The Art of Dreaming (17 page)

"Can a
dreamer isolate a scout directly, without having to go through the drill of
changing dreams?" I asked.

"No,
not at all," he said. "The drill is essential. The question here is
whether this is the only drill that exists. Or can a dreamer follow another
drill?"

Don Juan
looked at me quizzically. It seemed that he actually expected me to answer the
question.

"It's
too difficult to come up with a drill as complete as the one the old sorcerers
devised," I said, without knowing why but with irrefutable authority.

Don Juan
admitted that I was absolutely right and said that the old sorcerers had
devised a series of perfect drills to go through the gates of
dreaming
into the specific worlds that exist behind every gate. He reiterated that
dreaming
,
being the old sorcerers' invention, has to be played by their rules. He
described the rule of the second gate in terms of a series of three steps: one,
through practicing the drill of changing dreams, dreamers find out about the
scouts; two, by following the scouts, they enter into another veritable universe;
and three, in that universe, by means of their actions, dreamers find out, on
their own, the governing laws and regulations of that universe.

Don Juan
said that in my dealings with the inorganic beings, I had followed the rule so
well that he feared devastating consequences. He thought that the unavoidable
reaction on the part of the inorganic beings was going to be an attempt to keep
me in their world.

"Don't
you think that you are exaggerating, don Juan?" I asked. I could not
believe that the picture was as bleak as he was painting it.

"I am
not exaggerating at all," he said, in a dry, serious tone. "You'll
see. The inorganic beings don't let anyone go, not without a real fight."

"But
what makes you think they want me?"

"They've
already shown you too many things. Do you really believe that they are going to
all this trouble just to entertain themselves?"

Don Juan
laughed at his own remark. I did not find him amusing. A strange fear made me
ask him whether he thought I should interrupt or even discontinue my
dreaming
practices.

"You
have to continue your
dreaming
until you have gone through the universe
behind the second gate," he said. "I mean that you alone must either
accept or reject the lure of the inorganic beings. That is why I remain aloof
and hardly ever comment on your
dreaming
practices."

I confessed
to him that I had been at a loss to explain why he was so generous in
elucidating other aspects of his knowledge and so miserly with
dreaming
.

"I was
forced to teach you
dreaming
," he said, "only because that is
the pattern set out by the old sorcerers. The path of
dreaming
is filled
with pitfalls, and to avoid those pitfalls or to fall into them is the personal
and individual affair of each dreamer, and I may add that it is a final
affair." "Are those pitfalls the result of succumbing to adulation or
to promises of power?" I asked. "Not only succumbing to those, but
succumbing to anything offered by the inorganic beings.

There is no
way for sorcerers to accept anything offered by them, beyond a certain
point." "And what is that certain point, don Juan?"

"That
point depends on us as individuals. The challenge is for each of us to take
only what is needed from that world, nothing more. To know what's needed is the
virtuosity of sorcerers, but to take only what's needed is their highest
accomplishment. To fail to understand this simple rule is the surest way of
plummeting into a pitfall."

"What
happens if you fall, don Juan?"

"If
you fall, you pay the price, and the price depends on the circumstances and the
depth of the fall. But there is really no way of talking about an eventuality
of this sort, because we are not facing a problem of punishment. Energetic
currents are at stake here, energetic currents which create circumstances that
are more dreadful than death. Everything in the sorcerers' path is a matter of
life or death, but in the path of
dreaming
this matter is enhanced a
hundred fold."

I reassured
don Juan that I always exercised the utmost care in my
dreaming
practices, and that I was extremely disciplined and conscientious.

"I
know that you are," he said. "But I want you to be even more
disciplined and handle everything related to
dreaming
with kid gloves.
Be, above all, vigilant. I can't foretell where the attack will come
from."

"Are
you seeing, as a seer, imminent danger for me, don Juan?"

"I
have seen imminent danger for you since the day you walked in that mysterious
city, the first time I helped you round up your energy body."

"But
do you know specifically what I should do and what I should avoid?"

"No, I
don't. I only know that the universe behind the second gate is the closest to
our own, and our own universe is pretty crafty and heartless. So the two can't
be that different."

I persisted
in asking him to tell me what was in store for me. And he insisted that, as a
sorcerer, he sensed a state of general danger but that he could not be more
specific.

"The
universe of the inorganic beings is always ready to strike," he went on.
"But so is our own universe. That's why you have to go into their realm
exactly as if you were venturing into a war zone."

"Do
you mean, don Juan, that dreamers always have to be afraid of that world?"

"No. I
don't mean that. Once a dreamer goes through the universe behind the second
gate, or once a dreamer refuses to consider it as a viable option, there are no
more headaches."

Don Juan
stated that only then are dreamers free to continue. I was not sure what he
meant; he explained that the universe behind the second gate is so powerful and
aggressive that it serves as a natural screen or a testing ground where
dreamers are probed for their weaknesses. If they survive the tests, they can
proceed to the next gate; if they do not, they remain forever trapped in that
universe.

I was left
choking with anxiety but, in spite of my coaxing, that was all he said. When I
went home, I continued my journeys to the inorganic beings' realm, exerting
great care. My carefulness seemed only to increase my sense of enjoying those
journeys. I got to the point that the mere contemplation of the inorganic
beings' world was enough to create an exultation impossible to describe. I
feared that my delight was going to end sooner or later, but it was not so.
Something unexpected made it even more intense.

