The Art of Dreaming (20 page)

Don Juan's
companions seemed to be extremely affected by whatever was happening to me.
They kept on coming into my room, one at a time. Each stayed for a moment, in
complete silence, until someone else showed up. It appeared to me that they
were taking turns watching over me. I was too weak to ask them to explain their
behavior.

During the
subsequent days, I began to feel better, and they started to talk to me about
my
dreaming
. At first, I did not know what they wanted of me. Then it
dawned on me, because of their questions, that they were obsessed with the
shadow beings. Every one of them appeared to be scared and said to me more or
less the same thing. They insisted that they had never been in the shadows'
world. Some of them even claimed that they did not know it existed. Their
claims and reactions increased my sense of bewilderment and my fear.

The
questions everyone asked were, "Who took you into that world? Or how did
you even begin to know how to get there?" When I told them that the scouts
had shown me that world, they could not believe me. Obviously, they had
surmised that I had been there, but since it was not possible for them to use
their personal experience as a reference point, they were unable to fathom what
I was saying. Yet they still wanted to know all I could tell them about the
shadow beings and their realm. I obliged them. All of them, with the exception
of don Juan, sat by my bed, hanging on every word I said. However, every time I
asked them about my situation, they scurried away, just like the shadow beings.

Another
disturbing reaction, which they never had before, was that they frantically
avoided any physical contact with me. They kept their distance, as if I were
carrying the plague. Their reaction worried me so much that I felt obliged to
ask them about it. They denied it. They seemed insulted and even went so far as
to insist on proving to me that I was wrong. I laughed heartily at the tense
situation that ensued. Their bodies went rigid every time they tried to embrace
me.

Florinda
Grau, don Juan's closest cohort, was the only member of his party who lavished
physical attention on me and tried to explain to me what was going on. She told
me that I had been discharged of energy in the inorganic beings' world and
charged again, but that my new energetic charge was a bit disturbing to the
majority of them.

Florinda
used to put me to bed every night, as if I were an invalid. She even spoke to
me in baby talk, which all of them celebrated with gales of laughter. But
regardless of how she made fun of me, I appreciated her concern, which seemed
to be real.

I have
written about Florinda before in connection with my meeting her. She was by far
the most beautiful woman I had ever met. Once I said to her, and I really meant
it, that she could have been a fashion magazine model.

"Of a
magazine of nineteen ten," she retorted.

Florinda,
although she was old, was not old at all. She was young and vibrant. When I
asked don Juan about her unusual youthfulness, he replied that sorcery kept her
in a vital state. Sorcerers' energy, he remarked, was seen by the eye as youth
and vigor.

After
satisfying their initial curiosity about the shadows' world, don Juan's
companions stopped coming into my room, and their conversation remained at the
level of casual inquiries about my health. Every time I tried to get up,
however, there was someone around who gently put me back to bed. I did not want
their ministrations, yet it seemed that I needed them; I was weak. I accepted
that. But what really took its toll on me was not having anyone explain to me
what I was doing in Mexico when I had gone to bed to dream in Los Angeles. I
asked them repeatedly. Every one of them gave me the same answer, "Ask the
nagual. He's the only one who can explain it."

Finally,
Florinda broke the ice. "You were lured into a trap; that's what happened
to you," she said.

"Where
was I lured into a trap?"

"In
the world of the inorganic beings, of course. That has been the world you've
been dealing with for years. Isn't that so?"

"Most
definitely, Florinda. But can you tell me about the kind of trap it was?"

"Not
really. All I can tell you is that you lost all your energy there. But you
fought very well." "Why am I sick, Florinda?"

"You
are not sick with an illness; you were energetically wounded. You were
critical, but now you are only gravely wounded."

"How
did all this happen?"

"You
entered into a mortal combat with the inorganic beings, and you were
defeated." "I don't remember fighting anyone, Florinda."

"Whether
you remember or not is immaterial. You fought and were outclassed. You didn't
have a chance against those masterful manipulators."

"I
fought the inorganic beings?"

"Yes.
You had a mortal encounter with them. I really don't know how you have survived
their death blow."

She refused
to tell me anything else and hinted that the nagual was coming to see me any
day. The next day don Juan showed up. He was very jovial and supportive. He
jokingly announced that he was paying me a visit in his capacity of energy
doctor. He examined me by gazing at me from head to toe.

"You're
almost cured," he concluded.

"What
happened to me, don Juan?" I asked.

"You
fell into a trap the inorganic beings set for you," he answered.

"How
did I end up here?"

"Right
there is the big mystery, for sure," he said and smiled jovially,
obviously trying to make light of a serious matter. "The inorganic beings
snatched you, body and all. First they took your energy body into their realm,
when you followed one of their scouts, and then they took your physical body."

Don Juan's
companions seemed to be in a state of shock. One of them asked don Juan whether
the inorganic beings could abduct anyone. Don Juan answered that they certainly
could. He reminded them that the nagual Elias was taken into that universe, and
he definitely did not intend to go there.

All of them
assented with a nod. Don Juan continued speaking to them, referring to me in
the third person. He said that the combined awareness of a group of inorganic
beings had first consumed my energy body by forcing an emotional outburst from
me: to free the blue scout. Then the combined awareness of the same group of
inorganic beings had pulled my inert physical mass into their world. Don Juan
added that without the energy body one is merely a lump of organic matter that
can be easily manipulated by awareness.

"The
inorganic beings are glued together, like the cells of the body," don Juan
went on. "When they put their awareness together, they are unbeatable.
It's nothing for them to yank us out of our moorings and plunge us into their
world. Especially if we make ourselves conspicuous and available, like he
did."

