The Dreaming Body is Not a Ghost | Carlos Castaneda
If you would like to understand sorcery at a deep level then I have also created a complementary guide Autobiography of a Sorcerer: A Study of Toltec Shamanism, Castaneda's Sorcery, Yoga & Zen Philosophy, click the above button for details.
TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR DREAMS BY BECOME AWARE THAT ONE IS FALLING ASLEEP | DON JUAN MATUS
Dreaming is a tool that can assist you in finding freedom. Freedom from fear. Freedom from worry. Freedom from becoming overwhelmed. Freedom from guilt. Freedom from depression. Freedom from the trappings of the consumer culture we’ve built our lives around. Dreaming creates Real freedom.
Most of the time when we’re dreaming, we’re not aware of it and just take what’s before us in the dream as real. But the Not-doing of dreaming is when you are aware that you’re dreaming and can take steps to control the dream.
Hello and welcome to the Ancient wisdom modern mind podcast and before I read this extract from The Eagle’s Gift by Carlos Castaneda, but first I would like to take a moment to remind you to subscribe to this channel, so go ahead and click on the subscribe button.
In this BIog I have compiled the relevant sections from The Eagle’s Gift that relate to Don Juan’s explanation of how the dreaming body becomes a perfect replica of the dreamer’s physical body. Plus I explore the parallels between Dreaming and Zen, and it is my hope that this will enabling you the listener to assemble a more integrated understanding of dreaming.
Extracts are from. The Eagle’s Gift.
Part 1: The Other Self.
Chapter 1. The Fixation of The Second Attention.
Part 2: The Art of Dreaming.
Chapter 7. Dreaming Together.
“It is easy for me to understand why the Nagual Juan Matus didn’t want us to have possessions,” Nestor said after I had finished talking. “We are all dreamers. He didn’t want us to focus our dreaming body on the weak face of the second attention.”
“I didn’t understand his maneuvers at the time. I resented the fact that he made me get rid of everything I had. I thought he was being unfair. My belief was that he was trying to keep Pablito and Benigno from envying me, because they had nothing themselves. I was well-off in comparison. At the time, I had no idea that he was protecting my dreaming body.”
Don Juan had described dreaming to me in various ways. The most obscure of them all now appears to me as being the one that defines it best. He said that dreaming is intrinsically the not-doing of sleep. And as such, dreaming affords practitioners the use of that portion of their lives spent in slumber. It is as if the dreamers no longer sleep. Yet no illness results from it. The dreamers do not lack sleep, but the effect of dreaming seems to be an increase of waking time, owing to the use of an alleged extra body, the dreaming body.
Don Juan had explained to me that the dreaming body is sometimes called the “double” or the “other,” because it is a perfect replica of the dreamer’s body. It is inherently the energy of a luminous being, a whitish, phantomlike emanation, which is projected by the fixation of the second attention into a three-dimensional image of the body. Don Juan explained that the dreaming body is not a ghost, but as real as anything we deal with in the world. He said that the second attention is unavoidably drawn to focus on our total being as a field of energy, and transforms that energy into anything suitable. The easiest thing is of course the image of the physical body, with-which we are already thoroughly familiar from our daily lives and the use of our first attention. What channels the energy of our total being to produce anything that might be within the boundaries of possibility is known as will. Don Juan could not say what those boundaries were, except that at the level of luminous beings the range is so broad that it is futile to try to establish limits – thus, the energy of a luminous being can be transformed through will into anything.
“The Nagual said that the dreaming body gets involved and attaches itself to anything,” Benigno said. “It doesn’t have sense. He told me that men become more easily attached to things
The little sisters agreed in unison with a movement of their heads. La Gorda looked at me and smiled.
“The Nagual told me that you’re the king of possessiveness,” she said to me. “Genaro said that you even say goodbye to your turds before you flush them down.”
The little sisters rolled down on their sides laughing. The Genaros made obvious efforts to contain themselves. Nestor, who was sitting by my side, patted my knee.
The Nagual and Genaro used to tell great stories about you,” he said. “They entertained us for years with tales about a weird guy they knew. We know now that it was you.”
I felt a wave of embarrassment. It was as if Don Juan and don Genaro had betrayed me, laughing at me in front of the apprentices. Self-pity took over. I began to complain. I said out loud that they had been predisposed to be against me, to think that I was a fool.
“That’s not true,” Benigno said. “We are delighted that you are with us.”
Chapter 7. Dreaming Together.
One night we sat down and, as casually as we could, we began to discuss what we knew about dreaming. It quickly became obvious that there were some core topics which don Juan had given special emphasis.
First was the act itself. It seemed to begin as a unique state of awareness arrived at by focusing the residue of consciousness, which one still has when asleep, on the elements, or the features, of one's dreams.
The residue of consciousness, which don Juan called the second attention, was brought into action, or was harnessed, through exercises of not-doing. We thought that the essential aid to dreaming was a state of mental quietness, which don Juan had called "stopping the internal dialogue," or the "not doing of talking to oneself." To teach me how to master it, he used to make me walk for miles with my eyes held fixed and out of focus at a level just above the horizon so as to emphasize the peripheral view. His method was effective on two counts. It allowed me to stop my internal dialogue after years of trying, and it trained my attention. By forcing me to concentrate on the peripheral view, don Juan reinforced my capacity to concentrate for long periods of time on one single activity.
Later on, when I had succeeded in controlling my attention and could work for hours at a chore without distraction - a thing I had never before been able to do - he told me that the best way to enter into dreaming was to concentrate on the area just at the tip of the sternum, at the top of the belly. He said that the attention needed for dreaming stems from that area. The energy needed in order to move and to seek in dreaming stems from the area an inch or two below the belly button. He called that energy the will, or the power to select, to assemble.
