dreaming/dreaming_compendium

DREAMING COMPENDIUM

Intro

It could be the case that some editing should be done in this section. That some of what's in it could be removed and/or replaced by a few choice passages from the books and the subreddit, as opposed to the lucid dreaming experiences of workshop practitioners in the 1990's.

But there is an argument for keeping this material in here, because comparing and contrasting older experiences and methods from past generations is HIGHLY useful.

Learn from the past, or be doomed to repeat it.

And our dreaming experiences are already in here.

From April 2023 Public Chat:

NightComprehensive52: I noticed that when using silence to enter lucid dreams, that I more often than not tend to enter the dream already aware, rather than needing to check my hands. I ofc built the habit of checking anyway, and immediately finding an object to prevent the dream from collapsing, but I was wondering if it's something to do with going from awake, to dreaming, that allows you to carry lucidity like that? When using silence to enter dreams you are able to skip the beginning stages of sleep and immediately enter rem, which is a lot more effective than most lucid dreaming techniques I've seen. Like it's effective enough that I had 2 lucid dreams back to back this morning, which I've never been able to achieve with any other "techniques" you find online

superr: That technique eludes me. It's just sooo hard to enter dreaming while awake. I've only done it one time and it was an incredible transition from wake to sleeping dreams with full consciousness

Of course I lost lucidity quickly once I entered dreaming though

NightComprehensive52: Yea that's a common occurrence for me, Dan's trick of grabbing the nearest object is plenty enough to stop me from immediately waking up though. The pain is that with silence, it's incredibly easy to just pass out immediately and not retain lucidity at all

U rlly gotta play with the hypnagogia until it naturally forms something vague, then focus on that image until it becomes a dream

Once that happenes the slip is complete and u kept ur awareness, but it isn't full proof

I'm sure it can be though, with some more practice, but the pains of sleeping stuff is how much time it costs

silence_sam: The only way ive been able to enter directly into a dream has been by sleeping a few hours first. I have to get up and move around for a minute or two so im not so sleepy and can hold focus. Its worth a shot on the weekend anyway when you can lay around in bed

some of the traditional lucid dreaming techniques do seem to work, just not as often as i’d like!

The more time i spend just on silence until im in that hypno state amd seeing dream scenes or visions, the better im able to focus and sort of “hold it” it seems to build on itself with practice practice practice

just like Dans simple silence technique post, from the very beginning. Its all in there. the nuances of the technique are a little different for everyone it seems. Does no good to try to copy someone’s instructions exactly, you have to feel your own way in. We’re all dirty in our own special way

monkeyguy999: I just sit there looking externally or through eyelids. Watching the colors, sparkles, objects...whatever. once you see hynogogic images, turn your focus gently to them. Iobs can show up around this time, well the ones that hang out around me. Additionally ....the first on purpose lucid dream I ever had as a young teenager. Was putting myself in a book as a character. So made a dream and put myself in it. Although that isnt what we are doing here. I think unless you are female.

Problem is having enough energy to continue the Lucidity.

NightComprehensive52: Most lucid dreaming techniques only work maybe once or twice a month at best, which I think dan addressed. Personally I've only been able to keep somewhat consistent results through the steps dan talked ab. I do find it far easier to achieve lucid dreams in naps though, so your idea on being able to keep focus that way makes sense u/silence_sam

the-mad-prophet: Going directly in from awake is much better and it becomes easier and easier with practice. I can only speak for witches though.
I do believe that's why Don Juan's first instruction to Carlos in the Art of Dreaming is to become aware of the transition from waking to sleeping.
It's easy to miss in the text, because Carlos has an experience that causes Don Juan to change his instructions to him specifically to look for his hands.

So it looks like 'look for your hands' is the first instruction, but it isn't. It was always 'find the transition'. When you get good at finding and holding the transition point, entering directly from awake becomes easy.
But like Silence Sam said, we are all dirty in our own way.

tabdrops: Good to know. I had focused on the transition since ever. But I thought it was sleeping dreaming, what afterwards happens. Now I'll consider it as the opportunity to train waking dreaming.

silence_sam: Dan regarding the instructions from the books, i don’t remember exactly where but its the part about “Setting up dreaming”. Where you intend to be aware of falling asleep, i think he says for your energy body to become aware of falling asleep. That's setting it up for yourself, everything else can obviously only be done once you’re in

Im sure its in the art of dreaming but i don't have time to search right now. I can later if someone doesn’t find it first

Recognizing that “instructions” are very personal and subjective, my understanding has been that im sort of looking for an opening, like a door to slide through. Staying aware and silent as much as possible until you pass out, and then trying to remember as much as possible about what i just experienced. More and more a person could remember or be aware deeper and deeper, until you can slip through while remaining conciously aware/remembering. Sort of linking both sides of your awareness through that opening. It feels like an opening to me. An IOB (or myself somehow) told me “thats the window” when i hit it the first time.
take that with a grain of salt, it'll be different for everyone.

the-mad-prophet: More accurately to what I said before; Don Juan does give Carlos the task of finding his hands. But the First Gate of Dreaming is finding the transition between waking and sleeping.

"The first gate is a threshold we must cross by becoming aware of a particular sensation before deep sleep," he said. "A sensation which is like a pleasant heaviness that doesn't let us open our eyes. We reach that gate the instant we become aware that we're falling asleep; suspended in darkness and heaviness.""
and later that chapter: ""One can certainly put it that way," he said. "In this particular instance, since we're talking about the first gate of dreaming, the goal of dreaming is to intend that your energy body becomes aware that you are falling asleep. Don't try to force yourself to be aware of falling asleep. Let your energy body do it. To intend is to wish without wishing, to do without doing."

"To ask a dreamer to find a determined item in his dreams is a subterfuge," he said. "The real issue is to become aware that one is falling asleep. And, strange as it may seem, that doesn't happen by commanding oneself to be aware that one is falling asleep, but by sustaining the sight of whatever one is looking at in a dream.""

"What does it mean to pass the first gate of dreaming?"

"We reach the first gate of dreaming by becoming aware that we are falling asleep, or by having, like you did, a gigantically real dream. Once we reach the gate, we must cross it by being able to sustain the sight of any item of our dreams.""

So be aware of the transition, then sustain the sight.

I think I'm still mad at O'Neill for saying that finding your hands is the first gate

NightComprehensive52: Aaaa getting g that transition phrase right for the lucid dream was a bit annoying this morning. I kept seeing a dream image but couldn't get it to solidify sadly. I'd see it, focus too much? And it would disappear.

Like I said yesterday, it's still a bit of trial and error. Tensegrity prior to it helps a TON though. It was very easy to get a clear veiw of some hypnagogic hallucination, I think my excitement or eagerness may have screwed it up though...

