The Art of Dreaming

1. Dreaming as a Gateway to Other Worlds

With the perspective time gives, I now realize that the most fitting statement don Juan made about dreaming was to call it the 'gateway to infinity'.

Beyond the Mundane. Carlos Castaneda's "The Art of Dreaming" explores the concept of dreaming as more than just a nightly mental activity. It presents dreaming as a practical method for sorcerers to access and perceive other realities, worlds as real and absolute as our own. Don Juan Matus, Castaneda's Yaqui sorcerer mentor, taught that our perceived world is but one layer in a cluster of consecutive worlds, much like the layers of an onion.

Energetic Conditioning. The book emphasizes that our inability to perceive these other realms isn't due to their non-existence, but rather our energetic conditioning. We are conditioned to believe that the world of daily life is the only possible world. However, ancient sorcerers developed practices, collectively known as the art of dreaming, to recondition our energetic capabilities and open the gateway to infinity.

Practical Application. Dreaming, in this context, isn't merely having dreams, daydreaming, or imagining. It's a practical way of utilizing ordinary dreams to perceive other worlds. It's a sensation, a process in our bodies, and an awareness in our minds that opens up realms beyond our everyday understanding. Through disciplined practice, we can learn to navigate these realms and expand our perception of reality.

2. The Assemblage Point: Key to Perception

The old sorcerers named it the assemblage point after seeing what it does.

The Luminous Egg. The sorcerers of antiquity perceived humans as luminous eggs, with a crucial feature: the assemblage point. This round spot of intense brilliance, located on the surface of the luminous egg, is where perception is assembled. It's the point through which a small number of the universe's luminous energy filaments pass, intensified by a surrounding glow.

Assembling Perception. The assemblage point, by focusing its glowing sphere on the universe's filaments of energy, automatically assembles those filaments into a steady perception of the world. When the assemblage point is in its habitual position, perception and awareness seem normal. However, when it's displaced, behavior becomes unusual, indicating a different awareness and perception.

Displacement and Awareness. The greater the displacement of the assemblage point from its customary position, the more unusual the consequent behavior, awareness, and perception. This displacement is key to accessing other realms of reality, as it allows us to perceive different energy filaments and assemble them into new worlds.

3. Shifting vs. Moving the Assemblage Point

One was a displacement to any position on the surface or in the interior of the luminous ball; this displacement they called a shift of the assemblage point.

Two Types of Displacement. The sorcerers of antiquity distinguished between two types of assemblage point displacement: shifts and movements. Shifts occur within the luminous ball, while movements occur outside it. This distinction is crucial because it determines the nature of the perception each allows.

Human vs. Non-Human Domains. Shifts of the assemblage point, being displacements within the luminous ball, engender worlds within the human domain. These worlds, no matter how bizarre, are still within the realm of human energy filaments. Movements of the assemblage point, on the other hand, engage filaments of energy beyond the human realm, engendering worlds that are beyond comprehension, with no trace of human antecedents.

The Old Sorcerers' Feat. The old sorcerers were the only ones who accomplished the feat of transforming their energy shape through movements of the assemblage point. They became something resembling a smoking pipe, and eventually a thin line of energy. This transformation allowed them to perceive all the energy filaments that passed through that line, expanding their awareness exponentially.

4. The Seven Gates of Dreaming: Obstacles and Entrances

There are seven gates," he said as a way of answering, "and dreamers have to open all seven of them; one at the time.

Entrances and Exits. Don Juan explained that the energy flow of the universe has entrances and exits, and in the specific case of dreaming, there are seven entrances experienced as obstacles, which sorcerers call the seven gates of dreaming. Each gate represents a threshold that must be crossed to progress in the art of dreaming.

The First Gate. The first gate is a threshold we must cross by becoming aware of a particular sensation before deep sleep, a sensation 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. Intending to become aware of falling asleep is the key to crossing this gate.

The Second Gate. The second gate is reached when you wake up from a dream into another dream. This requires control and sobriety, as it's easy to get lost in the endless possibilities of dream worlds. The true goal of dreaming is to perfect the energy body, which has the control to stop the dreaming attention when needed.

5. The Energy Body: Counterpart of the Physical

It's the counterpart of the physical body. A ghostlike configuration made of pure energy.

Appearance Without Mass. The energy body is the counterpart of the physical body, a ghostlike configuration made of pure energy. Unlike the physical body, it has only appearance but no mass. Since it's pure energy, it can perform acts that are beyond the possibilities of the physical body, such as transporting itself in one instant to the ends of the universe.

Tempering the Energy Body. Dreaming is the art of tempering the energy body, of making it supple and coherent by gradually exercising it. Through dreaming, we condense the energy body until it's a unit capable of perceiving. Its perception, although affected by our normal way of perceiving the daily world, is an independent perception.

Energy as its Sphere. The energy body deals with energy in terms of energy. It can perceive energy as it flows, use energy to boost itself into unexpected areas, or perceive as we ordinarily perceive the world. This makes it a powerful tool for exploring the energetic nature of reality.

6. Inorganic Beings: Allies or Adversaries?

Sorcerers find no problem interacting with them," don Juan went on. "Inorganic beings possess the crucial ingredient for interaction; consciousness.

Conscious Entities. Don Juan introduced the concept of inorganic beings, conscious entities that exist alongside organic beings. These beings are long and candlelike but opaque, whereas organic beings are round and brighter. Inorganic beings have a longer lifespan and a deeper consciousness than humans.

Enticement and Interaction. Inorganic beings are enticed by us and compelled to interact with us. This interaction often begins in dreaming, where sorcerers compel those beings to appear by sustaining the position where the assemblage point has shifted in dreams. This act creates a distinctive energy charge that attracts their attention.

