Poetry sometimes comes dancing out of dreams, in fully-formed words. My life was changed in 1987, during a visit to Maya country, when I woke with these mysterious, cadenced lines echoing in my mind and (it seemed) in the room:

I am from such as those

by whom the worlds are shaken

I was not able to retrieve more than this couplet from the dream, but my hunt for its meaning through the images of the night and much subsequent research led me, in time, to write my novel The Firekeeper.

The night before I sat down to write this essay I dreamed I was composing a poem that contained the startling phrase, “the angel neighed.” I’ll probably want to go back inside that dream to recover the rest of the poem.

But most commonly, poetry emerges from dreaming through the translation of images into words, or through the discovery of words to express a mood or to accompany a rhythm or tune that is gifted by the dream.

The first step, for me, is to write the dream report and give it a title. The next, whenever possible, is to speak the dream, to tell it aloud to a partner or a dream circle. When we tell our dreams the right way, we move naturally into bardic mode, into the rhythms and the magic of poetic speech.

I may then shape my dream report into a poetic form, usually free verse. Here is an example.

I dreamed I was walking with a bear who was as friendly and loyal as a dog, though twice my size. The bear was ready to give his life as a gift. We visited an animal doctor, who explained that the bear is medicine, and will give itself again and again as long as it is treated with reverence and every part of it is used, without waste. We unwrapped the bear like a medicine bundle. Inside, its organs had been neatly separated and dried and were available for use like the contents of a medicine cabinet. The bear was reborn in a new body, and in the last scene he walks with me again as I travel to help a person in need of healing.

I was immensely excited by this dream, which took me into the heart of ancient shamanic practice. Especially in North America, native shamans regard the spirit bear as a master of healing. Because of previous visionary experiences, I had been working with the bear as a medicine ally for many years. Now I wanted to honor the spirit bear on a further level. So I wrote a poem that flowed seamlessly from my dream:

Bear Giver by Robert Moss

He walks with me like a faithful dog
though he’s twice my size
and my ancestors feared and revered him so much
they never spoke his name out loud,
calling him Honey-mouth, or Sticky-paw
or the Matchless One. Upright, he seems man
more than animal, though on cold nights
men in the wild would envy his fine warm pelt.

We are going to the animal doctor
not the corner vet but the real thing
because the Bear is ready to give himself again.
He passes without pain, without blood.
The animal doctor explains we must use all of him,
every organ, wasting nothing, sharing with those in need.
We unwrap the Great One as a medicine bundle.
Everything inside his skin is clean and dry,
sorted for use. The gall bladder is prized above all.
It will go to one who has earned it.

When we have used all of him, Bear is reborn,
the same Honey-mouth, in a new body.
The animal doctor says we must remember this always:
When you take from the Bear with respect, wasting nothing
Bear always comes back, in a new pelt.

Now I walk with him in his new body
to help someone who has dreamed him,
padding softly down hospital halls.
The Master of Medicine gives himself over and over.
This is the most natural thing in the world.
There is no end to this, unless our love runs dry
and we forget what he is.

This poem is more than a dream report set as free verse. It incorporates some waking reflection and dream guided research, which led me, inter alia, to study euphemistic names of the bear in Northern European tradition, as reflected in the Kalevala and other poetic sources.

My favorite dream poems often flow from a deeper kind of dream exploration. I may want to journey back into my dreamscape to dream the dream onward, talk to a dream character, read a mysterious book – and to bring back the full creative energy and healing of the dream. To do this, I embark on conscious dream travel through the gateway of a dream image. I may approach this simply by entering a relaxed state, focussed on a key scene from the dream. I may hum a dream-song in my mind to power the journey, or summon one of my dream animal helpers to lend me its speed and heightened senses, or use heartbeart drumming to drive and sustain my conscious dream travels. On my return, I may write a journey poem. Sometimes I bring back a journey song, a gift I can use to summon a dream helper or to travel quickly and safely between the worlds.

When we turn our dreams into poems, we free our creative spirit, and our spirits come dancing. In my workshops, we gently goad participants to create poetry – both oral and written – not only from their own dreams, but from those of others in the group, and from fresh experiences of dream travel and soul healing that take place within the supportive energy of the circle. I was awed by a poem that came singing through a math major who had worked as a computer engineer for 27 years and had never (to her recollection) written a poem after she received the gift of soul retrieval in one of my programs. Nancy’s poem begins:

Wise Child

Wise child, joyful child,

dancing & laughing in the sun.

Don’t be afraid;

the cougar will protect you.

Your job is just to have fun.

“Nacer de nuevo” by Remedios Varo