The Art of Dreaming (9 page)

I remained
very calm. I did not move. The most remarkable thing to me was that they didn't
dissolve or change into something else. They were cohesive beings that retained
their candlelike shape. Something in them was forcing something in me to hold
the view of their shape. I knew it because something was telling me that if I
did not move, they would not move either.

It all came
to an end, at a given moment, when I woke up with a fright. I was immediately
besieged by fears. A deep preoccupation took hold of me. It was not
psychological worry but rather a bodily sense of anguish, sadness with no
apparent foundation.

The two
strange shapes appeared to me from then on in every one of my
dreaming
sessions. Eventually, it was as if I dreamt only to encounter them. They never
attempted to move toward me or to interfere with me in any way. They just stood
there, immobile, in front of me, for as long as my dream lasted. Not only did I
never make any effort to change my dreams but I even forgot the original quest
of my
dreaming
practices.

When I
finally discussed with don Juan what was happening to me, I had spent months
solely viewing the two shapes.

"You
are stuck at a dangerous crossroad," don Juan said. "It isn't right
to chase these beings away, but it isn't right either to let them stay. For the
time being, their presence is a hindrance to your
dreaming
."

"What
can I do, don Juan?"

"Face
them, right now, in the world of daily life, and tell them to come back later,
when you have more
dreaming
power."

"How
do I face them?"

"It's
not simple, but it can be done. It requires only that you have enough guts,
which of course you do."

Without
waiting for me to tell him that I had no guts at all, he took me to the hills.
He lived then in northern Mexico, and he had given me the total impression he
was a solitary sorcerer, an old man forgotten by everybody and completely
outside the main current of human affairs. I had surmised, however, that he was
intelligent beyond measure. And because of this I was willing to comply with
what I half-believed were mere eccentricities.

The
cunningness of sorcerers, cultivated through the ages, was don Juan's
trademark. He made sure that I understood all I could in my normal awareness
and, at the same time, he made sure that I entered into the second attention,
where I understood or at least passionately listened to everything he taught
me. In this fashion, he divided me in two. In my normal consciousness, I could
not understand why or how I was more than willing to take his eccentricities
seriously. In the second attention, it all made sense to me.

His
contention was that the second attention is available to all of us, but, by
willfully holding on to our half-cocked rationality, some of us more fiercely
than others, keep the second attention at arm's length. His idea was that
dreaming
brings down the barriers
that surround and insulate the second attention. The day he took me to the
hills of the Sonoran desert to meet the inorganic beings, I was in my normal
state of awareness. Yet somehow I knew I had to do something that was certainly
going to be unbelievable.

It had
rained lightly in the desert. The red dirt was still wet, and as I walked it
got clumped up in the rubber soles of my shoes. I had to step on rocks to
remove the heavy chunks of dirt. We walked in an easterly direction, climbing
toward the hills. When we got to a narrow gully between two hills, don Juan
stopped.

"This
is for sure an ideal place to summon your friends," he said.

"Why
do you call them my friends?"

"They
have singled you out themselves. When they do that, it means that they seek an
association. I've mentioned to you that sorcerers form bonds of friendship with
them. Your case seems to be an example. And you don't even have to solicit them."

"What
does such a friendship consist of, don Juan?"

"It
consists of a mutual exchange of energy. The inorganic beings supply their high
awareness, and sorcerers supply their heightened awareness and high energy. The
positive result is an even exchange. The negative one is dependency on both
parties.

"The
old sorcerers used to love their allies. In fact, they loved their allies more
than they loved their own kind. I can foresee terrible dangers in that."

"What
do you recommend I do, don Juan?"

"Summon
them. Size them up, and then decide yourself what to do."

"What
should I do to summon them?"

"Hold
your dream view of them in your mind. The reason they have saturated you with
their presence in your dreams is that they want to create a memory of their
shape in your mind. And this is the time to use that memory." Don Juan
forcefully ordered me to close my eyes and keep them closed. Then he guided me
to sit down on some rocks. I felt the hardness and the coldness of the rocks.
The rocks were slanted; it was difficult to keep my balance.

"Sit
here and visualize their shape until they are just like they are in your
dreams," don Juan said in my ear. "Let me know when you have them in
focus."

It took me
very little time and effort to have a complete mental picture of their shape,
just like in my dreams. It did not surprise me at all that I could do it. What
shocked me was that, although I tried desperately to let don Juan know I had
pictured them in my mind, I could not voice my words or open my eyes. I was
definitely awake. I could hear everything.

I heard don
Juan say, "You can open your eyes now."

I opened
them with no difficulty. I was sitting cross-legged on some rocks, which were
not the same ones I had felt under me when I sat down. Don Juan was just behind
me to my right. I tried to turn around to face him, but he forced my head to
remain straight. And then I saw two dark figures, like two thin tree trunks,
right in front of me.

I stared at
them openmouthed; they were not as tall as in my dreams. They had shrunk to
half their size. Instead of being shapes of opaque luminosity, they were now
two condensed, dark, almost black, menacing sticks.

"Get
up and grab one of them," don Juan ordered me, "and don't let go, no
matter how it shakes you."

I
definitely did not want to do anything of the sort, but some unknown drive made
me stand up against my will. I had at that moment the clear realization that I
would end up doing what he had ordered me to, although I had no conscious
intention of doing so.