...One thing I've noticed with the whole dreaming endeavor is that certain things u simply KNOW how to do? The only real catch is finding the transition phase, but knowing how to maintain the dream and make changes to it is something that sorta comes naturally ig? For example, if I wanted to fly in the dream, I could simply will myself to do that. If I wanted to go through a glass window to grab an object behind it, I can do that through "willing it"

Now that I am awake though it feels impossible to actually describe what "willing it" entails

Now that I am finally on the art of dreaming, this is in part explained as a matter of intending it. Don Juan also describes the feeling before entering a dream, which I found a great marker in my last attempt: a heavenly feeling of heaviness. Personally to me, it feels as if your body is already asleep, I imagine it is what sleep paralysis feels like. Such a deep sleep though that you don't even want to open your eyes. From here entering dreaming is rlly just a matter of staying silent and not letting yourself screw it up with feelings of anxiety or excitement
Currently my main focus is on perfecting the act of intending, since I don't fully understand how I am able to do that on some occasions, even with great ease, while on others it's virtually impossible

Also important note, that heavenly heaviness comes as a sudden wave, it isn't rlly eased into. It's as if something just clicks into place and suddenly u are hit with the feeling of "heaviness." Something else seemed to occur to my general awareness once that happened, but I'm gonna have e to trigger it again to accurately explain what it felt like

the-mad-prophet: I think it might change too over time. For instance, I don't feel it as heaviness, but maybe I did in the past? For me now it's a fuzziness in my body and a great sense of relaxation, but I feel light and soft rather than heavy.

NightComprehensive52: Sure, either way I think it's the feeling of sleep paralysis setting in but I could be wrong. The point is, according to Don Juan atleast, being able to catch that feeling is the first step in the first gate, as it shows that we have slipped into deep sleep

Resent-From: [email protected]

Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 22:06:00 GMT

From: [email protected] (Ian CR Mapleson)

To: [email protected]

Subject: Dreaming: hints, tips and general info: the help file. Warning! VERY long! Save and read for later! :D

Reply-To: [email protected]

Some general hints and tips on Dreaming techniques.

Send all comments, suggestions, and extra tips and info to be added to:

[email protected]

Ian.

The Doom Help Service (DHS).
Co-ordinator of rec.games.computer.doom.help.

WWW addresses:

Home page: http://www.cee.hw.ac.uk/~mapleson/

::: ::: ::: :::

Important note: For more detailed info on all things discussed here, read the
books written by Carlos Castaneda (CC for short). These are:

The Teachings of Don Juan, A Yaqi Way of Knowledge,
A Separate Reality,
Journey to Ixtlan,
Tales of Power,
The Fire Within,
The Eagles Gift,
The Second Ring of Power,
The Power of Silence,

His latest book is:

The Art of Dreaming.

There might be a tenth book called, 'The Art of Stalking'. We shall see.

By the way, if you end up reading them, note that the first book is very
'scientific' and TOTALLY unlike the others. This is because book 1 is
basically his thesis-in-a-book.

Actually, the above books are about a hell of a lot more than just dreaming,
but if it's dream techniques you're after, these are the books to go for,
especially books 6 and 9. A good method I would recommend is to read the books
in a random order and then to read them again in the published order. The
reason for this is difficult to explain unless you've read the books, so I
won't bother to explain. :)

Also, if you are female, there are books available now written by female
members of the group of people Carlos was with; these will probably contain
info that is especially relevant to you. As it happens, females can do this
sort of stuff much easier than males, in some ways. A girl I've only known
for a year has been doing this stuff for just that long, since I met her (I
lent her the books. Now she owns her own copies). But, already, she can do
stuff that I couldn't do even after 5 years! :D

It's not that CC's books are not for females, they are for both sexes, but I
suspect that the new books will probably have info that female Dreamers will
find more understandable because of the way it is presented perhaps. The
archetypes will be different, and so on. I can't say for sure because I
haven't read the new books, though I certainly intend to.

This file mainly consists of my answers to peoples' questions about Dreaming
(I capitalise the word because that's what I am, a Dreamer. The term is
defined in Carlos' books; there's not space to define it here - too
complex) that occured during email conversations which resulted from people
who were posting to alt.games.doom about them getting dreams about Doom after
playing the game for long periods; some people wanted to know how to control
the dreams, etc.; as it turned out, every single person who emailed me for
info, in response to my offer for said, was actually interested in dreaming
skills and altered perceptional states anyway, and so I began to construct
this file, to pool together the results of these conversations. As it stands,
this file isa the result of chatting to about 10 different people.

Here we go! :)

(NB: sorry if sometimes the same point is repeated; it often helps to have
the same thing written down in a different way, so I've left such instances
in)

> Dreams: I've been pretty delinquent in this area. I know a few techniques,
> namely keeping a dream journal and some stuff to work toward lucid dreaming,
> but I haven't been doing the work :-( ...

That's stage one. Scrap the journal. Only use mental recall to remember.

(Insert: actually, Carlos kept a complete written record of everything he
did. For some people, then, this method might work well. What I say here
about keeping written records is a generality. This applies to all that I
say here. If a specifc description of something doesn't work or give useful
results, then try something else, vary the parameters, sleep on your head
if need be! Experiment. Little of what I say here is completely concrete -
it is just stuff that applies to the majority of people and has worked for
me fairly well)

> ... I will get to it, though. What sorts of
> stuff do you do? What kinds of things does Casteneda prescribe? I haven't

Yeek, where do I begin??

Well, time control, dream-integrity control (maintaining dream stability),
dreaming skills (you name it! Flying, teleporting, TK, PK, the lot).

Lucid dreaming is fairly boring and mild compared with the skills learned
in Castanedan stuff.

For example, try going to sleep with the intent that you will dream that
you are lying down on some surface (say comfortable moss) in the same
posture that you are in when you go to bed.

Then, you have to intend that when this occurs, you will dream that you
fall asleep AGAIN, only this time you will dream-dream that you can get up,
move about, do whatever.

For some reason, you end up in a perceptual state which is FAR more real
than lucid dreaming (one I had honestly felt like it lasted 3 days. I was
only asleep 8 hours!), and far clearer and easier to control.

This can lead to problems of keeping track of which dreaming level you're
in though. Gotta be careful there! :)

Actually, the above is a pretty advanced technique, so you might not want to
try it at first. Do some of the other simple things first.

General tips though are things that you intend you will do/not do when
dreaming.

