Honestly this has very little to do with Castaneda, but I don't know where else to go. I'm in desperate need of some advice so please bear with me.
I think my consciousness is being stalked by an entity from my dreams.
Let me start by saying that I've been lucid dreaming for years now, and most of my dreams are lucid. I almost never have nightmares since I can just change the shape of the dream to be more pleasant. Or wake myself up. But about a week ago things changed.
I fell asleep watching an "Aura fluffing" reiki video. Or at least I thought I did, but looking back it must have been an out of body experience. I was hyper aware of my body on the bed (I could feel the sheets on my skin, my eyeballs moving under my eyelids) and I felt awake. But I was floating next to my bed, and the room looked exactly like it did when I laid down. I didn't know how to handle an out of body experience so I decided not to explore, for safety. I went back into my body after a few moments and fully went to sleep. Nothing happened until the next day.
I was napping, listening to another reiki video. I was having a non-lucid dream when I started to wake up. My body felt too heavy and my vision was blurry. I felt like I couldn't fully control my limbs and I was starting to panic. When my vision finally cleared a bit, I realized I was not in my room. I was in a bedroom, in a bed, but it wan't mine. Horrifically, I realized it wasn't my body either. I tried to gain awareness of my own body and couldn't connect myself to it. I had an instinctual feeling that I had been placed in this body against my will. I started screaming in my mind that I wanted to go back. That whatever had done this couldn't keep me there. I saw a blinding red flash, and then I woke up in my own bed. My heart was racing and my vision was blurry.
I was terrified but I didn't know what to do. I told myself it was a nightmare.
Then a few days later, I again fell asleep to a reiki video. I was lucid dreaming, not really changing the landscape, just aware that I was dreaming. A sudden, overwhelming terror came over me. I didn't know why, nothing had changed, but I didn't feel safe. I became aware of a presence around me. I didn't see or hear anything. I don't know why, but I believed it was the same thing that I had screamed at in the previous dream. It took me far longer than normal to wake myself up, before I did I saw the same, blinding flash of red light.
The final dream was last night. Again, I fell asleep to a video, this time guided meditation with Tibetan singing bowls. I was lucid dreaming, and sitting in the side yard of my mother's house. I made it to be spring, and added a small fountain. I was listening to the guided meditation and meditating when the sound of the bowls became discordant. Then the voice from the video became distorted, and I felt the same presence I had before. It felt smug. Like it was enjoying itself. The fountain broke apart, and the sky got dark. Dark clouds like smoke rolled in, and sank lower and lower to the ground. I desperately tried to wake myself up, but it was taking even longer. The clouds snaked toward me in tendrils, like tornadoes. The ground began to shake, and all the time the sound of the bowls became louder and more discordant until I saw the red light again and woke up panting, the video still playing. The voice and the bowls now normal. I had been asleep for less than an hour.
I sat awake for about 20 minutes. I did some breathing and thought abut just staying up, but I had a long day ahead of me so I decided to try to sleep. I laid down and as soon as I closed my eyes-I don't even think I was asleep it was so instantaneous- I had a vision of myself looking in the rear-view mirror of a car, looking at a great red flash, like an explosion. It was blinding. When I opened my eyes I had spots in my vision, like I had looked at the sun.
I smudged my room with palo santo and didn't sleep for a long time.
I don't know what to do. I'm afraid to sleep because I'm worried that thing will find me. My dad has read all of Castaneda's books and he told me they would help, but it will be some time before they arrive and I don't know what to do in the meantime.
I've never had anything overpower me while I was aware I was dreaming. Not even in a nightmare. And I could feel it. Like when you can feel someone looking at you from across the room.
Did the out of body experience trigger this? Did I accidentally attract something?
Any advice at all would be a comfort.
5 Comments
You might try r/LucidDreaming. There are experienced dreamers there who might be helpful interpreting the symbolism of your dreams.
I agree with your father that Castaneda's books could be helpful, especially the ideas of impeccability and sovereignty, more so than any particular dreaming technique. I suggest reading chapter six of The Second Ring of Power.
You might consider the possibility that what you fear as an external entity is really a part of yourself. This is actually true in the greater sense of self. Any "other" that shows up in one's experience only does so to personify a part of oneself for the purpose of eventual acceptance and integration.
