( English is not my native language. I've done my best to write this account in English, and I've included the original Spanish version below for those who speak Spanish or wish to read the original text. )

Last night, something happened that completely changed the way I understand fear.

I'm not trying to prove anything with this account. I'm writing it simply as a record of an experience that, for me, marked a turning point. In my opinion, it closely matches the kind of experiences described throughout Carlos Castaneda's books.

I'd rather share the experience itself before giving any background about who I am. I only hope it can be read without prejudice and that, somehow, it may help other practitioners deepen their own learning and their own journey toward the Unknown.

I was getting ready to sleep after an especially exhausting day at work. I had barely eaten dinner, and I felt that my energy level was unusually low—perhaps too low to face, with sobriety, the recurring encounters with the Unknown that have gradually become part of my life.

The moment I relaxed my body, something happened that was already becoming familiar.

I felt the mattress slowly give way beside me, as if someone had just placed a foot on the bed. The pressure was unmistakably real—gentle, almost respectful. The mattress clearly sank under a weight I couldn't identify.

There was nothing inherently threatening about the gesture, yet my body reacted instantly. Adrenaline flooded every muscle, and my heart began pounding violently.

Then I did something I had never done before.

I didn't attack.

In the past, I would have immediately tried to strike whatever it was that seemed to be invading my personal space.

This time, I remained completely still.

I simply observed.

I waited for the next movement.

The sensation of that foot gradually began to change. Little by little it stopped feeling human and became the silent step of a large feline. My impression was that of a cougar—a powerful, restrained presence, full of strength, yet completely silent.

Instead of allowing fear to take over, I focused all my attention on my breathing.

I inhaled.

I exhaled.

Again.

And again.

My only purpose was to observe whatever had come to my bed without interpreting it or judging it in any way.

It suddenly became clear to me that, for years, my response had always been the same: defend myself. My instinct had always been to attack before I even understood what was happening.

But that night something changed.

For the first time, I was able to remain before the Unknown without trying to destroy it.

From the very moment I began concentrating on my breathing, I had the distinct impression that the presence beside me was that of an old sorcerer.

At the same time, an intense vibration began. It was perfectly audible and grew stronger with every breath. My entire attention remained fixed on breathing, and the deeper my breathing became, the more powerful the vibration grew.

It was as if a whirlpool of energy had begun slowly rotating around me.

I honestly can't think of a better description.

It felt like a living vortex—a pulsating energy in constant rotation, growing stronger with every conscious breath.

My breathing seemed to be feeding it.

At that moment I immediately recognized Castaneda's descriptions of certain experiences of the second attention, which often begin with a vibration. Simply finding myself fully awake, completely conscious, while experiencing something like this filled me with immense joy.

For years I had wanted to experience something like this while fully awake.

In Dreaming, I have had countless experiences. I've crossed all the perceptual gates described by Castaneda, although I'm fully aware that my dreaming body still lacks the cohesion required, and even more so, that I still lack the sobriety necessary to act with true impeccability.

Most of the time I end up doing what I enjoy most: flying.

Or I travel to extraordinarily distant worlds, places from which I almost never manage to bring back any memories.

I know I need to strengthen my dreaming attention and gain greater control over it. It is a task that still lies ahead of me, and one I intend to undertake with complete seriousness.

When the vibration reached an intensity that is difficult to describe—so intense that reality itself seemed to tremble—I felt that the old sorcerer was asking me, or perhaps inviting me to choose where I wanted to go.

A destination.

Without giving it much thought, I formed my Intent.

"I want to go to the world where Don Juan went."

I had the impression that the presence immediately accepted my choice, almost as if acknowledging it with a slight nod, as though agreeing that it was an appropriate destination.

You may remember one of Castaneda's accounts in which Don Juan deliberately chooses a particular world where they are to meet—a place inhabited by small reddish beings, or something very similar.

Almost instinctively, I chose that same world.

Perhaps because, for quite some time now, I have had no greater personal interest than that.

I've always felt that Don Juan was something like a father figure, a companion on the path, or an old friend.

Perhaps that's inevitable after spending more than thirty years reading and listening to his teachings.

Since I was very young, his work has been the central focus of my study.

Unfortunately, I don't think I yet possessed the cohesion necessary to perceive that world clearly.