Examples:

don't stare at one particular spot for vey long. Look via glances, look
here, look there. Never stare at anything for more than a moment. If you
do, the dream will start to collapse; at least, it will when you're a
beginner. When you get better at Dreaming, you can hold a dream together
by sheer will alone, but that's a waste of energy - better just to not
stare at things too long anyway.
if a dream starts to collapse, it can help if you ram your hands into
whatever dream surface is available and claw it to shreds. This
maintains a perceptual contact with the dream world and helps to stop it
collapsing. I scragged a road in a dream and it stopped the dream
collapsing. A useful technique, but it gets superceded later by better
will.
Anything shouted in a dream is a command. This is very difficult to
remember. If you are in a tight spot, and you want out or something,
shout something like 'I intend that I have a BFG!' and PAFF! You'll
have one! Then you can start blasting! Works for me! I haven't had
nightmares in years. Anything comes near me in a dream and I just blow
the crap out of it! :D
This is the most DIFFICULT thing to remember: in a dream, you can do
ANYTHING, but to know you can do something, you have to have done it.
Rats. Catch 22. However, if you keep intending that you will do a
thing, eventually your reason gives in and it will work. Dream flying is
a good example. The first time you get a good one, you'll be blissfully
delighted when you wake up! The thing to remember is that dream skills
are just like any other skill. Start off small and work your way up.
And practice, practice, practice... :)

I use the Castanedan books because, so far, they have matched my prior
experience. The Castandean system is just a perceptual model, but it is very
flexible and can cover quite a large area of experience, via the use of a
concept known as the 'Assemblage Point' (the 'point' where perception is
'assembled').

Ahh.... You're into Lucid Dreaming? I am too. But I don't know the technique yet.

Hmm... a few tips then:

Try getting reeeeeeeally knackered and then going to sleep (like, stay up
for 36 hours, for instance). What can often happen is that one's body
goes to sleep but ones mind does not - excellent dreams result and often
those known as OOBE's (out of body experiences) as well. I've had many.
They're great fun! :) They can be a bit scary too, but you get used to
that.
Try focusing on something before you go to bed. eg. get hold of a photo
of a pleasant landscape, sit down and stare at it for 10 to 15 mins
before turning out the lights. Then, as you're lying there, will/intend/
imagine that, when you fall asleep, you will be in such a place. Good
dreamers can return again and again to the same place. I have one or two.
One has a sea that is actually blue! (I mean the water is genuinely blue,
like the colour of copper sulphate; no idea why! :D).

Actually, no reason why you couldn't use a Doom editor to construct a
cool landscape, minus monsters, etc., and run about that in the game for
half an hour before going to bed. Eventually, you'll dream of being in
that place.

Try not thinking. To not think, that is. VERY difficult to do. Takes much
practice. If you can manage this, lucid dreams are practically
guaranteed. Try it now! Right now! Try not thinking of ANYTHING at ALL!
Not a word! Zippo! Bet you can't do it. The idea here is to relax your
mind's 'attention' on the everyday mundane world, so that it can more
easily enter a dreaming state. What you do is get yourself in a
non-thinking state when you go to bed and then you have to 'watch' for
the moment you fall asleep, that is, be aware of that moment. At first,
when you try this, you'll tend to 'snap' back away from actually falling
asleep, you'll sortof wakeup with a start. This is because you're simply
not used to being aware of the moment you fall asleep! Eventually, with
practice, you can be aware of the moment in a way that doesn't prevent
you actually falling asleep. And so you're asleep, but you're concious!
At this stage, you can initiate a dream about whatever you like! You name
it! :) Note that this technique IS very difficult to do at first, so
don't expect instant results. If you do it right, the time sense of the
dream can be controlled as well. This can be very confusing if you decide
to 'dream' of something which lasts a long time. The longest continuous
such dream I've had lasted 3 days subjective time - in fact, I was only
asleep for about 8 hours. Bizarre! But a lot of fun! Gives you a sense of
having made up for lost time.
Try relaxation excercises. Many are available from books on Yoga. One
particularly good exercise is described in a book called 'Magic Mirrors',
available from the Sorcerers' Apprentice, in Leeds, England.
Try lying on your front or back, or basically going to sleep NOT on your
side. If you normally go to sleep on your front/back, try sleeping on
your side instead. The idea here is to upset ones normal routine. The
Carlos books recommend lying on one's front, but I find this difficult.
Lying on my back always seems to get me some good dreams, but not
everybody is the same. Experiment.
A dream within a dream.

Warning! This can be rather confusing if you don't mentally keep track of
what's going on! :D

The idea here is to have a dream within a dream. It's done by intending
that this will occur. The most powerful technique is to become aware that
you're dreaming, by whatever method, and, in that dream, deliberately lie
down (in the SAME posture that you're in in your actual bed) and fall
'asleep' AGAIN. The second level of dreaming you enter will be so real
you will NOT be able to tell the difference from reality, as far as
quality of image, smell, taste, touch, hearing, etc, is concerned, if
it's working well. Thus, you have to keep an eye on what 'level' of
dreaming you're in. I wouldn't want to contemplate what would happen if
you entered a 3rd level - two is fine enough for me thanks very much! :D

One time when I was in one such state, eventually I woke up, got up, went
to the kitchen, pottered about a bit feeling that something wasn't quite
as it should be and then woke up again. This can get confusing,
especially if it happens by accident, which it can if you were tired and
not concentrating when you went to sleep in the first place.

Dream abilities.

Coupla key concepts here:

You can do ANYTHING in a dream. That's so important I'll say it again!

A N Y T H I N G!!!

Trouble is, in order for you to be able to do something, you have to
know that you can do it! Oh dear. Catch 22. Well, almost! :)

Basically, some things are easier to do than others, so what you do is
intend that you will do (or be able to do) a particular thing,
repeatedly, night after night. A good example is flying (my forte :).
Every time you hit the sack, intend that you will fly in your dream. It
probably won't work at first, but eventually your brain/mind/whatever
gives in and whooosh! Off you go! My best dreams have been flying types.
I often zoom over a landscape of some kind, whilst shouting such things
as (and this is a quote) 'Yeeeeaaaaahooooo! I don't beLIEVE how fucking
REAL this is! Waaaaheeeee!'. That one was a particularly nice one. Lots
of rolling hills, quiet villages, etc.

The key is to remember that you can do anything at all. The bummer is
trying to recall that you can do a particular thing when you need to be
able to do it in a dream. Dream abilities are JUST like ordinary
abilities: they take practice. Such abilities include (these are my own,
at varying degrees of effectiveness):

Flight, invisibility, PK, TK, vision-zoom, teleport, item-summoning.

That last one means that you intend that a particular thing will appear
and, as a result, POW! It does. I've done this with a BFG in a dream. Got
into a sticky situation in a Doom type dream, demanded that a BFG
appear, it did, hence much imp butt was kicked. :)

Start off with easy things and work up. Flying is a good to begin with
'cos it's fun! (especially if the dream appears real enough).

On the subject of dream-flying: believe it or not, the "Hitch Hiker's
Guide to the Galaxy" books are remarkably accurate on how to do it; i.e.
in a dream, it's not so much a case of learning how to 'get your feet off
the ground', it's more a case of learning to forget how to keep one's
feet ON the ground. :) Douglas is into this stuff, I'm sure; there are so
many things in Hitch Hikers that sound like stuff from the Castanedan
books, it's ridiculous! S.E.P. fields... :) (stands for Somebody Else's
Problem).

Commands.

