Dreams

February 5, 2009
Interview with Robert Moss, author of The The Secret History of Dreaming

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Mike Carruthers:
Our dreams are fascinating but do they really have significance? Maybe.

Robert Moss:
Of course there are big dreams and little dreams, there are dreams that are brought on by the way you ate last night, etcetera. But most cultures across most of history have valued dreams for two things…

Robert Moss, author of the book The Secret History of Dreaming

Number one because dreams give us glimpses of the possible future and we can use that information. And number two because dreams put us in touch with something more than our ordinary self.

Now some people believe that dreams are simply the random thoughts of your subconscious mind while you're sleeping.

But the experience of dreamers suggest otherwise because people who simply dream, remember their dreams and work with them discover that the dreams are useful, fun, and entertaining - they put you in touch with your larger purpose. So, the only way to know what dreams really are is for you to do a lot of dreaming.

But Robert does not believe that every dream can be interpreted to mean something significant. And he says dreaming isn't only something you do while you are asleep.

Creative minds spend a lot of time in a liminal state - it's between sleep and waking. I call it the twilight zone sometimes but recently I've taken to calling it the solution state as I study the creative process in scientists. It's not so much that you have the one eureka dream, it's that your mind becomes habituated to operating in a state of flow where images are more fluid and connections are made more easily - and from that state many good things come.

Complete interview not available.