On one
occasion, a scout guided me very roughly through countless tunnels, as if
searching for something, or as if it were trying to draw all my energy out and
exhaust me. By the time it finally stopped, I felt as if I had run a marathon.
I seemed to be at the edge of that world. There were no more tunnels, only
blackness all around me. Then something lit up the area right in front of me;
there, light shone from an indirect source. It was a subdued light that
rendered everything diffusely gray or brownish. When I became used to the
light, I vaguely distinguished some dark, moving shapes. After a while, it
seemed to me that focusing my
dreaming
attention on those moving shapes
made them substantial. I noticed that there were three types: some of them were
round, like balls; others were like bells; and others yet like gigantic,
undulating candle flames. All of them were basically round and the same size. I
judged that they were three to four feet in diameter. There were hundreds,
perhaps even thousands of them.

I knew that
I was having a strange, sophisticated vision, yet those shapes were so real
that I found myself reacting with genuine queasiness. I got the nauseating
feeling of being over a nest of giant, round, brown and grayish bugs. I felt
somehow safe, though, hovering above them. I discarded all these
considerations, however, the moment I realized that it was idiotic of me to
feel safe or ill at ease, as if my dream were a real-life situation. However,
as I observed those buglike shapes squirm, I became very disturbed at the idea
that they were about to touch me.

"We
are the mobile unit of our world," the emissary's voice said, all of a
sudden. "Don't be afraid. We are energy, and, for sure, we're not
intending to touch you. It would be impossible anyway. We are separated by real
boundaries."

After a
long pause, the voice added, "We want you to join us. Come down to where
we are. And don't be ill at ease. You are not ill at ease with the scouts and
certainly not with me. The scouts and I are just like the others. I am
bell-shaped, and scouts are like candle flames."

That last
statement was definitely a cue of sorts for my energy body. On hearing it, my
queasiness and fear vanished. I descended to their level, and the balls and
bells and candle flames surrounded me. They came so close to me that they would
have touched me had I had a physical body. Instead, we went through one
another, like encapsulated air puffs.

I had, at
that point, an unbelievable sensation. Although I did not feel anything with or
in my energy body, I was feeling and recording the most unusual tickling
somewhere else; soft, airlike things were definitely going through me, but not
right there. The sensation was vague and fast and did not give me time to catch
it fully. Instead of focusing my
dreaming
attention on it, I became entirely
absorbed in watching those oversized bugs of energy.

At the
level where we were, it seemed to me that there was a commonality between the
shadow entities and myself: size.

Perhaps it
was because I judged them to be the same size as my energy body that I felt
almost cozy with them. On examining them, I concluded that I did not mind them
at all. They were impersonal, cold, detached, and I liked that immensely. I
wondered for an instant whether my disliking them one minute and liking them
the next was a natural consequence of
dreaming
or a product of some
energetic influence those entities were exerting on me.

"They
are most likable," I said to the emissary, at the very moment I was
overpowered by a wave of profound friendship or even affection for them.

No sooner
had I spoken my mind than the dark shapes scurried away, like bulky guinea
pigs, leaving me alone in semidarkness.

"You
projected too much feeling and scared them off," the emissary's voice
said. "Feeling is too hard for them, and for me for that matter." The
emissary actually laughed shyly.

My
dreaming
session ended there. On awakening, my first reaction was to pack my bag to go
to Mexico and see don Juan. However, an unexpected development in my personal
life made it impossible for me to travel, in spite of my frantic preparations
to leave. The anxiety resulting from this setback interrupted my
dreaming
practices altogether. I did not engage my conscious volition to stop them; I
had unwittingly put so much emphasis on this specific dream that I simply knew
if I could not get to don Juan there was no point in continuing
dreaming
.

After an
interruption that lasted over half a year, I became more and more mystified by
what had happened. I had no idea that my feelings alone were going to stop my
practices. I wondered then if the desire would be sufficient to reinstate it.
It was! Once I had formulated the thought of reentering
dreaming
, my
practices continued as if they had never been interrupted. The scout picked up
where we had left off and took me directly to the vision I'd had during my last
session.

"This
is the shadows' world," the emissary's voice said as soon as I was there.
"But, even though we are shadows, we shed light. Not only are we mobile
but we are the light in the tunnels. We are another kind of inorganic being
that exists here. There are three kinds: one is like an immobile tunnel, the
other is like a mobile shadow. We are the mobile shadows. The tunnels give us
their energy, and we do their bidding."

The
emissary stopped talking. I felt it was daring me to ask about the third kind
of inorganic being. I also felt that if I did not ask, the emissary would not
tell me.

"What's
the third kind of inorganic being?" I said.

The
emissary coughed and chuckled. To me, it sounded like it relished being asked.

"Oh,
that's our most mysterious feature," it said. "The third kind is
revealed to our visitors only when they choose to stay with us."

"Why
is that so?" I asked.

"Because
it takes a great deal of energy to see them," the emissary answered.
"And we would have to provide that energy."

I knew that
the emissary was telling me the truth. I also knew that a horrendous danger was
lurking. Yet I was driven by a curiosity without limits. I wanted to see that
third kind.

The
emissary seemed to be aware of my mood.

"Would
you like to see them?" it asked casually.

"Most
certainly," I said.

"All
you have to do is to say out loud that you want to stay with us," the
emissary said with a nonchalant intonation.