This is tricky to get used to because it's powerful and works very well.
Basically, anything you shout/say in a dream is a command. That is,
anything you 'announce' to the dream environment kinda becomes instant
law, as it were. I use the expression 'I intend that... <whatever>'.
For instance, in one dream, I was investigating something or other in a
shopping mall. Someone was approaching and so I said 'I intend that I am
invisible.' Bingo! I'm invisible! :)

The geek in question just walked on by. Never saw me at all (of course,
there's no way to tell whether I was invisible from the person's point of
view or whether I directly intended that the character wouldn't see me (such
that someone else I hadn't noticed would still be able to). Incidentally, it
might seem a little odd that I describe these things as if, when the dream
is occuring, the things one experiences are actually happening; more about
this in a minute).

Commands don't have to be worded this way, though. If what you say has
the intent within it anyway, then it will work just fine. A classic, if
rather Doom-esque example, is during a combat situation in a dream I once
had: some bad guy comes at me, so I point my finger at him and shout
'DIE!'. He did. Nyeheheh.... :)

Dream recall.

When you wake up, the most important thing to do is to remember what you
dreamed, to recall it. Ever tried to recall a word that's on the tip of
your tongue? Exactly WHAT is it that you are doing when you do this? What
are you feeling when you try to remember? Well, that's what you gotta
do to recall a dream. Remember. Recall. It's difficult to describe
because, in western languages, there is no word for it at all. It's only
in other cultures such as the Aboriginal Dreamtime that such concepts are
given names, gestures, etc. This just goes to show how little western
cultures care about one third of their lives! :D (think about it: you will
spend about 23 YEARS of your existence asleep).

In the system given in the Castanedan books, one would say that, to
remember a dream, one has to 'move the assemblage point to where it was
when you dreamed - whatever it was that you dreamed - when you dreamed
it'. Yeah, I know that doesn't make much sense; you'll just have to read
the books to understand that one. Sorry! :)

Anyway, to recall a dream, one way is to just sit on the bed for a few
minutes, eyes closed, and try to recall what happened. Tips: if you can
only remember fragments, try working/remembering backwards from a point
in the dream and then forwards again, etc. This helps to 'fill in the
gaps', rather like repeatedly painting over the same patch of wall with a
brush: each swipe fills over a little more.

If you don't remember much, be aware that, at some point during
the day, a brief image of the dream may suddenly pop into your head (at
work, in the loo, wherever). If this happens, stop what you're doing (if
possible. :) and exploit the moment - try and recall what you can. This can
often occur because of something in the real world that 'triggers' the
memory. When this happens, try alternating back and forth between trying to
remember the dream that the real-life event aroused and contemplating the
real-life event that was the trigger. It depends on the nature of the
trigger itself: it may be a sight, a sound, a smell, anything.

What you should be trying to do is to 're-live' the dream insofar as the
feelings you had when you were dreaming. This is especially important
for flying dreams - you have to remember what it felt like to fly. Oh,
by the way, don't even bother trying to explain to someone what these
feelings are like because you won't be able to - this kind of knowledge
is called 'Silent Knowledge' in the Castanedan books; i.e. that which
cannot be communicated, only experienced. I know what it's like to
dream-fly, but there's no way I can describe it; as Spock says to Bones in
'Star Trek III' when Bones is annoyed that Spock refuses to discuss death:
'we lack a common frame of reference'.

I mean, how do you describe to someone what the flavour 'strawberry' is
like, to someone who's never tasted it before? You can't. They simply
have to try it themselves. Nice little analogy that... :)

You could try and keep a dream diary but I don't bother with this as
you can rely on it too much to keep the details of your dreams, instead
of trying to improve your own recall dream abilities. I used to use a diary,
years ago, but it ends up being like a history book: the diary's contents
get relied upon too much as the basis for remembering the details of the
dream; something that, at the time, wasn't included becomes forever lost
because it's not there in the diary.

On the other hand, unless you deliberately recall remembered dreams every
now and then, the details can slip away. So I guess a diary of dream
reminders (kinda like pointers) to what happend might be useful; such a
reminder for me might be 'InsubZone', which relates to a fairly lengthy
adventure dream I had once about parallel dimensional travel. Just that
word brings back all the associated memories. If I tried to write down the
dream, it would become too much like a hard copy (I will be writing a story
based on the drea though, because it was rather good. (see Appendix A).

What IS useful is a dream tape. By this I mean that you keep a tape
recorder sitting next to your bed, ready to record. What I did was to
have the record button pressed, but the power was turned off at the wall.
An easily reached switch would then activate the power and start the
recording - no mucking about with 'record + play' at the same time, etc.

Thus, when you wake up, start the recording and just blabber away
anything you can remember. The cool thing is that you can do this with
the lights still off, which means you won't get the sights and sounds of
the new day 'deleting' your dream memory. Then, later, you can play back
the tape and use it to help you remember the dream properly. It's all
too easy to be able to fully remember a dream just after you've woken up,
but hours later the memory has almost gone. Carlos would say this is
because one's assemblage point is, just after waking up, still fairly
close to where it was when dreaming. Later, though, it's moved away and
so one can't remember. Listening to the tape can help bring the memories
back, perhaps because your voice will carry what you were feeling at the time
quite strongly and it's the feelings that are perhaps most important.

A final word:

This is a little bizarre, this bit, but make of it what you will. When
you get good at this kinda stuff, you can have dreams which, if they aren't
controlled properly by you, are so damned real that you can't tell the
difference between it and 'normal' reality. Ordinary dreams, and even lucid
dreams for the most part, tend to such that one is always aware, somewhere
at the back of one's mind, that one is just dreaming. But advanced dreams
can be different. Like I said, if you have a double dream (dream within a
dream) then, if you don't properly keep track of what you're doing and
maintain decent control, you can have the disturbing experience of waking up
more than once! 8|

This has happened to me about 3 times and it's very annoying.

Hence, therefore, and otherwise, when you're doing this stuff (this is the
crunch) you have to treat what happens in your dreams as if what is
happening is actually real; i.e. you are aware that what you are
experiencing is a dream, but you behave as if it were not, in a way. I
don't mean literally real, 'cos i.r.l. a lot of what goes on in dreams would
be pretty wierd! Here's an example reasn for this:

If you have a nightmare (I don't get these nowadays. Anything nasty that
comes near me in a dream gets SPLATTED! :D), and it's an advanced dream
(i.e. better than lucid) then the experience will scare the crap outa ya!
More than Doom in VR at 10000000 by 10000000 resolution could! Not nice.
Hence, don't arse around in advanced dreams. For the most part, they're mega
fun, if a bit scary at first. But if you get hassle in a dream, nuke first
and ask questions later! :D

Doom can help. Having clocked up so many hours of Plasma rifling things, you
should be able to 'summon' a suitable weapon at any time. Heh heh, 'I
intend that I have a chainsaw! <BZzzzzZZZZT!> <Splurch!>'.

Ha ha! Messy. :)

> I've had 2 lucid dreams. ...

