The Art of Dreaming (4 page)

"To
understand all this certainly isn't an exercise for your reason," he
replied after carefully listening to my arguments. "I have no way of
explaining what sorcerers mean by filaments inside and outside the human shape.
When seers
see
the human energy shape, they
see
one single ball
of energy. If there is another ball next to it, the other ball is
seen
again as a single ball of energy. The idea of a multitude of luminous balls
comes from your knowledge of human crowds. In the universe of energy, there are
only single individuals, alone, surrounded by the boundless.

"You
must
see
that for yourself!"

I argued
with don Juan then that it was pointless to tell me to
see
it for myself
when he knew I could not. And he proposed that I borrow his energy and use it
to
see
.

"How
can I do that? Borrow your energy."

"Very
simple. I can make your assemblage point shift to another position more
suitable to perceiving energy directly."

This was
the first time, in my memory, that he deliberately talked about something he
had been doing all along: making me enter into some incomprehensible state of
awareness that defied my idea of the world and of myself, a state he called the
second attention. So, to make my assemblage point shift to a position more
suitable to perceiving energy directly, don Juan slapped my back, between my
shoulder blades, with such a force that he made me lose my breath. I thought
that I must have fainted or that the blow had made me fall asleep. Suddenly, I
was looking or I was
dreaming
I was looking at something literally
beyond words. Bright strings of light shot out from everywhere, going
everywhere, strings of light which were like nothing that had ever entered my
thoughts.

When I
recovered my breath, or when I woke up, don Juan expectantly asked me,
"What did you
see
?" And when I answered, truthfully,
"Your blow made me see stars," he doubled up laughing.

He remarked
that I was not ready yet to comprehend any unusual perception I might have had.

"I
made your assemblage point shift," he went on, "and for an instant
you were
dreaming
the filaments of the universe. But you don't yet have
the discipline or the energy to rearrange your uniformity and cohesion. The old
sorcerers were the consummate masters of that rearranging. That was how they
saw
everything that can be
seen
by man."

"What
does it mean to rearrange uniformity and cohesion?"

"It
means to enter into the second attention by retaining the assemblage point on
its new position and keeping it from sliding back to its original spot."

Don Juan
then gave me a traditional definition of the second attention. He said that the
old sorcerers called the result of fixing the assemblage point on new positions
the second attention and that they treated the second attention as an area of
all-inclusive activity, just as the attention of the daily world is. He pointed
out that sorcerers really have two complete areas for their endeavors: a small
one, called the first attention or the awareness of our daily world or the
fixation of the assemblage point on its habitual position; and a much larger
area, the second attention or the awareness of other worlds or the fixation of
the assemblage point on each of an enormous number of new positions.

Don Juan
helped me to experience inexplicable things in the second attention by means of
what he called a sorcerer's maneuver: tapping my back gently or forcefully
striking it at the height of my shoulder blades. He explained that with his
blows he displaced my assemblage point. From my experiential position, such
displacements meant that my awareness used to enter into a most disturbing
state of unequaled clarity, a state of superconsciousness, which I enjoyed for
short periods of time and in which I could understand anything with minimal
preambles. It was not quite a pleasing state. Most of the time it was like a
strange dream, so intense that normal awareness paled by comparison.

Don Juan
justified the indispensability of such a maneuver, saying that in normal
awareness a sorcerer teaches his apprentices basic concepts and procedures and
in the second attention he gives them abstract and detailed explanations.

Ordinarily,
apprentices do not remember these explanations at all, yet they somehow store
them, faithfully intact, in their memories. Sorcerers have used this seeming
peculiarity of memory and have turned remembering everything that happens to
them in the second attention into one of the most difficult and complex
traditional tasks of sorcery.

Sorcerers
explain this seeming peculiarity of memory, and the task of remembering, saying
that every time anyone enters into the second attention, the assemblage point
is on a different position. To remember, then, means to relocate the assemblage
point on the exact position it occupied at the time those entrances into the
second attention occurred. Don Juan assured me not only that sorcerers have
total and absolute recall but that they relive every experience they had in the
second attention by this act of returning their assemblage point to each of
those specific positions. He also assured me that sorcerers dedicate a lifetime
to fulfilling this task of remembering.

In the
second attention, don Juan gave me very detailed explanations of sorcery,
knowing that the accuracy and fidelity of such instruction will remain with me,
faithfully intact, for the duration of my life.

About this
quality of faithfulness he said, "Learning something in the second
attention is just like learning when we were children. What we learn remains
with us for life. "It's second nature with me," we say when it comes
to something we've learned very early in life."

Judging
from where I stand today, I realize that don Juan made me enter, as many times
as he could, into the second attention in order to force me to sustain, for
long periods of time, new positions of my assemblage point and to perceive
coherently in them, that is to say, he aimed at forcing me to rearrange my
uniformity and cohesion.

I succeeded
countless times in perceiving everything as precisely as I perceive in the
daily world. My problem was my incapacity to make a bridge between my actions
in the second attention and my awareness of the daily world. It took a great
deal of effort and time for me to understand what the second attention is. Not
so much because of its intricacy and complexity, which are indeed extreme, but
because, once I was back in my normal awareness, I found it impossible to
remember not only that I had entered into the second attention but that such a
state existed at all.