"A woman's dreaming has to come from her womb because that's her center," la Gorda said. "In order for me to start dreaming or to stop it all I have to do is place my attention on my womb. I've learned to feel the inside of it. I see a reddish glow for an instant and then I'm off."
"How long does it take you to get to see that reddish glow?" I asked.
"A few seconds. The moment my attention is on my womb I'm already into dreaming" she continued. "I never toil, not ever. Women are like that. The most difficult part for a woman is to learn how to begin; it took me a couple of years to stop my internal dialogue by concentrating my attention on my womb. Perhaps that's why a woman always needs someone else to prod her.
"The Nagual Juan Matus used to put cold, wet river pebbles on my belly to get me to feel that area. Or he would place a weight on it; I had a chunk of lead that he got for me. He would make me close my eyes and focus my attention on the spot where the weight was. I used to fall asleep every time. But that didn't bother him. It doesn't really matter what one does as long as the attention is on the womb. Finally I learned to concentrate on that spot without anything being placed on it. I went into dreaming one day all by myself. I was feeling my belly, at the spot where the Nagual had placed the weight so many times, when all of a sudden I fell asleep as usual, except that something pulled me right into my womb. I saw the reddish glow and I then had a most beautiful dream.
You were learning to get to your dreaming body when you dreamed that you got out of your body," she continued. "But, the way I see it, the Nagual did not give you any specific task, so you went any old way you could. I, on the other hand, was given the task of using my dreaming body. The little sisters had the same task. In my case, I once had a dream where I flew like a kite. I told the Nagual about it because I had liked the feeling of gliding. He took it very seriously and turned it into a task. He said that as soon as one learns to do dreaming, any dream that one can remember is no longer a dream, it's dreaming.
Commentary
Dreaming Awareness is the awakening or steady transfer of awareness to the Energy Body with the goal of awakening the sleeping Nagual, or you could equally say that dreaming is where one becomes aware when in the awake state that you were aware within the dream state and also the bringing of the Energy Body awareness into the First Attention awareness.
Don Juan’s approach is very different from the yogi’s approach of single minded meditation and breath work, and seems to be unique to Castaneda’s sorcery. But in saying this, it may surprise you to find that there are parallels between Don Juan’s Dreaming and Zen’s use of the kōan.
And if you don’t know what a kōan is, a kōan refers to a question or succinct paradoxical statement posed to a novice monk to help them seek the truth, and which they contemplate during meditation, this then helps them unravel greater truths about reality and the nature of the ego-self, and you could even equate this to Don Juan giving Carlos the task of finding his hand in his dreams, a simple subterfuge that creates a paradoxically similar problem as trying to solve a kōan.
Because just as finding the hand was never the true goal of practicing Dreaming, solving the kōan was never the reason a novice was given a kōan. The kōan was only the distraction.
What Carlos initially failed to understand about Dreaming is that finding the hand is not the true goal, and it was only later in The Art of Dreaming did Don Juan say to Carlos that finding the hand was not the end goal.
To quote The Art of Dreaming Page 27. “To ask a dreamer to find a determined item (e.g. finding the hand) in his dreams is a subterfuge.” he said. “The real issue is to become aware that one is falling asleep.
So it would be more precise to see Dreaming as a Not-Doing designed to awaken an awareness of the Energy Body.
But the parallels between Zen and don Juan’s Dreaming, don’t end with the kōan, as Don Juan’s also emphasized that la Gorda should focus on the womb and this is also Zen’s focus and the idea of the Hara, which connects with both dreaming and Personal Power.
Then we have the example where Don Juan had la Gorda walking for miles with her eyes held fixed and out of focus at a level just above the horizon so as to emphasize the peripheral view. This is also the method used in Zen Walking Meditation, called Kinhin.
We should also remember that Dreaming is not about having a dream or even lucid dreaming. Remember what Don Juan told la Gorda. (In chapter 7 Dreaming Together) , that as soon as one learns to do dreaming, any dream that one can remember is no longer a dream, it's Dreaming. But the point to remember is that Don Juan used the words “that as soon as one learns to do Dreaming” and this is an important point. Especially if we also remember what Dreaming really is, and that is that we have only reached the Second Attention when we can remember falling asleep.
And this is why Dreaming is the Not-Doing of dreams, one takes the ordinary state of sleep and turns sleepings intent towards the Second Attention. Just as Zazen takes ordinary consciousness and turns its intent away from the First Attention. We are in effect filling awareness with the Second Attention via the dream state.
And if you want to delve deeper into the works of Carlos Castaneda or Zen Meditation techniques then I also have a number of podcasts and blogs on my web site that explore this and similar ideas, simply follow the Link in the description.
All right. So this podcast was about the Not-doing of Dreaming, and its parallels with Zen, and I hope that this reading from “The Eagle’s Gift” supports you in your Dreaming practice, and if you have any questions.
Feel free to drop your comment in the comment section and I will try to answer them, I would really appreciate it if you share your thoughts, and thank you for listening to the Ancient Wisdom Modern Mind podcast.
I’m Jason your host signing off. Take care.
And if you would like to understand sorcery at a deep level then I have also created a complementary guide Autobiography of a Sorcerer: A Study of Toltec Shamanism, Castaneda's Sorcery, Yoga & Zen Philosophy, follow the link for details.
Letter of Support
Hello my friends, the patronage of regular followers is greatly appreciated and is the true spirit of mutual self-love… So, if you find any value or joy in the content, please consider becoming a Supporting Patron by downloading Podcasts for a small supporter’s remuneration or by purchasing Meditation audios or books from the Books & Meditation Audios page or by clicking the Supporters Link, and this one simple act makes a huge difference.
👍 share and Stay safe.
References
// S O U R C E: The Eagle’s Gift by Carlos Castaneda
