The Art of Dreaming (16 page)

I asked don
Juan to explain what "phantasmagorical projections" meant. He said
that inorganic beings hook onto dreamers' innermost feelings and play them
mercilessly. They create phantoms to please dreamers or frighten them. He
reminded me that I had wrestled with one of those phantoms. He explained that
inorganic beings are superb projectionists, who delight in projecting
themselves like pictures on the wall.

"'The
old sorcerers were brought down by their inane trust in those
projections," he continued. "The old sorcerers believed their allies
had power. They overlooked the fact their allies were tenuous energy projected
through worlds, like in a cosmic movie."

"You
are contradicting yourself, don Juan. You yourself said that the inorganic
beings are real. Now you tell me that they are mere pictures."

"I
meant to say that the inorganic beings, in our world, are like moving pictures
projected on a screen; and I may even add that they are like moving pictures of
rarefied energy projected through the boundaries of two worlds."

"But
what about inorganic beings in their world? Are they also like moving
pictures?"

"Not a
chance. That world is as real as our world. The old sorcerers portrayed the
inorganic beings' world as a blob of caverns and pores floating in some dark
space. And they portrayed the inorganic beings as hollow canes bound together,
like the cells of our bodies. The old sorcerers called that immense bundle the
labyrinth of penumbra."

"Then
every dreamer sees that world in the same terms, right?"

"Of
course. Every dreamer sees it as it is. Do you think you are unique?"

I confessed
that something in that world had been giving me all along the sensation I was
unique. What created this most pleasant and clear feeling of being exclusive
was not the voice of the
dreaming
emissary, or anything I could
consciously think about.

"That's
exactly what floored the old sorcerers," don Juan said. "The
inorganic beings did to them what they are doing to you now; they created for
them the sense of being unique, exclusive plus a more pernicious sense yet: the
sense of having power. Power and uniqueness are unbeatable as corrupting
forces. Watch out!"

"How
did you avoid that danger yourself, don Juan?"

"I
went to that world a few times, and then I never went back."

Don Juan
explained that in the opinion of sorcerers, the universe is predatorial, and
sorcerers more than anyone else have to take this into account in their daily
sorcery activities. His idea was that consciousness is intrinsically compelled
to grow, and the only way it can grow is through strife, through life-or-death
confrontations.

"The
awareness of sorcerers grows when they do
dreaming
," he went on.
"And the moment it grows, something out there acknowledges its growth,
recognizes it and makes a bid for it. The inorganic beings are the bidders for
that new, enhanced awareness. Dreamers have to be forever on their toes. They
are prey the moment they venture out in that predatorial universe."

"What
do you suggest I do to be safe, don Juan?"

"Be on
your toes every second! Don't let anything or anybody decide for you. Go to the
inorganic beings' world only when you want to go."

"Honestly,
don Juan, I wouldn't know how to do that. Once I isolate a scout, a tremendous
pull is exerted on me to go. I don't have a chance in hell to change my
mind."

"Come
on! Who do you think you're kidding? You can definitely stop it. You haven't
tried to, that's all."

I earnestly
insisted that it was impossible for me to stop. He did not pursue the subject
any longer, and I was thankful for that. A disturbing feeling of guilt had
begun to gnaw at me. For some unknown reason, the thought of consciously
stopping the pull of the scouts had never occurred to me.

As usual,
don Juan was correct. I found out that I could change the course of my
dreaming
by intending that course. After all, I did intend for the scouts to transport
me to their world. It was feasible that if I deliberately intended the
opposite, my dreaming would follow the opposite course.

With practice,
my capacity to intend my journeys into the inorganic beings' realm became
extraordinarily keen. An increased capacity to intend brought forth an
increased control over my
dreaming
attention. This additional control
made me more daring. I felt that I could journey with impunity, because I could
stop the journey any time I wanted to.

"Your
confidence is very scary" was don Juan's comment when I told him, at his
request, about the new aspect of my control over my
dreaming
attention.

"Why
should it be scary?" I asked. I was truly convinced of the practical value
of what I had found out.

"Because
yours is the confidence of a fool," he said. "I am going to tell you
a sorcerers' story that is apropos. I didn't witness it myself, but my
teacher's teacher, the nagual Elias, did."

Don Juan
said that the nagual Elias and the love of his life, a sorceress named Amalia,
were lost, in their youth, in the inorganic beings' world.

I had never
heard don Juan talk about sorcerers being the love of anybody's life. His statement
startled me. I asked him about this inconsistency.

"It's
not an inconsistency. I have simply refrained all along from telling you
stories of sorcerers' affection," he said. "You've been so
oversaturated with love all your life that I wanted to give you a break.

"Well,
the nagual Elias and the love of his life, the witch Amalia, got lost in the
inorganic beings' world," don Juan went on. "They went there not in
dreaming
but with their physical bodies."

"How
did that happen, don Juan?"

"Their
teacher, the nagual Rosendo, was very close in temperament and practice to the
old sorcerers. He intended to help Elias and Amalia, but instead he pushed them
across some deadly boundaries. The nagual Rosendo didn't have that crossing in
mind. What he wanted to do was to put his two disciples into the second
attention, but what he got as a result was their disappearance."

