The Art of Dreaming (19 page)

After a few
days, a dark and mysterious certainty began to get hold of me, a certainty that
grew by degrees until I had no doubt about its authenticity: I was sure that
the blue blob of energy was a prisoner in the inorganic beings' realm.

I needed
don Juan's advice more desperately than ever. I knew that I was throwing years
of work out the window, but I couldn't help it; I dropped everything I was
doing and ran to Mexico. "What do you really want?" don Juan asked me
as a way to contain my hysterical babbling.

I could not
explain to him what I wanted because I did not know it myself.

"Your
problem must be very serious to make you run like this," don Juan said
with a pensive expression.

"It
is, in spite of the fact that I can't figure out what my problem really
is," I said.

He asked me
to describe my
dreaming
practices in all the detail that was pertinent.
I told him about my vision of the little girl and how it had affected me at an
emotional level. He instantly advised me to ignore the event and regard it as a
blatant attempt, on the part of the inorganic beings, to cater to my fantasies.
He remarked that if
dreaming
is overemphasized, it becomes what it was
for the old sorcerers: a source of inexhaustible indulging.

For some
inexplicable reason, I was unwilling to tell don Juan about the realm of the
shadow entities. It was only when he discarded my vision of the little girl that
I felt obliged to describe to him my visits to that world. He was silent for a
long time, as if he were overwhelmed.

When he
finally spoke, he said, "You are more alone than I thought, because I
can't discuss your
dreaming
practices at all. You are at the position of
the old sorcerers. All I can do is to repeat to you that you must exercise all
the care you arc able to muster up."

"Why
do you say that I am at the position of the old sorcerers?"

"I've
told you repeatedly that your mood is dangerously like the old sorcerers'. They
were very capable beings; their flaw was that they took to the inorganic
beings' realm like fish take to the water. You are in the same boat. You know
things about it that none of us can even conceive. For instance, I never knew about
the shadows' world; neither did the nagual Julian or the nagual Elias, in spite
of the fact that he spent a long time in the world of the inorganic
beings."

"But
what difference does knowing the shadows' world make?"

"A
great deal of difference. Dreamers are taken there only when the inorganic
beings are sure the dreamers are going to stay in that world. We know this
through the old sorcerers' stories."

"I
assure you, don Juan, that I have no intention whatsoever of staying there. You
talk as if I am just about to be lured by promises of service or promises of
power. I am not interested in either, and that's that."

"At
this level, it isn't that easy anymore. You've gone beyond the point where you
could simply quit. Besides, you had the misfortune of being singled out by a
watery inorganic being. Remember how you tumbled with it? And how it felt? I
told you then that watery inorganic beings are the most annoying. They are
dependent and possessive, and once they sink their hooks, they never give up."

"And
what does that mean in my case, don Juan?"

"It
means real trouble. The specific inorganic being who's running the show is the
one you grabbed that fatal day. Over the years, it has grown familiar with you.
It knows you intimately."

I sincerely
remarked to don Juan that the mere idea that an inorganic being knew me
intimately made me sick to my stomach.

"When
dreamers realize that the inorganic beings have no appeal," he said,
"it is usually too late for them, because by then the inorganic beings
have them in the bag."

I felt in
the depths of me that he was talking abstractly, about dangers that might exist
theoretically but not in practice. I was secretly convinced there was no danger
of any sort.

"I am
not going to allow the inorganic beings to lure me in any way, if that's what
you're thinking," I said.

"I am
thinking that they are going to trick you," he said. "Like they
tricked the nagual Rosendo. They are going to set you up, and you won't see the
trap or even suspect it. They are smooth operators. Now they have even invented
a little girl."

"But
there is no doubt in my mind that the little girl exists," I insisted.

"There
is no little girl," he snapped. "That bluish blob of energy is a
scout. An explorer caught in the inorganic beings' realm. I've said to you that
the inorganic beings are like fishermen; they attract and catch
awareness."

Don Juan
said that he believed, without a doubt, that the bluish blob of energy was from
a dimension entirely different from ours, a scout that got stranded and caught like
a fly in a spider's web.

I did not
appreciate his analogy. It worried me to the point of physical discomfort. I
did mention this to don Juan, and he told me that my concern with the prisoner
scout was making him feel very close to despair.

"Why
does this bother you?" I asked.

"Something
is brewing in that confounded world," he said. "And I can't figure
out what it is."

While I
remained with don Juan and his companions, I did not dream at all about the
inorganic beings' world. As usual, my practice was to focus my
dreaming
attention on the items of my dreams and to change dreams. As a way to offset my
concerns, don Juan made me gaze at clouds and at faraway mountain peaks. The
result was an immediate feeling of being level with the clouds, or the feeling
that I was actually at the faraway mountain peaks.

"I am
very pleased, but very worried," don Juan said as a comment on my effort.
"You are being taught marvels, and you don't even know it. And I don't
mean that you are being taught by me."

"You
are talking about the inorganic beings, true?"

"Yes,
the inorganic beings. I recommend that you don't gaze at anything; gazing was
the old sorcerers' technique. They were able to get to their energy bodies in
the blink of an eye, simply by gazing at objects of their predilection. A very
impressive technique, but useless to modern sorcerers. It does nothing to
increase our sobriety or our capacity to seek freedom. All it does is pin us
down to concreteness, a most undesirable state."

