It lights the way in the cultural darkness that is our Western heritage to the possibilities that await us once we learn we are infinite spiritual beings living in these finite physical shells, but living with a purpose, a story, a contract we came to fulfill. Robert shows us how his dreams led him to this knowledge and how our own dreams can enlighten us.

Here’s the endorsement Robert receives from the renowned author of “Life After Life” Dr. Raymond Moody: “Robert Moss' extraordinary life story, told with beauty and passion, confirms that there is life after life and will inspire all who read it to transcend the fear of death and live richer deeper lives."