Wholeness and balance is achieved only after grappling with one's shadow self, one's inner demon. Most people would rather not deal with this (because it is so difficult) and instead opt for the distraction of a superficial version of "love and light" and so postpone the inevitable. But the day comes when distractions no longer work and there is nothing else to do but to stand your ground and face it.
One of my teachers once told me a story about Padre Pio, who had stigmata. It was said that there would be loud noises coming from his room. When he finally emerged from his room, tired but peaceful, he would say to his concerned brothers, "Oh, I was just wrestling with the demons."
As someone who has read Castaneda, fascinated by his artistry and the way he is still an unknown quantity decades after his death, I can only comment on what I've read and the few dreaming experiences I've had. Castaneda never called dreaming Lucid Dreaming in his books. He presented it as a form of sorcery that could include transportation similar to out of body references. That being said, dreaming was a centerpiece of his writings and he often spoke of those "teachings," such as being instructed by Don Juan to try and look at his hands in his dreams. A book with similar teacher-student instructions in a spiritual school of thought is the excellent Zen In the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigil.
Castaneda related that it took immense "energy" which had to be stored up to reach a dreaming state. He also spoke of terror when first approaching this ability. Indeed, most of his books after the first one The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge hinge upon Castaneda's doubting his own sanity. I think many of these books are masterfully written volumes in their own right, regardless of authenticity.
I've achieved few and limited lucid dreaming experiences, more oftening getting 'trapped' in nested dreams with false awakenings. (The dream within the dream experience.) But sometimes in these dreams I've felt the nameless terror that isn't tied to monsters or nightmare images, and can relate to your experience.
It seems to me that there is some truth to Castaneda's claims that Don Juan's sorcery can be dangerous, frightening, and requiring of great energy (whatever that means to you) to master or at least control. I would recommend reading the books, you might find some insights. But do proceed with caution in your lucid dreaming. It can be psychologically taxing. Hope this helps.
I realize this is r/Castaneda, but you may want to do the following.
Have yourself checked neurologically. I lost my wife to a fungal infection that spread to her brain. She was always magical and considered herself a witch from a very young age. As Don Juan would say, the magical life forces you to drop the shields of every day living. What we interpreted as magical experiences were actually the insulation on her dendrites being eaten away. It turns out a $50 anti-fungal medication would have saved her life. I wake up to this realization every day.
Additionally there is a lot of information in Castaneda's Tale's of Power throughout the chapters leading up to and including the Dreamer and the Dreamed. One of the fundamental concepts in the world of sorcerers is setting up a double through dreaming. A warrior does such through an out of body experience similar to what you described.
You have an interesting situation on your hands, and it seems like none of the other commenters have anything helpful to contribute. I have some ideas though. First and foremost, maybe stop falling asleep while watching videos. They may be unknowingly opening you up or making you energetically vulnerable.
For most people who do not practice these arts, there is a sort of barrier between them and other supernatural realms. They dont notice otherworldly beings, and the beings dont notice them. When u train these skills up and begin lucid dreaming and such, you cross the barrier into the other realms and thus become much more noticeable to various entities. Some of them are merely curious, some are neutral, and some are actively mischievious or malovolent. I've read that some entities like to feed off of human emotions because of how powerful they can be.
It seems like this red flash thing wants to fuck with you to make u feel fear, so it can feed off of that, or it may just get a kick out of it or could even be testing or experimenting on you. Think of it like this. You're a foreigner, encroaching on this being's habitat. If u go out into the wilderness and enter a bear's territory, they're not gonna take kindly to you, so u would bring some kind of protection (a rifle, or something to make u appear bigger to scare it off, etc.) Understand that this thing probably cant harm you if you dont allow it to feed off your energy. I think its crucial to quiet your mind and stop your fears. Approach the whole thing scientifically if that helps. Set clear boundaries, in your mind, or speak em outloud, forcefully. Let this thing know that u respect it but you are not going to let it fuck with you anymore. You are a sovereign soul and are in control of your own energy. If you're lucid dreaming, you could probably conjure up some forcefields to protect yourself. I would avoid conjuring weapons and actively antagonizing the being though.
Anyways, this was just my 2 cents (or 10, cuz this went on longer than I thought) and I hope this helps you out. But take everything with a grain of salt and do what feels right to you.