I've had hundreds. Been at this stuff since the mid 80's. One of my best
spanned 30 millions years. Not subjective time, that is, but there was a
'jump' in the dream that was that long - kinda like a vinyl LP being the
flow of time and the needle suddenly skips a few places towards the middle.
One was watching so one got a damn good idea just how LONG 30 million years
really is. Oh boy... <mind splatted expression>

When I woke up, I staggered into the lounge and told my brother the entire
adventure (cool story! Gonna write it down sometime). He understood. He's
been doing this stuff longer than I have. Anyway, Mum comes in and says
'Would you like a cup of tea?'. A cup of TEA???!!! Ha ha! I just stared at
her like she was the Suez Crisis popping out for a bun or something. :)

My brother just said to her, 'Don't ask Mum, don't ask... <grin>'.

Ha ha! :D:D

This was way back in about 1989 I think, btw.

> ... But I got so excited I woke up. :(

This is a common problem. Start small and work your way up.

So why bother with all this stuff? you may ask. For me, there is one simple
reason:

Humans spend a third (that's right! A THIRD!) of their lives asleep.
Consider this simple fact carefully: out of an average 70 year life span,
you will spend some 23 YEARS of it asleep! Twenty three fucking YEARS! 8|

Hence, the least you can do is to spend as much of this time having as much
fun as you can! :D

Actually, try writing down some time just how much time you spend doing
various things: eating, sleeping, cooking, travelling, working, etc. Being
asleep comes in at number numero uno! :D

Be/do anything, go anywhere, see anyone, etc. That's dreams for ya.

I once saw a guy on a youth TV show here, years ago, who had had some kind
of accident which made it VERY easy for him to do this kinda stuff. Each
night, he would have a dream that (as far as he was concerned) lasted some
30 or 40 years, however long he wanted. He would be or do whatever he
wanted: film star, space marine :), gangster, president, assassin, 6
foot blonde female Swedish porn star, etc. His real world waking hours were,
for him, the actual dream world since they were so few. He looked...
distant, to say the least. Freaked the HELL out of the youth presenters! One
of them (ha ha) asked how old he was. He said he couldn't answer the
question. They persisted. He said that his physical age was nothing like the
actual number of years that he had, as far as he was concerned, been alive
for. His dreams were, from his viewpoint, reality. And reality, being so
brief and boring, was a dream. The presenter persisted for a rough figure,
an estimate. He said 'About 768 years, give or take a few.'. The presenter
didn't say very much after that! :D:D:D

It was very funny to watch! :D

There is one aspect to dreams I haven't mentioned and that is sex.

If you get good at Dreaming, you will probably find that, unless you're
happily married, etc, you will start to get some pretty hoopy sex-related
dreams. How you deal with this is entirely up to you. They can certainly be
very enjoyable (obviously. 8), but if you'd actually intended that you were
going to do something serious in your dream, like improving your flying
abilities, and the dream just goes haywire into a scene with you and 3 babes
(or guys if you're a girl, or whatever. :D) then it can be pretty annoying after
you wake up, kinda like 'Yeah, that was fun, but a bit of a waste of energy.
They're not real, after all. :/'

Thus, you have two choices:

            a. Will that such dreams will never occur.

Probably a bad move as doubtless one would want to have them on occasion,
although if you can do it and it doesn't bother you then go ahead.

            b. When such a scene begins in a dream, simply leave, etc.

Yeah, like that's gonna work! :D

Trouble with this is, if you're enjoying something in a dream, it can be
difficult to stop doing whatever it is that you're doing. Actually, perhaps a
good test of control in a dream is to will that some fantasy event occurs and
then when it happens summon the control to walk away from it. Doesn't have to
be sex related, either; it could be, for some people, the temptation of
binging on food, etc.

            c. Compromise.

I find this the best method. Example:

Take flying. If I was trying to do some serious dream-flying practice and
instead I end up on some dream-beach with The Girl Next Door, then I'd
simply intend that she come with me on the dream-flying trip. Those of you
who've read the part in the Hitch Hiker series about Arthur and Fenchurch
will know what I mean. :)

Then, along the way, depending on how I feel about whether the girl's presence
is helping or hindering what I'm trying to accomplish, I either allow the
situation to continue or I kindof fade them out, like a scene-change in a
movie.

> ... However,
> there are still a few things fuzzy. When I close my eyes do I keep my
> concentration on the void, or do I just try to drift off like I normally
> do? What are some good methods to 'stay aware' when I'm almost asleep?

This is very difficult to describe. You have to want to do a particular
thing, without consciously thinking about it. This is difficult to achieve
and takes practice. This is basically what is encapsulated within the
concept of 'intent'. Trying to remain aware during the transition into
sleep is tricky at best. One tends to start thinking about all sorts of
rubbish, from apples to hoovers to mountains playing guitars! :D

Thus the idea of being able to not think. One technique my brother uses is
what he calls 'Monitoring your thoughts'. This is where you sort of look at
each thing you're thinking, disspationately, kinda like you think something
and feel the equivalent of 'Ho hum. Yeah, so what?'. Eventually, your mind
gets bored with thinking and quits, because it's not impressing anybody.

All I can suggest is try. It took me weeks to manage, and even now I'm not
an expert (partly my own fault. I don't practice enough).

> The only one I know currently is to say something like "I'm aware that
> I'm dreaming" over and over again. Hmm, there were some other questions

I think that might be counter productive. Thinking anything deliberately
gives your mind something in the real world to 'hang on' to. Thus, when you
are about to go to sleep, you wake up!

Dreaming is kinda like riding a bike. You don't really know how you do it,
but you do it anyway, right?

I mean, as you're peddling, you don't conciously think 'left foot down,
right foot down, left hand pull break...', etc., do you? In a dream, it's
a mistake to try and conciously do anything! For example, do not try and
walk in a dream with your legs; you'll find it slow and cumbersome.
Instead, you have to will that you do a particular thing. The focus of
this 'will' should come from the area just below your navel. This sounds
really wierd, and it is. Don't forget that your abdomen contains a nerve
ganglion that is second only to your brain in complexity (that's why it
hurts so much to get punched in the belly). A good excercise is to
will/visualise/imagine that you have some kind of extra appendage, like and
arm, attatched to your stomach. Imagine that you are sweeping the ground
in front of you with it, kinda like a blind man's stick. It's an odd
concept, I know, but it seems to work. Thus, in a dream, you imagine moving
yourself forward by willing yourself to move, from the area below your
navel. Like I said before, there is a distinct lack of useable words to
describe all this. All I can suggest is that you try, and practice. I'd be
surprised if you get instant results. It's taken me a while and I'm still
nothing like as good as I need or want to be.

> that are gone right now, I'll ask them later when I remember them. I've
> been trying to lucid dream since I was 14. I have every now and then

Oddly enough, I was doing it by accident then, and very real they were too.

> (better than the holodeck on TNG!), ...

