The Toltecs use dream control as a key to the non-ordinary positions of the assemblage point … or at least this is the most evident and well-known aspect of the art of dreaming. In reality this skill also leads to understanding the nature of the ordinary position of the assemblage point and the nature of time, but only if the art of dreaming is temperated by the bases of stalking and by the practice of a continuous and profound recapitulation. Otherwise, the tendency is to get lost in the complexity of the second attention the same way we normally get lost in the first attention.
We start from the premise that what we call reality is nothing else than one of the innumerable dream positions. It is a highly coherent and coercive position, as it is shared and sustained by the entire humanity. It becomes so coherent to exclude the reminiscence of all other possible position(s).
I’ll give you another indication. To obtain that specific state the Toltecs call “seeing”, all you need to do is to “wake up” in another dream position without falling asleep again. At that point you are in the predominance of the energy body and perceive the world as energy.
But let us start from the beginning.
When we fall asleep and dream, we recuperate our natural condition as travelers of infinity. The assemblage point moves freely, aligning elements of other worlds (or entire new worlds), which is aligning new extended emanations. The dream has the function to recuperate energy; maintaining the ordinary position of the assemblage point requires all our energy and we would become exhausted to the point of dying if we didn’t have a recharge system. This system consists in falling asleep and dream, permitting the assemblage point to move freely and “switch on” new energy fields, and from this ascension obtain the energy required to guarantee the survival of the being.
However, in ordinary dreams the movement is coincidental, chaotic and full of unreal elements, created by our ability and our habit of interpretation. It has the only function to recuperate energy. The warriors learn to regulate the movement of the assemblage point, which in dreams happens naturally, thus being able to move it voluntarily and fix it in other positions, until it achieves the same coherence like in the ordinary position. They also succeed in dreaming new positions shared with other warriors (one could define them as the alternative realities of the sorcerers) or wake up, maintaining the position obtained during dreaming and thus develop a new body, the dream body or double.
To get results of such great importance requires hard work that involves our entire existence. There are persons who are naturally gifted for dreaming (the Toltecs call them dreamers). These have an aptitude to obtain lucid dreams or so-called “astral flights”. However, that is not enough, this ability needs to be inserted into an overall discipline that allows you to follow a very precise energy route. Generally the dreaming of natural dreamers is coincidental, without exact purpose and linearity. Instead, what the Toltecs exert, is the result of thousands of years of experience, tries and errors. This accumulated experience led them to define the path to be followed (that should be followed) with extreme precision, in order to obtain a real control of the domain of the second attention. Fact is that there are energy barriers which, in case they are not surpassed and traversed properly, deprive (the dreamer) of the ability to have a lucid vision of the energetic nature of the new dream positions. In lay terms one proceeds without knowing what place one has reached (unless you don’t meet trusted helpers inside your dreaming, but this is very rare, so broadly speaking it is better not to trust strangers too much).
In “The Art of Dreaming”, Carlos Castaneda speaks of dream gateways. These are real energy thresholds that don’t involve only dreaming, but all the activities of a warrior, therefore also stalking and intent. To surpass these gateways in the right manner it is necessary to coordinate one’s own actions, by achieving an adequate re-channeling of the available energy.
My advice is to apply the art of stalking to dreaming, even if you are a natural dreamer. This approach to dreaming ensures that our oneiric activity is based on a solid discipline that will finally reverberate in the acquired dream positions. What we are in a waking state is reflected during dreaming. This is an energetic fact, so if we don’t gather attention while awake, we will not have it at our disposal while dreaming. Equally, if we don’t correct certain of our tendencies in a waking state, we certainly can not do it during dreaming, so we will remain victims.
But let us examine some gateways and see how we connect what we do during daytime with our nighttime activity. The first act of a prospective dreamer is to perform lucid dreams at will, that is during dreaming be aware that he or she is dreaming and do it intentionally. There are many methods to achieve this result (I describe them in my book “La soglia dell’energia”, and it is not possible to descibe them here for obvious space reasons), but I strongly recommend one: re-channeling the energy that is used for worthless activities and deploying it to “intend” dreaming.
