"losing self-importance." He was thoroughly
convinced that this is indispensable for everything sorcerers do, and for this
reason he put an enormous emphasis on guiding all his students to fulfill this
requirement. He was of the opinion that self-importance is not only the
sorcerers' supreme enemy but the nemesis of mankind.
Don Juan's
argument was that most of our energy goes into upholding our importance. This
is most obvious in our endless worry about the presentation of the self, about
whether or not we are admired or liked or acknowledged. He reasoned that if we
were capable of losing some of that importance, two extraordinary things would
happen to us. One, we would free our energy from trying to maintain the
illusory idea of our grandeur; and, two, we would provide ourselves with enough
energy to enter into the second attention to catch a glimpse of the actual
grandeur of the universe.
It took me
more than two years to be able to focus my unwavering dreaming attention on
anything I wanted. And I became so proficient that I felt as if I had been
doing it all my life. The eeriest part was that I could not conceive of not
having had that ability. Yet I could remember how difficult it had been even to
think of this as a possibility. It occurred to me that the capability of
examining the contents of one's dreams must be the product of a natural
configuration of our being, similar perhaps to our capability of walking. We
are physically conditioned to walk only in one manner, bipedally, yet it takes
a monumental effort for us to learn to walk.
This new
capacity of looking in glances at the items of my dreams was coupled with a
most insistent nagging to remind myself to look at the elements of my dreams. I
knew about my compulsive bent of character, but in my dreams my compulsiveness
was vastly augmented. It became so noticeable that not only did I resent
hearing my nagging at myself but I also began to question whether it was really
my compulsiveness or something else. I even thought I was losing my mind.
"I
talk to myself endlessly in my dreams, reminding myself to look at
things," I said to don Juan.
I had all
along respected our agreement that we would talk about dreaming only
when he brought up the subject. However, I thought that this was an emergency.
"Does
it sound to you like it's not you but someone else?" he asked.
"Come
to think of it, yes. I don't sound like myself at those times."
"Then
it's not you. It's not time yet to explain it. But let's say that we are not
alone in this world. Let's say that there are other worlds available to
dreamers, total worlds. From those other total worlds, energetic entities
sometimes come to us. The next time you hear yourself nagging at yourself in
your dreams, get really angry and yell a command. Say, Stop it!"
I entered
into another challenging arena: to remember in my dreams to shout that command.
I believe that, perhaps, out of being so tremendously annoyed at hearing myself
nagging, I did remember to shout, Stop it. The nagging ceased instantly and
never again was repeated. "Does every dreamer experience this?" I
asked don Juan when I saw him again. "Some do," he answered,
uninterestedly.
I began to
rant about how strange it had all been. He cut me off, saying, "You are
ready now to get to the second gate of dreaming ."
I seized
the opportunity to seek answers for questions I had not been able to ask him.
What I had experienced the first time he made me dream had been foremost in my
mind. I told don Juan that I had observed the elements of my own dreams to my
heart's content, and never had I felt anything even vaguely similar in terms of
clarity and detail.
"The
more I think about it," I said, "the more intriguing it becomes.
Watching those people in that dream, I experienced a fear and revulsion
impossible to forget. What was that feeling, don Juan?"
"In my
opinion, your energy body hooked onto the foreign energy of that place and had
the time of its life.
convinced that this is indispensable for everything sorcerers do, and for this
reason he put an enormous emphasis on guiding all his students to fulfill this
requirement. He was of the opinion that self-importance is not only the
sorcerers' supreme enemy but the nemesis of mankind.
Don Juan's
argument was that most of our energy goes into upholding our importance. This
is most obvious in our endless worry about the presentation of the self, about
whether or not we are admired or liked or acknowledged. He reasoned that if we
were capable of losing some of that importance, two extraordinary things would
happen to us. One, we would free our energy from trying to maintain the
illusory idea of our grandeur; and, two, we would provide ourselves with enough
energy to enter into the second attention to catch a glimpse of the actual
grandeur of the universe.
It took me
more than two years to be able to focus my unwavering dreaming attention on
anything I wanted. And I became so proficient that I felt as if I had been
doing it all my life. The eeriest part was that I could not conceive of not
having had that ability. Yet I could remember how difficult it had been even to
think of this as a possibility. It occurred to me that the capability of
examining the contents of one's dreams must be the product of a natural
configuration of our being, similar perhaps to our capability of walking. We
are physically conditioned to walk only in one manner, bipedally, yet it takes
a monumental effort for us to learn to walk.
This new
capacity of looking in glances at the items of my dreams was coupled with a
most insistent nagging to remind myself to look at the elements of my dreams. I
knew about my compulsive bent of character, but in my dreams my compulsiveness
was vastly augmented. It became so noticeable that not only did I resent
hearing my nagging at myself but I also began to question whether it was really
my compulsiveness or something else. I even thought I was losing my mind.
"I
talk to myself endlessly in my dreams, reminding myself to look at
things," I said to don Juan.
I had all
along respected our agreement that we would talk about dreaming only
when he brought up the subject. However, I thought that this was an emergency.
"Does
it sound to you like it's not you but someone else?" he asked.
"Come
to think of it, yes. I don't sound like myself at those times."
"Then
it's not you. It's not time yet to explain it. But let's say that we are not
alone in this world. Let's say that there are other worlds available to
dreamers, total worlds. From those other total worlds, energetic entities
sometimes come to us. The next time you hear yourself nagging at yourself in
your dreams, get really angry and yell a command. Say, Stop it!"
I entered
into another challenging arena: to remember in my dreams to shout that command.
I believe that, perhaps, out of being so tremendously annoyed at hearing myself
nagging, I did remember to shout, Stop it. The nagging ceased instantly and
never again was repeated. "Does every dreamer experience this?" I
asked don Juan when I saw him again. "Some do," he answered,
uninterestedly.
I began to
rant about how strange it had all been. He cut me off, saying, "You are
ready now to get to the second gate of dreaming ."
I seized
the opportunity to seek answers for questions I had not been able to ask him.
What I had experienced the first time he made me dream had been foremost in my
mind. I told don Juan that I had observed the elements of my own dreams to my
heart's content, and never had I felt anything even vaguely similar in terms of
clarity and detail.
"The
more I think about it," I said, "the more intriguing it becomes.
Watching those people in that dream, I experienced a fear and revulsion
impossible to forget. What was that feeling, don Juan?"
"In my
opinion, your energy body hooked onto the foreign energy of that place and had
the time of its life.
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