Absolutely! :D

> ... but as soon as I realize I'm dreaming
> I snap out of it. The longest it's ever last is around 3 seconds, and
> that's terrible. That's only happended three or four times that I can
> remember. ...

Bummer. My guess is that the surprise is too much and you then wake up.
More often than not, you'll try and do something in exactly the same way as
you would in the real world, like lift an arm up. This doesn't work. You
have to will such things to happen, not think such things to happen.

> ... When I close my eyes, am I supposed to concentrate on the
> 'colorful void' that multiples?

Nope. Just relax, do nothing, etc. But be aware, without thinking about it,
of what your intentions are, i.e. your intent. Incidentally, there is an eye
exercise which can eliminate the 'colorful void' you describe; email if you'd
like to know more.

> ... Sometimes I see the image I am trying to
> picture, ...

This is good and it's known as visualisation. There are techniques to
improve visualisation to the extent that you can actually see a full colour
image with your eyes closed (I know a girl who gets after-images from Doom
that are like this).

Closing your eyes and trying to 'see' the dream place you want to be in is
one way, yes.

> ... but it is VERY faint and disappears somewhat quickly. I know

Practice! You'll get better.

> these are a lot of questions, but please try to answer as many as you
> can, it is very important to me. Thanks a lot. . . .

I know how imortant it is to you because it's just as important to me.

Hope I've been of some help!

Thing to remember is that you won't get to Supreme Adept Dreamer in one
go. It takes time, energy and practice.

One thing:

If you do something in a dream that's unusual, like fly or throw a fireball,
then when you wake up you should instantly try and recall and remember
what it felt like to do what it was that you did (especially for flying).
Just try and remember in the same way that you'd try and remember something
that's 'on the tip of your tongue'. None of what you feel will be
describable, so don't even try to - it's not worth it! :D ie. don't try and
put it into words, just memorise the feeling that you had in the dream when
you did whatever it was that you did.

The idea here is to get your mind to become used to what it feels like to
do stuff in dreaming. Therefore, next time, it will be easier to do the same
thing once again.

More will be added to this file at a later date.

Appendix A:

I have had 3 dreams that I intend to write out into stories. One is about a man
who's 1st and 2nd attentions are the wrong way round; his waking state is our
dreaming state, and vice versa. He only realises after an Aboriginal shamen
sees him and says Hi. :) It's the first time anyone has directly addressed him
without him saying something to begin with. :D The shamen tells him that he must
find his real body, wherever it may be, and recombine with it. A difficult task
because he doesn't know where his real body is or even what his real body looks
like, not even whether it's male or female - all he's ever had were ghost-like
images. The story is called 'The Dreamer and the Dreamed'.

Incidentally, this dream-story was triggered after, in a dream, I found a book
case on a waste land. I opened the book case. Inside were some magazines, such
as 2000AD, etc. There were also some books. I pulled one out. It was 'The
Eagles Gift'. I looked at it and thought 'Cool!'. Then the dream story began.

Another I call the 'InsubZone', which is an acronym for 'Zone of
Insubstantiality'. This dream was even more real than the above one. It is
about a scientific type who is attempting to create a kind of dimensional warp
device for instantaneous travel. He creates a device allright, but it is not
what he was seeking. The device vibrates the object it is attatched to, not
through space, but through time. The result is that it vanishes, constantly
alternating between being a fraction of a second in the past and a fraction of
a second in the future, but never inbetween (kinda like a square wave
function). The actual fraction is about 1 kronon, or 1E-32 of a second. Anyway,
in his experiments, the objects just vanish and never return. He thinks
they're gone somewhere else. In fact, they're not; they're still there, just
vibrating through time. To find out for sure, he attatches the device to
himself. When he switches it on, everyone around him thinks he's gone, but he
can still see them clearly, though he cannot interact. He wanders around for a
while, which is difficult as there is an element of being able to 'phase'
through solid objects, and eventually turns the unit off. His colleagues are
delighted with the results, but he immediately sees danger. The project is
funded by the military and he fears they will use it as a weapon (imagine
being able to enter the Insub Zone and just waltz into your enemies bunker,
lower the bomb, set the timer for 2 minutes and you wander off. Boom!). His
superiors learn of the results and try to force him to continue. He decides to
enter the Insub Zone for good, taking all the necessary research data with
him, but they come after him...

The third dream story is a bit more over the top in terms of scale. It
concerns a race of beings who inhabit a planet which is dying, because the
star the planet orbits is dying; the star will nova within millenia. The 'high
council' type ruling body decides that they have only one option. They have no
space technology; it was never needed as their culture is based around psi
abilities. Hence, they decide to move the planet itself. This is done by
constructing the Mind, an entity which combines the sum total intent of all
the beings on the planet. This Mind is controlled by something that humans
might regard as a computer, but that's a bit simplistic. Either way, once each
being hands over control of its will to the Mind, said being no longer has
control anymore. The Mind is then in charge, with a mission to find a new star
to place the planet in orbit around.

There is, however, a restriction imposed upon the Mind: it must not find a
star about which there exists planets that are already inhabited.
Unfortunately, this is a problem because almost every suitable star already has,
by the very nature of the star being a suitable one, inhabited planets
orbiting it! 8|

And so the Mind moves the planet on again and again. 30 million years pass (re
my comment about the skipping record). By this time, the Mind has become
warped in its purpose. The individual beings are aware that that something has
gone wrong, but they cannot regain control and shut down the Mind.

And so the mind comes across a world and decides to orbit it, despite the
presence of life already there. The world isn't Earth, but something fairly
similar. A world in which corporate empires rule totally, where governments
are unheard of, commerce is all, especially military related commerce. The
civilisation has reached the outer planets, but not other stars. Mercenaries,
mining colonies and general not-so-nice places abound. Meantime the rich
luxuriate on skiing holidays on exotic moons, etc.

Into all this, comes the Mind. The planet is detected when it is very far
away, though no one suspects its true nature. A company sends out a team to
investigate, with the intent of possible new mining wealth. The second half of
the dream begins with this team's arrival on the approaching planet, and what
they find.

ftp://ftp.earth.com/pub/archive/cc/articles/ian-dreaming

Resent-From: [email protected]
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 1995 20:13:10 EST
From: [email protected] (Scott Dye)
To: [email protected]
Subject: Quotes From CC's Books on Dreaming
Reply-To: [email protected]

Hey everyone,

Here's More Notes on CC's Books, on Dreaming. I Hope someone will find them usefull.

