Robert, thanks for reitering these most basic guidelines of dream-discussion etiquette and dream self-discovery/recovery. Many years ago, when I read “Conscious Dreaming,” the approach seemed so naturally right to me that I added a private forum to my Lilli Pierce and the Big Trip BBS named in honor of “Conscious Dreaming,” and presented some of these , along with references to your work. The forum has been a great success, along with my Transpersonal Experiences and Astral Party forums. Recently, we were talking about having a little book club for our members, because a few of us are having dry spells with our extra-physical experience (mine have been prolonged because I’ve been forced to be focused on sheer physical survival), and it was decided that the right books might stimulate our abilities, as they have been proven to do in the past. We thought about rereading William Buhlman’s excellent “Adventures Beyond the Body” (the finest of the OBE literature) but have all read it so many times that we are leaning toward something else. A few of us suggested one of your books. I’ve read the first three of your books, which I always keep close at hand, and have been wanting for years to read the others, but hadn’t been able to afford them. I could have ordered them through the library system – which I do with most books I read these days – but because of you in particular being the author, I made a pledge to myself that I would wait until I could purchase them, and thus make a positive contribution to the economy in general. Anyway, is there one of your later books that you might recommend that might be useful for the particular needs of our book club? I am ready to buy one now.
About oneself being the expert on his or her dreams: I sensed this at some point in childhood, because I noticed that while roaming the Imaginal, I was able to recall many of my other dreams, and saw that they fit a coherent out-of-time “history.” This led me to realize that my life was much greater than I could possibly conceive through the filter of my physical “dream.” It also taught me that self-exploration of my “history” (there has to be a better term for the events of a life lived beyond the boundaries of time and space) was really the only way to go about it – unless of course I happened to – while dreaming or in the physical – meet up with fellow dreamers and compare notes to discover any commonalities/correspondences in our dream-histories.
You recently posted here or at your other place about a visit to a sort of dream-world library or archive of dreams; I too make visits to such information stations, which may be outposts of/portals to the Akashic Records. Such places can be key to really researching our dreaming histories and, by finding how the dreams link together, begin to understand them.
And of course, by using feelings as a guide, by reentering dreams, and by journalizing and discussing them, as you have pointed out, understanding can be greatly enhanced.
Thank you for your recent discussions of Corbin. Fascinating!
I recommend a book that you might find to be of impportance: “Shambhala
The Fascinating Truth behind the Myth of Shangri-La.” It is the first book by Australian author Victoria Le Page, and is so necessary to me that I keep it on the shelf next to my elbow with maybe a dozen of the other books (along with yours) that are my most helpful and prized volumes. Though the focus is on a possibly real Shambhala, visible to everyone along with the World Tree stretching to heaven around 50,000 years ago, it also meshes very nicely with your own work in key areas, and the two together have synergy. The discussion of the World Tree alone, along with the drawings and diagrams, are worth getting the book. Le Page has led a long and interesting life, is a fine writer, and has wisdom to offer.
In lucid dreams I have met Lilli at a place very much like descriptions I’ve read of this midpoint between physical reality and the Otherlife, and, like Nicholas Roerich, believe that there is a sort of physical approach or analog to the “place” as well – as nutty as this may sound (although Gurdjief may have found his way there).
Thanks again for your books, articles, and kind availability for discussion. If you can, please consider whiich of your latter books wwe might read for our club at the Lilli BBS.
-Dave

David, thanks for pursuing the dream adventure and inviting othets in. It sounds to me like your group may be ready to work – as a group – with “Dreamgates”, my most adventurous book (so far) on exploring the multiverse, with a host of practical techniques for ftrequent fliers and neophyes too. The first edition appeared back in 1998, but in a profound sense the time for this book is NOW. If you are following my other blog, over at http://www.moss dreams.blogspot.com you’ll see that I’ve found this the right time to share motre of the narratives of imaginal voyages from this seminal period in my life.
Since you mention budget constraints, let me add that the most PRACTICAL of all of my books on Active Dreaming and the one that gives the most direct help on keeping body and soul together including my guidelines for navigating by synchronicity.is “The Three ‘On;\ly’ Things: Tapping gthe Power of Dreams, Coincidence and Imagination.” Maybe this is one for your group too.

Thanks, Robert. Yes, I am following the other blog, often sharing both with my Facebook friends, and have especially enjoyed your discussion of the Imaginal, and Henry Corbin – a great hero of mine. You pointed me toward Plotinus during a discussion, Seth, platonic forms, and multiple/simultaneous lives. (By the way, I have employed the term “multiverse” for many years and have wondered if it was coined by author Michael Moorcock, for it was in his sf novels that I first came across it.) Our group members have read (separately, not as a group) “Dreamgates,” which was wonderful; I have also read “Conscious Dreaming” and “Dreaming True.” All have been helpful and enjoyable to me, not only because of the subject matter, but also for the literary quality of your writing. Maybe our club will go for “The Three ‘Only’ Things.” -Dave

For my own thinking, I have dubbed your kids’ book with the Working Title, “Dream Wizards, Lizards, & Frizzards.” (Frizzards are, according to Le Bleu, all strange and wonderful things other than wizards and lizards.) Anyhow, I’m putting in a plug for a kids’ even more quik dream action in the AM. So they can get in the habit of gathering, say, one frizzard, one treasure.
I think of “cognitive therapy” — certainly *the* worst name for a cool process everever. The Art of Thinking Smart or *something* less formal and absurd than “cognitive therapy” — groovy for psych majors, but hardly grand for bloody kindergarten where it’s really needed. (I mean, like, how about *starting* life with smart thinking processes instead of growing up, getting all neurotic, and hanging off the edge of a mental cliff, and *then* they teach you *how* to think smart? Cheezz Whizz.)
“Cognitive therapy” has 10 cognitive “errors.” (Black & white thinking; magnification, etc). Groan. IF they could pick two tricks or tactics for people to begin with — so the examined life becomes habitual (tho not stale), we could perhaps get kids to start to gather smart tools in kindergarten. Leading, oh frabjous joy, sane lives — what a novel idea.
Anyhow, similarly, if “Dream Wizards, Lizards, & Frizzards” could offer some cool simple nifty trick, kids could and would start dream work/play. Then Kids’ Book 2 could escalate.
(In my book, I call the multi-verse, the “many-poem place.” I talk to many-poem a lot.)

David – Michael Moorcock did not invent the term “multiverse” though his fantasy cycls with a hero who has countrparts in different realities and allies amnng the forces of both Dark and Light – Law and Chaos – have certainly helped to popularize that term. Its invention has been credited to William James in a latish lecture series titled (if memory serves) “A Pluralistic Universe” but James’ usage if different from mine, or Moorcock’s. I use “multiverse” as a short and portable version of “multidimensional universe” and seek to invite people to become full citizens of that through the arts of Active Dreaming.

Wendy – I’ll have to check with my Little Roberts – the ones for whom a keep a teddy bear and toy soldiers and worlds the size of marbles on my desk – what they think of “frizzards.”

Robert, thanks, I didn’t think of James even though his “Varieties of Religious Experience” was an important step in the foundation of my thinking about religion and spirituality. Since you read my essay, “On the Tao of Being a Holon,” during our discussion of Seth, you probably realize that I use “multiverse” in much the same way you do. It is my goal to awaken to my greater self, beyond space and time, in my role as a citizen of said multiverse. Author/lecturer William Henry also has some excellent ideas about this state of awareness.