Don Juan
added that, unless I kept myself in check, by the time I had merged the second
attention with the attention of my everyday life, I was going to be an
insufferable man. There was, he said, a dangerous gap between my mobility in
the second attention and my insistence on immobility in my awareness of the
daily world. He remarked that the gap between the two was so great that in my
daily state I was nearly an idiot, and in the second attention I was a lunatic.

Before I
went home, I took the liberty of discussing my
dreaming
visions of the
shadows' world with Carol Tiggs, although don Juan had advised me not to
discuss them with anybody. She was most understanding and most interested,
since she was my total counterpart. Don Juan was definitely annoyed with me for
having revealed my troubles to her. I felt worse than ever. Self-pity possessed
me, and I began to complain about always doing the wrong thing.

"You
haven't done anything yet," don Juan snapped at me. "That much, I
know."

Was he
right! On my next
dreaming
session, at home, all hell broke loose. I
reached the shadows' world, as I had done on countless occasions; the
difference was the presence of the blue energy shape. It was among the other
shadow beings. I felt it was possible that the blob had been there before and I
hadn't noticed it. As soon as I spotted it, my
dreaming
attention was
inescapably attracted to that blob of energy. In a matter of seconds, I was
next to it. The other shadows came to me, as usual, but I paid no attention to
them.

All of a
sudden, the blue, round shape turned into the little girl I had seen before.
She craned her thin, delicate, long neck to one side and said in a barely
audible whisper, "Help me!" Either she said that or I fantasized that
she said it. The result was the same: I stood frozen, galvanized by genuine
concern. I experienced a chill, but not in my energy mass. I felt a chill in
another part of me. This was the first time I was completely aware that my
experience was thoroughly separate from my sensorial feelings. I was
experiencing the shadows' world, with all the implications of what I normally
consider experiencing: I was able to think, to assess, to make decisions; I had
psychological continuity; in other words, I was myself. The only part of me
that was missing was my sensorial self. I had no bodily sensations. All my
input came through seeing and hearing. My rationality then considered a strange
dilemma: seeing and hearing were not physical faculties but qualities of the
visions I was having.

"You
are really seeing and hearing," the emissary's voice said, erupting into
my thoughts. "That is the beauty of this place. You can experience
everything through seeing and hearing, without having to breathe. Think of it!
You don't have to breathe! You can go anywhere in the universe and not breathe."

A most
disquieting ripple of emotion went through me, and, again, I did not feel it
there, in the shadows' world. I felt it in another place. I became enormously
agitated by the obvious yet veiled realization that there was a live connection
between the me that was experiencing and a source of energy, a source of
sensorial feeling located somewhere else. It occurred to me that this somewhere
else was my actual physical body, which was asleep in my bed.

At the
instant of this thought, the shadow beings scurried away, and the little girl
was alone in my field of vision. I watched her and became convinced that I knew
her. She seemed to falter as if she were about to faint. A boundless wave of
affection for her enveloped me.

I tried to
speak to her, but I was incapable of uttering sounds. It became clear to me
then that all my dialogues with the emissary had been elicited and accomplished
by the emissary's energy. Left to my own devices, I was helpless. I attempted
next to direct my thoughts to the little girl. It was useless. We were
separated by a membrane of energy I could not pierce.

The little
girl seemed to understand my despair and actually communicated with me,
directly into my thoughts. She told me, essentially, what don Juan had already
said: that she was a scout caught in the webs of that world. Then she added
that she had adopted the shape of a little girl because that shape was familiar
to me and to her and that she needed my help as much as I needed hers. She said
this to me in one clump of energetic feeling, which was like words that came to
me all at once. I had no difficulty understanding her, although this was the
first time anything of the sort had happened to me.

I did not
know what to do. I tried to convey to her my sensation of incapacity. She
seemed to comprehend me instantly. She silently appealed to me with a burning
look. She even smiled as if to let me know that she had left it up to me to
extricate her from her bonds. When I retorted, in a thought, that I had no
abilities whatsoever, she gave me the impression of a hysterical child in the
throes of despair.

I
frantically tried to talk to her. The little girl actually cried, like a child
her age would cry, out of desperation and fear. I couldn't stand it. I charged
at her, but with no effective result. My energy mass went through her. My idea
was to lift her up and take her with me.

I attempted
the same maneuver over and over until I was exhausted. I stopped to consider my
next move. I was afraid that my
dreaming
attention was going to wane,
and then I would lose sight of her. I doubted that the inorganic beings would
bring me back to that specific part of their realm. It seemed to me that this
was going to be my last visit to them: the visit that counted.

Then I did
something unthinkable. Before my
dreaming
attention vanished, I yelled
loud and clear my intent to merge my energy with the energy of that prisoner
scout and set it free.

I was
dreaming
an utterly nonsensical dream. Carol Tiggs was by my side. She was speaking to
me, although I could not understand what she said. Don Juan was also in my
dream, as were all the members of his party. They seemed to be trying to drag
me out of a foggy, yellowish world.

After a
serious effort, during which I lost and regained sight of them various times,
they succeeded in extricating me from that place. Since I could not conceive
the sense of all that endeavor, I finally figured that I was having a normal,
incoherent dream.

My surprise
was staggering when I woke up and found myself in bed, in don Juan's house. I
was incapable of moving. I had no energy at all. I did not know what to think,
although I immediately sensed the gravity of my situation. I had the vague
feeling that I had lost my energy because of fatigue caused by
dreaming
.