## Carlos Castaneda Interviews and Articles

### Phoenix Bookstore - Nov 1993

November 28, 1993
The Phoenix Book Store - Los Angeles, CA - Lecture by Carlos Castaneda.
DREAMING:
Don Juan said there is no evil... and that we can't feel compassion. Is that feeling sorry for someone else? Does that mean I believe I'm better off than they are? It's the ego that feels sorry, and the whole idea of feeling sorry is fraudulent. Use your energy for something else, to free yourself. You save energy by the exercise of recapitulation. Through recapitulation you will come to the place where energy becomes visible. Not by sight but by something incomprehensible. Something that's incomprehensible because we have no lexicon for it. When you see it, you realize you were doing it.
Not Doing is the cognitive dissonance that unentangles your awareness. The disarrangement of the world by doing something absurd. We must realize the world is an arrangement. It could be tying your shoes in a different way.
The dreamer through the teaching of sorcery is a warrior who sees himself as something indescribable, undefinable and open-ended. He has no limitation. No frame. He takes anything that comes as a challenge, and is never a loser even if he is biting the dust.
One of the of the most important things for a warrior to do is to keep an Album of Sublime Moments. Get out of the brain of the beast. We are repetitious. Where is our sense of pride? We must examine everything, curtail our routines, throw cognitive dissonance into them in order to become a sorcerer. We can see energy as it flows, why permit the brain of the beast to stop us.
The dreamer is capable of using his dreams as a trap door or a spring board into infinity. But we've used our dreams only in analytical, psychological, or scientific ways. To dream as a warrior, is to dream as one who has taken the responsibility of dying.
Dreams are precise. Something is drawn to fields of luminosity. The assemblage point becomes displaced. Fibers of energy are shooting off in thousands of directions. If the point becomes displaced we move into an entirely different world. Dreaming is the art of maintaining the assemblage point in a new position. If we had the opportunity, we could all become first class Dreamers.
The further we displace the assemblage point the more terrifying the dream. Our mind supplies order on these experiences. When these dreams become overlaid with demonic images. It's the way we anthropomorpize experience. Take Dreaming as a formal enterprise and the demonic disappears. The difficulty is to discipline ourselves so that nothing that happens in the dream will be upsetting.
The steps in dreaming:
Become aware that you are falling asleep.
Before going to sleep say 'I am a Dreamer'. It's a matter of stating your intent. Don't be concerned if you are a Dreamer or not, the mind won't know the difference. It's not lying to yourself. In linear affairs we think of it as lying. That should be nothing new, we lie to ourselves all the time.
So intend Dreaming from the point of view that we are going to die. As if it's a matter of life and death. What are you saving yourself for, senility? Are we waiting to shout "Nurse" in a restaurant?
What have they done to you? Don Juan would ask that question of me over and over. It needed to be repeated because I was stupid.
This is not the best of all possible worlds. Something is holding us back from seeing. From the point of view of one who is going to die the warrior becomes aware and the world is never the same. This is incredible. He sees the intruder in his dreams. They are scouts from inconceivable worlds. They use awareness as a sea. We can go anywhere if we have the energy. If we get rid of our self-importance.
A warrior takes leaps of incalculable lengths because he wants to know. My fate is to roam the infinite. We are travelers, traveling is our fate. In accepting the responsibility of his death the warrior gets an incredible boost. He can put an end to his self - importance and move to another level. You don't have to lower your head to anyone.
After finding the intruder in your dreams you can stop the dream and ask it to take you where it comes from. The intruder is compelled to take your awareness to other worlds. Stupendous worlds, a twin universe. The Dreamer then becomes a reconnoiter, a scout himself. The twin universe is alive, it's a world of awareness. The inorganic beings are teachers from a female universe that is in search of males. Women are replicas of inorganic beings on earth.
The battle is in this other world, and we will enter this universe whether we like it or not. It's unavoidable. The sorcerers are pragmatists. (What is exactly is this battle that happens in the other world?) Why wait until you die? Do it now while you are young and vigorous. Stop being so involved with your self importance. Always thinking me, and what I want until were too old to do anything else. Until the only thing we can say is "nurse." Be aware now. This is the moment and dreaming is the way. The Dreamer, having saved enough energy will get the jolt of his life when he enters the other world. It's inconceivable. What are we really? Not what my father told me. We are something else.
There are seven stages to Dreaming. The first is to be aware the you are falling asleep. This is so you will remain conscious during the dream state. Then once in the dream state and you can hold it as long as you don't stare. Once you begin to awaken in your dreams you will begin to get more energy. You will be stronger the next day.
Become aware in your dreams, this is the first stage. If you don't insist and set up intent your energy will then pull you. Let it happen. The pull of intent will break the parameters of historical perception.
If you recapitulate your life seriously, you will get enough energy. Only as warriors can we realize what we are.
In the first stage we examine everything, every element in our dreams. We begin by becoming aware that you are falling asleep. But that's not the goal of the technique. This is only to fool the mind. The real technique is to become aware of the elements of our ordinary dreams.
In dreaming, we can easily shift the assemblage point. Even a slight shift of the assemblage point will create a new person. We are putting an end to the old and becoming a new person.
Don Juan said the "here" and "there" are exchangeable, we do it all the time with our energy bodies. The energy body is the sum total projected out.
What have they done to us to make us so resistant? The terrible damage that society has done to us can be corrected by dreaming.
The next step or Gate of Dreaming is to wake up from the dream into another dream.
Once you have acquired the energy from recapitulation and dreaming you can lie down in the dream in the same position that you originally fell asleep in and move into another dream. When you enter a dream inside a dream you enter a state that is inconceivable and will blow your mind. This is the secret of the twin positions.
The secret of secrets is to claim it. We only need energy. This is real, not theory, and as a practitioner, I say we all can do it.
Eventually in Dreaming everything will shift. One day your attention becomes arrested or fixed by something in the dream and you don't know why. You won't be able to move until it releases you.
You're attention is caught by an inorganic being. They have more awareness than us but we have more energy. We are like powerful bullets of energy that burn brightly. They last forever and their awareness can hold us.
Now we will begin to here the voice of the Emissary. It will answer any questions. When we hear its voice as a woman we are hearing its true voice. It is by nature female.
Don't indulge yourself with the dream Emissary. Tell it to stay out of your affairs. Don't let it feed off you for free.
There is a wave that hits us and we turn it into sadness-- But it's from out there? "I never thought I was going to live forever, let's do it. Turn me loose,"
Practice the Not Doing of the album of the sublime. It will create the cognitive dissonance.
Create an album to remind you of your sublime moments. Of things and thoughts that have astounded you. The real revolution is in the next world. It easy to get involved in political protest, but what's the point. Do something from the point of view of a man who is going to die.
What have they done to you? What are you doing to yourself to your body? Look how you live. Stop smoking.
What have they done to you? Our natural heritage is to live and die like morons. This is the time for revolution.
Copyright assigned without charge to Carlos Castaneda.