Their sighs
and gasps echoed against the walls. All of them seemed to be genuinely
frightened and concerned.

I wanted to
whine and blame don Juan for not stopping me, but I remembered how he had tried
to warn me, to deviate me, time and time again, to no avail. Don Juan was
definitely aware of what was going on in my mind. He gave a knowing smile.

"The
reason you think you're sick," he said, addressing me, "is that the
inorganic beings discharged your energy and gave you theirs. That should have
been enough to kill anyone. As the nagual, you have extra energy; therefore,
you barely survived."

I mentioned
to don Juan that I remembered bits and pieces of quite an incoherent dream, in
which I was in a yellow-fogged world. He, Carol Tiggs, and his companions were
pulling me out.

"The
inorganic beings' realm looks like a yellow fog world to the physical
eye," he said. "When you thought you were having an incoherent dream,
you were actually looking with your physical eyes, for the first time, at the
inorganic beings' universe. And, strange as it may seem to you, it was also the
first time for us. We knew about the fog only through sorcerers' stories, not
through experience."

Nothing of
what he was saying made sense to me. Don Juan assured me that, because of my
lack of energy, a more complete explanation was impossible; I had to be
satisfied, he said, with what he was telling me and how I understood it.

"I
don't understand it at all," I insisted.

"Then
you haven't lost anything," he said. "When you get stronger, you
yourself will answer your questions."

I confessed
to don Juan that I was having hot flashes. My temperature rose suddenly, and,
while I felt hot and sweaty, I had extraordinary but disturbing insights into
my situation.

Don Juan
scanned my entire body with his penetrating gaze. He said that I was in a state
of energetic shock. Losing energy had temporarily affected me, and what I
interpreted as hot flashes were, in essence, blasts of energy during which I
momentarily regained control of my energy body and knew everything that had
happened to me.

"Make
an effort, and tell me yourself what happened to you in the inorganic beings'
world," he ordered me.

I told him
that the clear sensation I got, from time to time, was that he and his
companions had gone into that world with their physical bodies and had snatched
me out of the inorganic beings' clutches.

"Right!"
he exclaimed. "You're doing fine. Now, turn that sensation into a view of
what happened."

I was
unable to do what he wanted, hard as I tried. Failing made me experience an
unusual fatigue, which seemed to dry up the inside of my body. Before don Juan
left the room, I remarked to him that I was suffering from anxiety.

"That
means nothing," he said, unconcerned. "Gain back your energy, and
don't worry about nonsense."

More than
two weeks went by, during which I slowly gained back my energy. However, I kept
on worrying about everything. I worried mainly about being unknown to myself,
especially about a streak of coldness in me that I had not noticed before, a
sort of indifference, a detachment that I had attributed to my lack of energy
until I regained it. Then I realized that it was a new feature of my being, a
feature that had me permanently out of synchronization. To elicit the feelings
I was accustomed to, I had to summon them up and actually wait a moment until
they made their appearance in my mind.

Another new
feature of my being was a strange longing that took hold of me from time to
time. I longed for someone I did not know; it was such an overpowering and
consuming feeling that, when I experienced it, I had to move around the room
incessantly to alleviate it. The longing remained with me until I made use of
another newcomer in my life: a rigid control of myself, so new and powerful
that it only added more fuel to my worrying.

By the end
of the fourth week, everybody felt that I was finally cured. They cut down
their visits drastically. I spent much of the time alone, sleeping. The rest
and relaxation I was getting was so complete that my energy began to increase
remarkably. I felt like my old self again. I even began to exercise.

One day
around noon, after a light lunch, I returned to my room to take a nap. Just before
I sank into a deep sleep, I was tossing in my bed, trying to find a more
comfortable spot, when a strange pressure on my temples made me open my eyes.
The little girl of the inorganic beings' world was standing by the foot of my
bed, peering at me with her cold, steel blue eyes.

I jumped
out of bed and screamed so loudly that three of don Juan's companions were in
the room before I had stopped my scream. They were aghast. They watched in
horror as the little girl came to me and was stopped by the boundaries of my
luminous physical being. We looked at each other for an eternity. She was
telling me something, which I could not comprehend at first but which in the
next moment became as clear as a bell. She said that for me to understand what
she was saying, my awareness had to be transferred from my physical body into
my energy body.

Don Juan
came into the room at that moment. The little girl and don Juan stared at each
other. Without a word, don Juan turned around and walked out of the room. The
little girl swished past the door after him. The commotion this scene created
among don Juan's companions was indescribable. They lost all their composure.
Apparently, all of them had seen the little girl as she left the room with the
nagual.

I myself
seemed to be on the verge of exploding. I felt faint and had to sit down. I had
experienced the presence of the little girl as a blow on my solar plexus. She
bore an astonishing likeness to my father. Waves of sentiment hit me. I
wondered about the meaning of this until I was actually sick.

When don
Juan returned to the room, I had gained minimal control over myself. The
expectation of hearing what he had to say about the little girl was making my
breathing very difficult. Everybody was as excited as I was. They all talked to
don Juan at once and laughed when they realized what they were doing. Their
main interest was to find out whether there was any uniformity in the way they
had perceived the scout's appearance. Everybody was in agreement that they had
seen a little girl, six to seven years old, very thin, with angular, beautiful
features. They also agreed that her eyes were steel blue and burning with a
mute emotion; her eyes, they said, expressed gratitude and loyalty.