Don Juan
said that he was not going to go into the details of that long and complicated
story. He was only going to tell me how they became lost in that world. He
stated that the nagual Rosendo's miscalculation was to assume that the
inorganic beings are not, in the slightest, interested in women. His reasoning
was correct and was guided by the sorcerers' knowledge that the universe is
markedly female and that maleness, being an offshoot of femaleness, is almost
scarce, thus, coveted.

Don Juan
made a digression and commented that perhaps that scarcity of males is the
reason for men's unwarranted dominion on our planet. I wanted to remain on that
topic, but he went ahead with his story. He said that the nagual Rosendo's plan
was to give instruction to Elias and Amalia exclusively in the second
attention. And to that effect, he followed the old sorcerers' prescribed
technique. He engaged a scout, in
dreaming
, and commanded it to
transport his disciples into the second attention by displacing their
assemblage points on the proper position.

Theoretically,
a powerful scout could displace their assemblage points on the proper position
with no effort at all. What the nagual Rosendo did not take into consideration
was the trickery of the inorganic beings. The scout did displace the assemblage
points of his disciples, but it displaced them on a position from which it was
easy to transport them bodily into the realm of the inorganic beings.

"Is
this possible, to be transported bodily?" I asked.

"It is
possible," he assured me. "We are energy that is kept in a specific
shape and position by the fixation of the assemblage point on one location. If
that location is changed, the shape and position of that energy will change
accordingly. All the inorganic beings have to do is to place our assemblage
point on the right location, and off we go, like a bullet, shoes, hat, and
all."

"Can
this happen to any one of us, don Juan?"

"Most
certainly. Especially if our sum total of energy is right. Obviously, the sum
total of the combined energies of Elias and Amalia was something the inorganic
beings couldn't overlook. It is absurd to trust the inorganic beings. They have
their own rhythm, and it isn't human."

I asked don
Juan what exactly the nagual Rosendo did to send his disciples to that world. I
knew it was stupid of me to ask, knowing that he was going to ignore my
question. My surprise was genuine when he began to tell me.

"The
steps are simplicity itself," he said. "He put his disciples inside a
very small, closed space, something like a closet. Then he went into
dreaming
,
called a scout from the inorganic beings' realm by voicing his intent to get
one, then voiced his intent to offer his disciples to the scout.

"The
scout, naturally, accepted the gift and took them away, at an unguarded moment,
when they were making love inside that closet. When the nagual opened the
closet, they were no longer there."

Don Juan
explained that making gifts of their disciples to the inorganic beings was
precisely what the old sorcerers used to do. The nagual Rosendo did not mean to
do that, but he got swayed by the absurd belief that the inorganic beings were
under his control.

"Sorcerers'
maneuvers are deadly," don Juan went on. "I beseech you to be
extraordinarily aware. Don't get involved in having some idiotic confidence in
yourself."

"What
finally happened to the nagual Elias and Amalia?" I asked.

"The
nagual Rosendo had to go bodily into that world and look for them," he
replied. "Did he find them?"

"He
did, after untold struggles. However, he could not totally bring them out. So
the two young people were always semiprisoners of that realm."

"Did
you know them, don Juan?"

"Of
course I knew them, and I assure you, they were very strange."

"You
must be extremely careful, for you are about to fall prey to the inorganic
beings," don Juan said to me, quite unexpectedly, after we had been
talking about something totally unrelated to
dreaming
.

His
statement caught me by surprise. As usual, I attempted to defend myself.

"You
don't have to warn me. I'm very careful," I assured him.

"The
inorganic beings are plotting," he said. "I sense that, and I can't
console myself by saying that they set traps at the beginning and, in this
manner, undesirable dreamers are effectively and permanently screened
out."

The tone of
his voice was so urgent that I immediately had to reassure him I was not going
to fall into any trap.

"You
must seriously consider that the inorganic beings have astounding means at
their disposal," he went on. "Their awareness is superb. In
comparison, we are children, children with a lot of energy, which the inorganic
beings covet."

I wanted to
tell him that, on an abstract level, I had understood his point and his
concern, but, on a concrete plane, I saw no reason for his warning, because I
was in control of my
dreaming
practices.

A few
minutes of uneasy silence followed before don Juan spoke again. He changed the
subject and said that he had to bring to my attention a very important issue of
his
dreaming
instruction, an issue that had, so far, bypassed my
awareness.

"You
already understand that the gates of
dreaming
are specific
obstacles," he said, "but you haven't understood yet that whatever is
given as the exercise to reach and cross a gate is not really what that gate is
all about."

"This
is not clear to me at all, don Juan."

"I
mean that it's not true to say, for example, that the second gate is reached
and crossed when a dreamer learns to wake up in another dream, or when a
dreamer learns to change dreams without waking up in the world of daily
life."

"Why
isn't it true, don Juan?"

"Because
the second gate of
dreaming
is reached and crossed only when a dreamer
learns to isolate and follow the foreign energy scouts."

"Why
then is the idea of changing dreams given at all?"

"Waking
up in another dream or changing dreams is the drill devised by the old
sorcerers to exercise a dreamer's capacity to isolate and follow a scout."

Don Juan
stated that following a scout is a high accomplishment and that when dreamers
are able to perform it, the second gate is flung open and the universe that
exists behind it becomes accessible to them. He stressed that this universe is
there all the time but that we cannot go into it because we lack energetic
prowess and that, in essence, the second gate of
dreaming
is the door
into the inorganic beings' world, and
dreaming
is the key that opens
that door.