Another
monumental breakthrough that the old sorcerers claimed, and that don Juan
carefully explained to me, was to find out that the assemblage point becomes
very easily displaced during sleep. This realization triggered another one:
that dreams are totally associated with that displacement. The old sorcerers
saw
that the greater the displacement, the more unusual the dream or vice versa:
the more unusual the dream, the greater the displacement. Don Juan said that this
observation led them to devise extravagant techniques to force the displacement
of the assemblage point, such as ingesting plants that can produce altered
states of consciousness; subjecting themselves to states of hunger, fatigue,
and stress; and especially controlling dreams.

In this
fashion, and perhaps without even knowing it, they created
dreaming
.

One day, as
we strolled around the plaza in the city of Oaxaca, don Juan gave me the most
coherent definition of
dreaming
from a sorcerer's standpoint.

"Sorcerers
view
dreaming
as an extremely sophisticated art," he said,
"the art of displacing the assemblage point at will from its habitual
position in order to enhance and enlarge the scope of what can be
perceived."

He said
that the old sorcerers anchored the art of
dreaming
on five conditions
they
saw
in the energy flow of human beings.

One, they
saw
that only the energy filaments that pass directly through the assemblage point
can be assembled into coherent perception.

Two, they
saw
that if the assemblage point is displaced to another position, no matter how
minute the displacement, different and unaccustomed energy filaments begin to
pass through it, engaging awareness and forcing the assembling of these
unaccustomed energy fields into a steady, coherent perception.

Three, they
saw
that, in the course of ordinary dreams, the assemblage point becomes
easily displaced by itself to another position on the surface or in the
interior of the luminous egg.

Four, they
saw
that the assemblage point can be made to move to positions outside the luminous
egg, into the energy filaments of the universe at large.

And, five,
they
saw
that through discipline it is possible to cultivate and
perform, in the course of sleep and ordinary dreams, a systematic displacement
of the assemblage point.

As a
preamble to his first lesson in
dreaming
, don Juan talked about the
second attention as a progression: beginning as an idea that comes to us more
like a curiosity than an actual possibility; turning into something that can
only be felt, as a sensation is felt; and finally evolving into a state of
being, or a realm of practicalities, or a preeminent force that opens for us
worlds beyond our wildest fantasies.

When
explaining sorcery, sorcerers have two options. One is to speak in metaphorical
terms and talk about a world of magical dimensions. The other is to explain
their business in abstract terms proper to sorcery. I have always preferred the
latter, although neither option will ever satisfy the rational mind of a
Western man.

Don Juan
told me that what he meant by his metaphorical description of the second
attention as a progression was that, being a by-product of a displacement of
the assemblage point, the second attention does not happen naturally but must
be intended, beginning with intending it as an idea and ending up with
intending it as a steady and controlled awareness of the assemblage point's
displacement.

"I am
going to teach you the first step to power," don Juan said, beginning his
instruction in the art of
dreaming
. "I'm going to teach you how to
set up
dreaming
."

"What
does it mean to set up
dreaming
?"

"To
set up
dreaming
means to have a precise and practical command over the
general situation of a dream. For example, you may dream that you are in your
classroom. To set up
dreaming
means that you don't let the dream slip
into something else. You don't jump from the classroom to the mountains, for
instance. In other words, you control the view of the classroom and don't let
it go until you want to."

"But
is it possible to do that?"

"Of
course it's possible. This control is no different from the control we have
over any situation in our daily lives. Sorcerers are used to it and get it
every time they want or need to. In order to get used to it yourself, you must
start by doing something very simple. Tonight, in your dreams, you must look at
your hands.".

Not much
more was said about this in the awareness of our daily world. In my
recollection of my experiences in the second attention, however, I found out
that we had a more extensive exchange. For instance, I expressed my feelings
about the absurdity of the task, and don Juan suggested that I should face it
in terms of a quest that was entertaining, instead of solemn and morbid.

"Get
as heavy as you want when we talk about
dreaming
," he said.
"Explanations always call for deep thought. But when you actually dream,
be as light as a feather.
Dreaming
has to be performed with integrity
and seriousness, but in the midst of laughter and with the confidence of
someone who doesn't have a worry in the world. Only under these conditions can
our dreams actually be turned into
dreaming
."

Don Juan
assured me that he had selected my hands arbitrarily as something to look for
in my dreams and that looking for anything else was just as valid. The goal of
the exercise was not finding a specific thing but engaging my
dreaming
attention
.

Don Juan
described the
dreaming attention
as the control one acquires over one's
dreams upon fixating the assemblage point on any new position to which it has
been displaced during dreams. In more general terms, he called the
dreaming
attention
an incomprehensible facet of awareness that exists by itself,
waiting for a moment when we would entice it, a moment when we would give it
purpose; it is a veiled faculty that every one of us has in reserve but never
has the opportunity to use in everyday life.

My first
attempts at looking for my hands in my dreams were a fiasco. After months of
unsuccessful efforts, I gave up and complained to don Juan again about the
absurdity of such a task.