Mechanically,
I advanced toward the two figures, my heart pounding nearly out of my chest. I
grabbed the one to my right. What I felt was an electric discharge that almost
made me drop the dark figure.

Don Juan's
voice came to me as if he had been yelling from a distance away. "You drop
it and you're done for," he said.

I held on
to the figure, which twirled and shook. Not like a massive animal would, but
like something quite fluffy and light, although strongly electrical. We rolled
and turned on the sand of the gully for quite some time. It gave me jolt after
jolt of some sickening electric current. I thought it was sickening because I
fancied it to be different from the energy I had always encountered in our
daily world. When it hit my body, it tickled me and made me yell and growl like
an animal, not in anguish but in a strange anger.

It finally
became a still, almost solid form under me. It lay inert. I asked don Juan if
it was dead, but I did not hear my voice.

"Not a
chance," said someone laughing, someone who was not don Juan. "You've
just depleted its energy charge. But don't get up yet. Lie there just a moment
longer."

I looked at
don Juan with a question in my eyes. He was examining me with great curiosity.
Then he helped me up. The dark figure remained on the ground. I wanted to ask
don Juan if the dark figure was all right. Again, I could not voice my
question. Then I did something extravagant. I took it all for real. Up to that
moment something in my mind was preserving my rationality by taking what was
happening as a dream, a dream induced by don Juan's machinations.

I went to
the figure on the ground and tried to lift it up. I could not put my arms
around it because it had no mass. I became disoriented. The same voice, which
was not don Juan's, told me to lie down on top of the inorganic being. I did
it, and both of us got up in one motion, the inorganic being like a dark shadow
attached to me. It gently separated from me and disappeared, leaving me with an
extremely pleasant feeling of completeness.

It took me
more than twenty-four hours to regain total control of my faculties. I slept
most of the time. Don Juan checked me from time to time by asking me the same
question, "Was the inorganic being's energy like fire or like water?"

My throat
seemed scorched. I could not tell him that the energy jolts I had felt were
like jets of electrified water. I have never felt jets of electrified water in
my life. I am not sure if it is possible to produce them or to feel them, but
that was the image playing in my mind every time don Juan asked his key
question.

Don Juan
was asleep when I finally knew I was completely recovered. Knowing that his
question was of great importance, I woke him up and told him what I had felt.

"You
are not going to have helping friends among the inorganic beings, but
relationships of annoying dependence," he stated. "Be extremely
careful. Watery inorganic beings are more given to excesses. The old sorcerers
believed that they were more loving, more capable of imitating, or perhaps even
having feelings. As opposed to the fiery ones, who were thought to be more
serious, more contained than the others, but also more pompous."

"What's
the meaning of all this for me, don Juan?"

"The
meaning is too vast to discuss at this time. My recommendation is that you
vanquish fear from your dreams and from your life, in order to safeguard your
unity. The inorganic being you depleted of energy and then recharged again was
thrilled out of its candlelike shape with it. It'll come to you for more."

"Why
didn't you stop me, don Juan?"

"You
didn't give me time. Besides, you didn't even hear me shouting at you to leave
the inorganic being on the ground."

"You
should have lectured me, beforehand, the way you always do, about all the
possibilities."

"I
didn't know all the possibilities. In matters of the inorganic beings, I am
nearly a novice. I refused that part of the sorcerers' knowledge on the ground
that it is too cumbersome and capricious. I don't want to be at the mercy of
any entity, organic or inorganic."

That was
the end of our exchange. I should have been worried because of his definitely
negative reaction, but I was not. I somehow was certain that whatever I had
done was all right.

I continued
my
dreaming
practices without any interference from the inorganic
beings.

Since our
agreement had been to discuss
dreaming
only when don Juan considered it
necessary, I rarely asked him about it and never insisted on continuing my
questions beyond a certain point. I was more than eager, therefore, to listen
to him whenever he decided to take up the subject. His comments or discussions
on
dreaming
were invariably cushioned in other topics of his teachings,
and they were always suddenly and abruptly brought in.

We were
engaged in some unrelated conversation once, while I was visiting with him in
his house, when without any preamble he said that, by means of their
dreaming
contacts with inorganic beings, the old sorcerers became immensely well-versed
in the manipulation of the assemblage point, a vast and ominous subject.

I
immediately grabbed the opportunity and asked don Juan for an estimate of the
time when the old sorcerers might have lived. At various opportunities before,
I had asked the same question, but he never gave me a satisfactory answer. I
was confident, however, that at the moment, perhaps because he had brought up
the subject himself, he might be willing to oblige me.

"A
most trying subject," he said. The way he said it made me believe he was
discarding my question. I was quite surprised when he continued talking.
"It'll tax your rationality as much as the topic of inorganic beings. By
the way, what do you think about them now?"

"I
have let my opinions rest," I said. "I can't afford to think one way
or another."

My answer
delighted him. He laughed and commented on his own fears of and aversions to
the inorganic beings.

"They
have never been my cup of tea," he said. "Of course, the main reason
was my fear of them. I was unable to get over it when I had to, and then it
became fixed."

"Do
you fear them now, don Juan?"

"It's
not quite fear I feel but revulsion. I don't want any part of them."