I remember seeing absolutely nothing, as if I had suddenly become blind.

Oddly enough, the absence of images didn't frustrate me in the slightest.

Quite the opposite.

I felt profoundly happy.

I had managed to make the leap from ordinary waking awareness into another realm of perception.

Knowing that such a thing was possible was enough.

I felt I was in a safe place—a strangely familiar place, in a way that's impossible for me to explain.

I don't know how long I remained there.

If the experience continued beyond what I can remember, my memory simply failed to preserve it.

When I became aware of my room again, my first thought was to write everything down immediately, just as Taisha Abelar probably would have done.

Instead, I decided not to.

I preferred to leave the experience as just another stone on the path—a silent reference point that could integrate naturally into my life as I continued moving forward and building it from there.

Even so, I've now felt the urge to share it.

Mostly because tonight I want to lie down without fear, willing to face whatever may arise from contact with the Unknown.

No longer with the intention of hiding from it.

Nor of fighting it.

But simply of observing it.

To observe without running away.

To observe without reacting.

To observe... without dying of fear in the process.

Perhaps the Litany Against Fear recited by the Bene Gesserit in Dune can also serve as a useful tool during those moments when contact with the Unknown causes our entire body to interpret the situation as an imminent threat.

Not because the words possess any magical power in themselves, but because they help sustain our attention and prevent fear from taking control.

Yet, beyond those words, I believe there is something even more important.

To breathe.

To breathe consciously.

And to unite every breath with the Intent behind our purpose.

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

I wanted to leave this account in writing in the hope that it may be of some help to other travelers along the path.

I sincerely believe there is far more to reality than our reason is willing to accept. Entire regions of perception remain beyond the reach of our ordinary awareness.

I also believe that not everything we encounter in those realms should automatically be regarded as an enemy.

Perhaps there are allies.

Perhaps there are beings whose true nature we still do not understand.

Or perhaps some of them are simply other forms of life with whom, one day, we may learn to relate.

Whatever the case may be, I'd like anyone reading these lines to know that there are also beings who have helped us since ancient times—that we still mean something to them, and that they have not simply abandoned us to oblivion.

Just as I consider them companions, you may also consider me a friend... or simply a fellow traveler on the path.

I'm currently reading Stalking with the Double by Taisha Abelar.

I have the impression that this book offers a perspective on Stalking that is only briefly developed throughout Castaneda's own work.

One aspect that especially caught my attention is the importance Taisha gives to breathing when it is deliberately joined with Intent.

She describes how a practitioner nourishes Intent through breathing, using each breath as a vehicle for directing energy toward a specific objective.

It isn't simply a matter of breathing.

It is about directing every breath with absolute precision until the entire body begins responding to Intent.

In some passages she even describes processes of physical transformation, such as assuming the form of a crow while fully awake—not from the state of Dreaming, but from ordinary waking awareness.

Regardless of how each reader chooses to interpret those descriptions, the underlying principle is extraordinarily interesting.

Breathing ceases to be an automatic biological function and becomes a deliberate manifestation of Intent.

While I was going through the experience I described from the previous night, I realized that, without consciously planning it, I was doing exactly that.

Every breath seemed to strengthen the vibration.

Every inhalation and every exhalation intensified it.

Perhaps that was the real lesson behind the experience.

Not the appearance of a presence.

Not the vibration.

Not even the possible encounter with an old sorcerer.

But discovering that it was possible to remain completely still before fear without surrendering control of my attention to it.

And perhaps even to use that very emotion—fear itself—to loosen the assemblage point, allowing it to move toward whatever destination we truly wish to reach.

That night I understood something I had been overlooking for a very long time.

I had finally confronted a fear that had shaped the way I slept—and the way I related to the Unknown—for years.

I'm not talking about ordinary fears such as losing a job, a home, or a relationship.

I'm talking about something entirely different.

A visceral fear.

The kind of fear that makes the body react before the mind has time to intervene.

The kind that sends your heart racing, floods your body with adrenaline, and prepares every instinct for survival.

It wasn't an abstract fear of the Unknown.

It was the fear that arises when you come face to face with something your reason simply cannot classify.

When a presence appears that, by every conventional standard, shouldn't be there.

I've had experiences like this ever since I was a child.

I remember lying in bed and sensing enormous presences in my room.