In practice you proceed as follows: For a worthless activity we may take an habit. Eliminating habits is actually one of the most effective systems to obtain lucid dreams, because one eliminates the ritualism from the waking state. Let’s say we concentrate on an “inner” habit, that is on those cycles of thoughts-sentiments – actions with which our days are filled with. Usually they are details from our existence that return cyclically during the day and cause us to go in loops, which is repeat the same thoughts and sentiments. This can be a situation at work, at home, in our personal relationships. In fact it would be sufficient to think of it once and arrive at a decision, to then detach oneself completely, but usually it is not like this.
The mode in which these cycles capture our attention is the same like in normal dreams. It prevents us from realizing that we are dreaming by fixing our attention on insignificant details of the dream. In reality it is the available energy that, through the fixation of attention, gets channeled and consumed, while sustaining such channeling. Warriors use stalking in those cases.
We interrupt the inner dialogue, move to the will area (the power center around the navel) and re-channel the energy while intending to dream, that is emitting from the will itself the command to be conscious of dreaming while we dream. To improve efficiency we evoke the first attention of the dream (especially if we already had lucid dreams), thus reminding the own body of the real nature of the world we live in.
Performing lucid dreams at will corresponds to surpassing the first dream gateway.
The second gateway consists in constructing the dreaming, or sustain the newly acquired dream position as long as possible, until providing it the same coherence as to what we call reality. To do so, in practice the dreamer uses his dream attention to maintain it like it is, avoiding changing to another dream or that the elements of the dream itself transform. In short it needs to acquire the same stability and concreteness like the ordinary reality (but even more so). This is a really astonishing moment. As the dream acquires stability bit by bit, everything gets so real that it even tops the normal state and one also gains the ability to act in the dream and on the dream at one’s own will. To succeed in stabilizing the new position, the best method is to have a prefixed aim: arrive to a certain place, fulfill certain tasks. What counts is to decide before, during the waking state, the practical aspect you want to reach during dreaming, and to manage to remember and achieve it. It is easier if one succeeds in connecting this act from the waking state to dreaming by using stalking and reiteration, so inserting the energy retrieval into the repetition of the command that regards the practical aim.
In this phase, the main obstacle when we need to act in dreams consists in our habit of acting by means of the physical body. During dreaming we are in the predominance of the energy body, we are our energy body, that is our self, so we need to use the energy body for acting. Do you recall the dreams in which you would like to run but don’t succeed? You feel like stuck to the ground. Well, the problem is that you are trying to use the energy body as you use the physical one: it won’t work.
There is an exercise one can do during dreaming to learn to act with the energy body. One moves by means of the will (the area around the navel). During dreaming you launch the energy fibres from this part of the body to the place you want to go to and then let yourself be “pulled”. You’ll arrive there in a moment.
This is also preparatory for surpassing the third gateway, which consists in changing dreams at will or letting the assemblage point move and then fix it in another position, all this while dreaming, awakening from one dream into another.
To round off, I’d like to mention the issue of the world of inorganic beings and the type of relationship one should have with them. In the “Art of Dreaming”, Castaneda speaks a lot about them, a great part of the book is focused on that matter. In the end it seems, also from what Don Juan himself says, that one can’t do without their type of energy in order to progress in dreaming. This is partly true, even if things are not exactly like this. More precisely, the quality of their energy can be very useful, but this neither means that one needs to make agreements nor that it is necessary to follow them to their worlds and do it their way. The topic is quite delicate and difficult to explain here, however I’ll try to provide the basic recommendations. In reality, what interests us is not the energy of the inorganics, but rather the change in quality of the internal alignment, provoked by the environment in which they live. What is interesting is the type of alignment, not their company. My lineage has developed systems to avoid interactions with the inorganics and to go to their alignments as much as is needed, without being invited, without following emissaries, in a way that our presence remains unobserved. Needless to say that this strategic ability derives from a long and harmonic integration between stalking and intent.
The inorganics tend to offer us “gifts”, giving us the capacity and the knowing to which we could have easily arrived on our own, simply thanks to the predominance of the energy body. If we deepen our relationship with intent we can easily surpass their worlds, take what we need and disappear without leaving marks. This requires control, discipline, patience, timing and intent … the attributes of stalking.
