The Art of Dreaming Read Online Free PDF Page B

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.
    "There
are seven gates," he said as a way of answering, "and dreamers have
to open all seven of them, one at the time. You're up against the first gate
that must be opened if you are to dream." "Why didn't you tell me
this before?"
    "It
would've been useless to tell you about the gates of dreaming before you
smacked your head against the first one. Now you know that it is an obstacle
and that you have to overcome it."
    Don Juan
explained that there are entrances and exits in the energy flow of the universe
and that, in the specific case of dreaming , there are seven entrances,
experienced as obstacles, which sorcerers call the seven gates of dreaming .
    "The
first gate is a threshold we must cross by becoming aware of a particular
sensation before deep sleep," he said. "A sensation which is like a
pleasant heaviness that doesn't let us open our eyes. We reach that gate the
instant we become aware that we're falling asleep, suspended in darkness and
heaviness."
    "How
do I become aware that I am falling asleep? Are there any steps to
follow?" "No. There are no steps to follow. One just intends to
become aware of falling asleep." "But how does one intend to become
aware of it?"
    "Intent
or intending is something very difficult to talk about. I or anyone else would
sound idiotic trying to explain it. Bear that in mind when you hear what I have
to say next: sorcerers intend anything they set themselves to intend, simply by
intending it."
    "That
doesn't mean anything, don Juan."
    "Pay
close attention. Someday it'll be your turn to explain. The statement seems
nonsensical because you are not putting it in the proper context. Like any
rational man, you think that understanding is exclusively the realm of our
reason, of our mind.
    "For
sorcerers, because the statement I made pertains to intent and intending,
understanding it pertains to the realm of energy. Sorcerers believe that if one
would intend that statement for the energy body, the energy body would
understand it in terms entirely different from those of the mind. The trick is
to reach the energy body. For that you need energy."
    "In
what terms would the energy body understand that statement, don Juan?"
    "In
terms of a bodily feeling, which it's hard to describe. You'll have to
experience it to know what I mean."
    I wanted a
more precise explanation, but don Juan slapped my back and made me enter into
the second attention. At that time, what he did was still utterly mysterious to
me. I could have sworn that his touch hypnotized me. I believed he had
instantaneously put me to sleep, and