My notation is as follows:

A= The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

B= A Separate Reality

C= Journey to Ixtlan

D= Tales of Power

E= The Second Ring of Power

F= The Eagle's Gift

G= The Fire From Within

H= The Power of Silence

I= The Art of Dreaming

[ Example: H-120 = The Power of Silence, Page 120 ]

>>Dreaming

= Dreaming is in essence the transformation of ordinary dreams into affairs
involving will. Dreamers, by engaging their attention of the nagual and
focusing it on the items and events of their ordinary dreams, change those
dreams into dreaming. E-278

= Dreaming is the not-doing of sleep. 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. They do not lack
sleep, but the effect of dreaming seems to be an increase of waking time,
owing to the use of the dreaming body. F-23

= A good rule of thumb is to pay extraordinary attention to dreams that
occur 3 or more times. F-50

= A dreamer should avoid sudden surprises or jolts, and take everything with
a grain of salt. F-50

= Dreaming is the not-doing of dreams, as you progress in not-doing you will
also progress in dreaming. If you tackle not-doing directly, you will know
what to do in dreaming. C-198

= Each warrior has his own way of dreaming. Each way is different. The
only thing which we all have in common is that we play tricks in order to
force ourselves to abandon the quest. The counter-measure is to persist in
spite of all the barriers and disappointments. D-11

= Three techniques that help dreaming: disrupting the routines of life, the
gait of power, and not-doing. These are avenues for learning new ways of
perceiving the world. D-249

= Dreaming is a practical aid devised by sorcerers, dreaming is training
yourself to let go without losing your marbles. D-250

= In dreaming we pay attention with the belly button; therefore it has to be
protected. We need a little warmth or a feeling that something is pressing
the belly button in order to hold the images in our dreams. In your dreams
you can find a brace for you belly button. I found a pebble in my dreams
that fit my belly button, and Don Juan made me look for it day after day in
water holes and canyons, until I found it. I made a belt for it and I still
wear it day and night.

= Dreaming tightens the layers of the luminous shell, or ties together their
two attentions, so there is no need for the center (attention of the nagual)
to push out. So sorcerers like Genaro and Juan might not ever die, because
their two attentions are so tightly together.

= As soon as one learns to do dreaming, any dream that one can remember is
no longer a dream, it's dreaming. F-140

= Dreaming is naturally a way of storing the second attention. F-141

= One strives to immobilize the second attention only in the learning
period. After that, one has to fight the almost invincible pull of the
second attention and give only cursory glances at everything. In dreaming
one has to be satisfied with the briefest possible views of everything. As
soon as one focuses on anything, one loses control. F-142

= What takes place in dreaming is the right and left side awareness are
wrapped up together. Both of them come together in a single bundle in the
dent, the depressed center of the second attention. To do dreaming one
needs to manipulate both the luminous body and the physical body. First,
the center of assembling for the second attention has to be made accessible
by being pushed in from the outside by someone else, or sucked in from
within by the dreamer. Second, in order to dislodge the first attention,
the centers of the physical body located in the midsection and the calves,
especially the right one, have to be stimulated and placed as close to one
another as possible until they seem to join. Then the sensation of being
bundled takes place and automatically the second attention takes over. F-259

= The right side, the rational awareness, is wrapped up inside the left side
in order to give the dreamer a sense of sobriety and rationality. It is an
inhibiting mechanism to protect the dreamer from excesses and bizarre
undertakings. F-261

= At first the new seers were hesitant to use dreaming. It was their belief
that dreaming, instead of fortifying, made warriors weak, compulsive,
capricious. The old seers were all like that. In order to offset the
unwanted effects of dreaming, the new seers developed a complex and rich
system of behavior called the warriors' way. With that system, the new
seers fortified themselves and acquired the internal strength they needed to
guide the shift of the assemblage point in dreams.

Internal strength meant a sense of composure, almost of indifference, a
feeling of being at ease, but above all, it meant a natural and profound
bent for examination, for understanding. These traits of character were
called sobriety.

= A life of Impeccability by itself leads unavoidably to a sense of sobriety,
and this in turn leads to the movement of the assemblage point. G-175-6

> Dreaming Body & > Dreaming Position

= Wherever the assemblage point moves in dreams is called the dreaming
position. The old seers became so good at keeping their dreaming position
that they were even able to wake up while their assemblage points were
anchored there. They call that state the Dreaming Body. G-175

=> Procedure for getting to the dreaming body

= It starts with an initial act, which by the fact of being sustained breeds
unbending intent. Unbending intent leads to internal silence, which leads
to inner strength needed to make the assemblage point shift in dreams to
suitable positions.

This sequence is the groundwork. The development of control comes as one
is able to maintain the dreaming position by doggedly holding on to the
vision of the dream. Thus inner strength gets fortified, which makes the
assemblage point shift into dreaming positions, which are more and more
suitable to fostering sobriety; in other words, dreams by themselves become
more and more manageable, even orderly. So, all in all, the procedure to
get to the dreaming body is Impeccability in our daily life. G-180-1

=>Ghost Dreaming

= Whoever does ghost dreaming is marked by fate to have ghost helpers and
allies. Those who are violent or destructive sometimes do it. (Carlos did
it because he dreamed of a saber toothed tiger, which doesn't exist anymore)
F-54

=>Steps to help dreaming

= The best way to enter into dreaming is to concentrate on the area just at
the tip of the sternum, at the top of the belly. 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,
this energy is called will. In women both come from the womb. F-136

= The Best position to start dreaming is to sit up on a soft mat with the
soles of your feet together, and your thighs flat on the mat. F-138

= The best time for dreaming is the late night or early morning hours. The
first attention of our fellow man around us causes interference, except when
they are asleep, when their first attention if dormant. F-138

=> Selecting a Topic in Dreaming

Choose a topic by deliberately holding an image in mind while shutting off
the internal dialogue. We have all done this whether we know it or not D-12

=>Set Up dreaming.

This means to have a concise and pragmatic control over the general
situation of a dream.

1= Decide to look at your hands in your dreams. The Trick is not just to
look at things but to sustain the sight of them. When they begin to change
shape you must look as something else, and then look at your hands again.
If you only glance briefly the images do not shift. Every time you look at
your hands you renew the power needed for dreaming, so in the beginning
don't look at too many different things. Four items will suffice every
time. Later on, you may enlarge the scope until you can cover all you want.
But as soon as the images begin to shift go back to your hands. It takes a
long time to perfect this technique. When you feel you can gaze at things
indefinitely you will be ready for a new technique. C-112

2= Next find object, look for specific features, such as building, streets
and so on. E-278

3= Learn to travel. First establish a place you want to go to. Pick a
well-know spot, then will yourself to go there. When you have mastered that
technique you have to learn to control the exact time of your traveling. C-113

4= As a final stage, draw the attention of the nagual to focus on the total
self. It's usually ushered in by a dream that many of us have had at one
time or another in which one is looking at oneself sleeping in bed. A
sorcer because his attention has developed enough to allow him to turn
around and engage himself in activity, as if in the world of everyday life.
From that moment on there is a breakage, a division of sorts in the
otherwise unified personality. The result of engaging the attention of the
nagual and developing it to the height and sophistication of our daily
attention of the world is how one teaches the double. E-278

Dreaming is Real when one has succeeded in bringing everything into focus.
Then there is no difference between what you do when you sleep and what out
do when you are not sleeping.