Some seemed to remain perfectly still in a corner.

Others gave the impression of hiding beneath the bed.

Sometimes I felt a hand slowly moving across the mattress, very much like Thing from The Addams Family. It would rush toward the place where I was lying and, once it reached me, it would cover my face with its hand as if trying to suffocate me, terrifying me beyond words.

Eventually I developed a kind of protective ritual.

It was my way of surviving those nights.

I would wrap myself tightly in the sheets and blankets until I had formed something like a cocoon.

Then I would remain completely motionless.

If I sensed something approaching from one side, I would roll over without leaving the exact same spot on the bed, making sure that my protective wrapping remained intact.

I always lay on my right side and rolled toward my left while keeping my body in exactly the same position.

Years later, half jokingly, I began calling it my "sandwich technique."

Today I realize that what I was actually doing was building an energetic shelter.

I needed to create a barrier between those presences and myself.

As time went by, I stopped hiding.

I began to face them.

I can't say exactly when that change took place, but one day I realized that my response was no longer fear—it was combat.

Whenever I sensed a presence, I tried to attack it with everything I had.

I had practiced martial arts since childhood. I grew up watching anime and playing video games, so my imagination had an endless arsenal at its disposal: punches, shields, energy blasts, devastating attacks...

It may sound amusing now, but at the time it was completely real to me. It was the only way I knew to regain a sense of peace and keep those experiences from disturbing me.

All my energy was focused on a single objective:

To drive out whatever had invaded my space.

And, almost every time, the presence disappeared.

Either my attention simply stopped perceiving it...

Or perhaps I had actually destroyed it.

To this day, I still don't know which of the two was really happening.

Not long ago, I finished building my own house.

I built almost all of it with my own hands.

Every wall.

Every electrical installation.

Every pipe.

Every wire.

While I was building it, I felt that I was also creating a place of rest—a place where I would finally be able to live in peace.

Yet after I finished it, the experiences continued.

It became common for me to lie down, relax my body, and suddenly feel something slowly sit beside me on the bed, making the mattress sink.

At other times I had the impression that a dense, oval-shaped energetic form was rising up through the mattress from below.

Sometimes it was a skeletal hand touching my ribs and making me jump.

Sometimes someone would grab my big toe.

Occasionally it seemed like a small animal.

A rat.

A reptile.

A snake slowly crawling across my body or near my face.

My reaction was always the same.

An immediate surge of adrenaline.

My body entered combat before I even had time to think.

I would leap out of bed and throw everything I had—my full Intent, every attack I could imagine—at whatever I had just perceived, until it finally disappeared... or until I could no longer sense it.

But even after everything was over, a deep feeling of uneasiness remained.

It was very difficult to regain my calm.

There was even a period, lasting almost a year, when I deliberately avoided sleeping at night.

I preferred to wait until dawn before allowing myself to rest.

Daylight seemed to restore an order to the world that disappeared during the night.

Or perhaps I was simply so exhausted by then that I could finally fall asleep without perceiving anything else.

I often wondered why these experiences kept happening.

I had tried to protect myself in every way I knew.

Then another possibility gradually began to emerge.

What if they weren't enemies?

What if some of those presences were actually allies?

What if certain apparitions existed only to shake us out of our complacency and remind us that ordinary reality does not exhaust all possibilities of perception?

I've never found a definitive answer.

For nearly a decade I had set aside my own path of spiritual growth in order to build my house and devote myself to my work.

At times, it almost seemed as though the Spirit itself was calling me back to the path.

All I know is that Dreaming has brought me into contact with beings of many different kinds.

Some appeared completely harmless.

Others were extraordinarily powerful—even physically invulnerable.

I even encountered entities before which any attempt at resistance seemed completely futile.

The only struggle left was against your own death, without panic, because death itself felt inevitable and impossible to escape.

But all of those experiences belonged to Dreaming.

That night was different.

I was fully awake.

And it was precisely then that something occurred to me that had never crossed my mind before.

There was no need to hide.

There was no need to attack.

There was a third possibility.

To observe.

Simply observe.

Without interpreting.

Without judging.

Without reacting.

To my surprise, that attitude proved infinitely more effective than every form of combat I had relied on for all those years.

Today I look forward to night with a sense of calm I hadn't experienced in a very long time.