Dangers and Alliances. While inorganic beings can be allies, they also pose dangers. They can induce fear, which can lead to madness. However, sorcerers can also form associations and friendships with them, creating vast enterprises where perception plays the uppermost role. The key is not to fear them and to send out an intent of power and abandon.

7. The Dreaming Emissary: Guide or Deceiver?

Alien energy that has conciseness. Alien energy that purports to aid dreamers by telling them things.

Alien Energy. Upon crossing the first or second gate of dreaming, dreamers may encounter the dreaming emissary, alien energy that has conciseness. This force purports to aid dreamers by telling them things, but it can only tell what the sorcerers already know or should know. It's an impersonal force that we turn into a very personal one because it has voice.

The Emissary's Voice. The dreaming emissary can manifest as a voice, a vision, or a feeling. It often speaks in multiple languages and offers flattery and promises of knowledge. However, its advice is not always sound, and it can charge enormities in terms of energy for its guidance.

A Matter of Choice. Ultimately, the decision of whether to trust the dreaming emissary is a personal one. Don Juan advised against it, as it belongs to another mood, the old sorcerers' mood. He believed that its teachings and guidance in our world are nonsense and that it consumes all our available energy.

8. The Sorcerer's Way: Redeploying Energy

It leaves us to scrounge energy for ourselves wherever we can find it," he replied.

Limited Energy. Don Juan explained that we all have a determined quantity of basic energy, which we normally use for perceiving and dealing with our engulfing world. Since our available energy is already engaged, there is not a single bit left in us for any extraordinary perception, such as dreaming.

Scrounging Energy. To overcome this limitation, sorcerers intelligently redeploy their energy by cutting down anything they consider superfluous in their lives. This method, called the sorcerers' way, is a chain of behavioral choices for dealing with the world, choices much more intelligent than those our progenitors taught us.

Molding Life Situations. The sorcerers' way is designed to revamp our lives by altering our basic reactions about being alive. It involves molding our particular life situation to fit our own configurations, molding the awareness of being alive. Through molding this awareness, we can get enough energy to reach and sustain the energy body and mold the total direction and consequences of our lives.

9. The Second Attention: A Realm of Practicalities

The second attention is like an ocean, and the dreaming attention is like a river feeding into it.

Beyond the First Attention. Don Juan described the second attention as a progression, beginning as an idea, turning into a sensation, and finally evolving into a state of being. It's a by-product of a displacement of the assemblage point and must be intended. Sorcerers have two complete areas for their endeavors: the first attention (the awareness of our daily world) and the second attention (the awareness of other worlds).

The Dreaming Attention. The dreaming attention is 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. It's a veiled faculty that every one of us has in reserve but that we never have the opportunity to use in everyday life.

Remembering the Second Attention. 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. Sorcerers dedicate a lifetime to fulfilling this task of remembering.

10. The Importance of Energetic Cohesion

Mankind perceives the world we know, in the terms we do, only because we share energetic uniformity and cohesion.

Uniformity and Cohesion. Mankind perceives the world we know only because we share energetic uniformity and cohesion. Uniformity refers to the fact that every human being on earth has the form of a ball or an egg. Cohesion refers to the fact that man's energy holds itself together as a ball or an egg.

Fixation of the Assemblage Point. The key to acquiring uniformity and cohesion is the position of the assemblage point, or rather the fixation of the assemblage point. When the assemblage point is displaced to another position, a new conglomerate of millions of luminous energy filaments come together on that point.

The Human Domain. The human domain when one is an energy ball is whatever energy filaments pass through the space within the ball's boundaries. Normally, we perceive not all the human domain but perhaps only one thousandth of it. The old sorcerers extended themselves into a line a thousand times the size of a man as an energy ball and perceived all the energy filaments that passed through that line.

11. The Old Sorcerers' Legacy: A Cautionary Tale

In my personal opinion, those old sorcerers were extravagant, obsessive, capricious men who got pinned down by their own machinations.

Brilliance Without Wisdom. Don Juan categorized sorcerers of antiquity as men who existed in Mexico perhaps thousands of years before the Spanish Conquest, men whose greatest accomplishment had been to build the structures of sorcery, emphasizing practicality and concreteness. He rendered them as men who were brilliant but lacking in wisdom.

Concreteness vs. Abstract. The practical part of sorcery, the obsessive fixation of the mind on practices and techniques, and the unwarranted influence over people were in the realm of the sorcerers of the past. Present-day sorcerers seek the abstract, the search for freedom; freedom to perceive, without obsessions, all that's humanly possible.

A Warning Against Extravagance. Don Juan believed that the old sorcerers were extravagant, obsessive, capricious men who got pinned down by their own machinations. He wanted freedom, freedom to retain his awareness and yet disappear into the vastness. He warned against getting swayed by their accomplishment, which is unparalleled, but also against their extravagance.

12. The Ultimate Stalking: Freedom Beyond Worlds

For the sorcerers who practice dreaming today, dreaming is freedom to perceive worlds beyond the imagination.

Beyond the Human Unknown. Modern-day sorcerers strive to get to the nonhuman unknown, freedom from being human. What are outside that domain are all-inclusive worlds, not merely the realm of birds or the realm of animals or the realm of man- even if it be the unknown man.

Movements, Not Shifts. Entering into those worlds is the type of dreaming only sorcerers of today do. The old sorcerers stayed away from it because it requires a great deal of detachment and no self-importance whatsoever, a price they couldn't afford to pay.

An Adventure With No End. Freedom cannot be an investment. Freedom is an adventure with no end in which we risk our lives and much more for a few moments of something beyond words; beyond thoughts or feelings. To seek freedom is the only driving force.

Last updated: March 13, 2025