“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.”

~ Edgar Allen Poe

Robert Moss is a dream archeologist. I had never heard this term before until I read this book and I was intrigued. As a person who dreams on a regular basis, the world of dreaming is fascinating. It’s a world that provides opportunities to soar among birds, dive into the depths of the underworld, surf waves near the shores of Honolulu all while remaining in the safe confines of the bedroom.

But Moss doesn’t just address the idea of dreaming and their meanings or the process of active dreaming. In his book The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse, he delves into how he got here—this place of teaching active dreaming—and illustrates his experiences through his own dreams.

When Robert Moss was three years old he was rushed to the hospital with a severe case of pneumonia and had an out of body experience. The doctor’s told his parents that he had died and came back and from that time on, Robert began having regular out of body experiences and was often ill. His family moved to a warmer climate in hopes that he wold be healthier, and it was there that he met an Aboriginal boy that validated the stories Robert told as common in the Aboriginal culture.

He died again at nine during a surgery for appendicitis, and his out of body experience this time seemed to stretch into a whole other lifetime, until he came back to the spot and place he was when it all started—in surgery.

These experiences opened worlds of dreaming to Robert that were not like typical dreams, and he began exploring them into adulthood. He found he could be transported to the past and meet and socialize with characters there and then later find proof of their former existence. He discovered that his dreams could warn him of impending events, which were not always crystal clear but gave clues that he kept track of in his dream journal.

This story is a story of a remarkable event by a remarkable person who uses this knowledge to show others how to harness the power of dreaming. The book is broken into sections. The first couple describe Moss’s history and how he got to this extraordinary place, the next few lead the reader into his adulthood and portray his path of sharing this ability with others. The last section of the book he is not only leading workshops and authoring books on the subject, but exploring his own dreams in an even deeper context.

I had a difficult time reading this book quickly.  I’m not sure if it was Moss’s lyrical style or the subject matter, but almost every time I found myself drifting to sleep while reading it. It didn’t matter if I was in bed or sitting in a parked car waiting for my son to come out from school, I would be partway through a passage and find my eyes getting heavy and an uncontrollable urge to fall into my own dream-filled slumber.

This book is for those that dream, those that ache to dream and those that are drawn to the other side.

Note: elephantjournal.com received this book free, in return for a guarantee that we would review said offering. That said, we say what we want—good and bad, happy and sad.

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Editor: Jenna Penielle Lyons

Photo Credit: Author’s website