Not because I believe I have conquered fear.

But because, for the first time, I feel that I have stopped obeying it.

For a long time, I believed that the problem was those presences.

I thought I simply needed to become better at protecting myself, hiding more effectively, or fighting harder.

Now I suspect the real problem was never them.

The real enemy was fear.

Not the presences.

Not Dreaming.

Not the Unknown.

Fear.

And as Don Juan explains, fear possesses an extraordinary quality: it stops learning long before we have the chance to understand what stands before us.

For years I obeyed fear without realizing it.

First I hid.

Then I fought.

In both cases, fear was making the decisions for me.

That night something different happened.

I did nothing.

I breathed.

I observed.

I waited.

And I discovered that fear began losing its strength the very moment I stopped feeding it with my reactions.

It was then that I understood something else:

Observing is also a form of action.

Perhaps a far more difficult one than fighting.

Because fighting is easy when your body is flooded with adrenaline.

What is truly difficult is remaining perfectly still while every instinct in your body is demanding that you either run... or attack.

In Carlos Castaneda's work, Don Juan says that fear is the first natural enemy of a man of knowledge.

For a long time I understood those words almost as a philosophical idea.

Now I believe I've come to understand them from a very different place.

Fear doesn't arise only when we face major decisions in life.

It also appears when perception begins to leave the territory of the known.

When reality stops behaving the way we expect it to.

When our explanation of the world is no longer sufficient.

At that moment, fear tries to restore the old order.

It urges us to turn back.

To search for immediate explanations.

To deny what we have just perceived.

Or simply to abandon the path.

Perhaps that is why Don Juan said that many men never become men of knowledge.

Not because they lack ability.

But because fear makes them retreat.

I cannot say with certainty what happened that night.

I cannot say whether that presence was an old sorcerer, an ally, a manifestation of Intent, or simply a form of perception I still don't understand.

And, to be honest, I feel less and less need to answer that question.

What truly mattered was something else.

Discovering that I could remain before it without losing my sobriety.

That I could breathe.

Observe.

And allow the experience to unfold on its own.

Without forcing an explanation upon it.

Sometimes I think we've spent our entire lives trying to answer too quickly.

We want to know immediately what we're seeing.

What it means.

Whether it represents a danger.

Whether we should fight.

Whether we should run.

Perhaps Stalking consists precisely in interrupting that impulse.

In remaining still long enough for the world itself to finish speaking to us.

This account is not intended to prove anything.

It is not evidence in support of any particular belief.

It is simply the record of a perception.

Another stone along my path.

If one day I discover that I misunderstood everything, I will accept that just as calmly.

Because the most valuable part of that night was never what appeared beside my bed.

It was discovering that another way of responding was possible.

That lesson will remain with me regardless of what the true origin of the experience may have been.

If this account serves any purpose, I hope it reminds others of one very simple idea.

When fear appears, it isn't always necessary to run.

Nor is it necessary to attack.

Sometimes it is enough simply to breathe.

To breathe with the fullest attention possible.

To unite each breath with Intent.

And to observe.

Perhaps, as happened to me that night, we'll discover that fear doesn't disappear.

It simply ceases to occupy the place from which it had been directing our lives.

And perhaps we can use that newly opened space in our awareness to propel ourselves toward new horizons.

That was, at least for me, the true encounter with the Unknown.

The First Enemy: Fear

After living through this experience, I understood more clearly why Don Juan called fear the first natural enemy of a man of knowledge.

When a person begins to venture into the Unknown, the world no longer responds to the certainties on which they once relied. What once seemed solid becomes uncertain, and reason alone is no longer enough to explain everything. That is when fear appears.

This is not just any kind of fear. It is the fear that arises when perception begins to leave the territory of the known.

The problem is not feeling fear.

The problem begins when we allow fear to make our decisions for us.

If the apprentice turns back, the journey ends there.

If he continues forward with sobriety, fear gradually loses its hold over him, and the next enemy appears.

Don Juan taught that every man of knowledge must eventually face four natural enemies:

• Fear, which seeks to stop learning before it truly begins.
• Clarity, which convinces us that we already understand everything.
• Power, which can corrupt the warrior's impeccability.
• Old Age, the final enemy—one that no one defeats, but which can be faced with dignity.

This account belongs, without any doubt, to the first of them.