====>

Stages of falling asleep

Restful Vigil

Dynamic Vigil

Passive Witnessing

Dynamic Initiative

"But in talking with la Gorda I discovered such similarities in our experiences of dreaming that I ventured a possible classificatory scheme of the different stages.

Restful vigil is the preliminary state; a state in which the senses become dormant and yet one is aware. In my case, I had always perceived in this state a flood of reddish light; a light exactly like what one sees facing the sun with the eyelids tightly closed.

The second state of dreaming I called dynamic vigil. In this state the reddish light dissipates, as fog dissipates, and one is left looking at a scene, a tableau of sorts, which is static. One sees a three-dimensional picture, a frozen bit of something, a landscape, a street, a house, a person, a face, or anything.

I called the third state passive witnessing. In it the dreamer is no longer viewing a frozen bit of the world but is observing; eyewitnessing an event as it occurs. It is as if the primacy of the visual and auditory senses makes this state of dreaming mainly an affair of the eyes and ears.

The fourth state was the one in which I was drawn to act. In it one is compelled to enterprise; to take steps; to make the most of one's time. I called this state dynamic initiative."

Eagle's Gift

ftp://ftp.earth.com/pub/archive/cc/articles/notes-on-dreaming

Date: Wed, 09 Nov 1994 08:36:35 CST

From: [email protected]

Subject: File on Dreaming

Dreaming Experiences

((My present day comments are in double parentheses, like this))

First, a quote from the chapter "Becoming Accessible to Power" from
Journey to Ixtlan:

"I am going to teach you right here the first step to power."..."I am
going to teach you how to set up dreaming."...He explained that to
"set up dreaming" meant to have a concise and pragmatic control
over the general situation of a dream, comparable to the control one
has over any choice"...

"You must start by doing something very simple," he said. "Tonight in
your dreams you must look at your hands."

((The first time:))

I became aware while in a dream again. I seemed to be in my
parents' house in X, but I wasn't really sure because the room kept
changing. For most of the dream it was as it had been when I was
about twelve years old. When I became aware that I was myself, that
I was dreaming, and that I had volition, my first impulse, as usual,
was to rush outside into the yard. I was lying on the bed. I began to
struggle to move (it's really like a struggle to change your point of
view), but then I remembered what had happened the last few times.
I decided not to waste my energy this time, and thought that I would
follow Don Juan's recommendation and look at my hands.

The moment I decided to do that, all hell broke loose. The room
began to buzz with an ominous tone (or my ears did), and I felt a
heavy pressure all over. Thinking that I had better hurry before it got
too wierd, I flashed a command and quickly raised my hands to the
level of my face and...WOW! I did it!

I was exhilarated, but then frightened, for my hands, which I could
somehow see although the room was mostly dark, looked as though
they had been underwater for hours. They were wrinkled and it felt
like they were contorting under the heavy pressure around me which
seemed to focus on them. They also seemed slightly green in hue.

In the dream, I actually realized that my first attention was trying to
distract me, and, ignoring all the strange feelings, I sat up and moved
my hands into a stream of moonlight coming in the window. I could
then see them very clearly. They were still withered and felt strange.

At that point I got the idea that I could wake up in the dream, and
immediately began intending to assume the viewpoint of the room
completely. Simultaneously I heard two different voices and saw a
vision. The first voice was calm and commanding; it said "No, you
don't have enough energy, you'll die". The other voice cried
"POISON - POISON - POISON!", and I saw an image of bottles lined
up on the shelf with skulls and crossbones on them. The buzzing
increased. The pressure increased. For a moment I was terrified
because I couldn't move and I couldn't break the image of the dream.
I started wondering if I could get back to my normal awareness. The
best way of describing what came next is to say that I was somehow
able to relax and trust my personal power to get me out of it. I woke
up in my bed in Y.

((Right from the beginning, I was very taken with the idea of waking
up in a dream scene. It took me a while to get to the point of
acquiring the sobriety to accept that this was something I would need
to work up to.))

:::

"Every time you look at anything in your dreams it changes
shape."..."The trick in learning to set up dreaming is obviously not just
to look at things but to sustain the sight of them. Dreaming is real
when one has succeeded in bringing everything into focus. Then
there is no difference what you do when you sleep and what you do
when you are not sleeping."

..."pick one thing in advance and find it in your dreams. I said your
hands because they'll always be there. When they begin to change
shape you must move your sight away from them and pick something
else, and then look at your hands again. It takes a long time to
perfect this technique." (Ixtlan)

Again I had that strange experience of coming into awareness in the
middle of a dream. I was in some building in a dark stairwell. I
wanted to move to a lighter place before looking at my hands, but I
didn't want to take a chance on losing awareness, so I flashed the
command and raised them in the semi-darkness. They looked a little
withered. The right hand was closed while the left was open, even
though I was trying to hold them both open. I began to will the right
hand to open, and saw a "ghost hand" opening straight up out of a
closed fist. Then I decided to turn them around and stare at the
backs instead of the palms. That worked, both were very clear.

I quickly walked up the remaining stairs and went through a door (I
am never able to remember just how I get through doors; often it is
like I just walk right through them), finding myself in a large, dim
circular corridor. I raised my hands in front of my face, again looking
at the palms, and this time both hands were fine. I felt I was getting
stronger, becoming more aware. I began to walk slowly, taking brief
glances at the corridor and the corridor walls, then glancing back at
my hands which I kept extended in front of me with the palms face up.

All of a sudden a human came walking up behind me on my right. I
glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and put my hands down,
as he had been looking at me like "what the hell are you doing?". He
passed me and I kept walking to a slightly brighter lounge area that
branched off the corridor. I was sneaking glances at my hands
whenever I could. It was novel to be dreaming among people (there
were several in the lounge and in the corridor). I actually felt as if I
had to conceal my activities, very much as I do in waking
consciousness.

Then I came to a door to the outside, and decided to go out. It was a
bright sunny day (seemed to be about midday in spring or summer). I
realized where I was. I was on a college campus, and I had been
walking around in the Student Union building. I looked at my hands in
the sunshine, and feeling happy and strong, went walking out across
a lush green lawn. My body felt so good I began to run. Although I
was running quite fast, it was smooth and effortless. There were
students everywhere and I began to want to find a solitary dreaming
position.

I got the feeling that I had a room in one of the towers, and began to
make my way toward that tower, still quite aware that I was dreaming.
However, when I got to the door of my tower, there was a crowd.
Students were yelling stuff, the noise was irritating, and strangely,
there was a church service going on in the first floor lobby, blocking
my path to the elevators and the stairs. I resolved to walk right
through the middle of the service without losing my purpose, and set
out, but at that moment I awoke.

(Upon awakening I realized that it would be difficult for me to "select a
topic for dreaming" because I have no clear idea about where to go.)

:::

((It was this same desire to find a suitable place for dreaming that led
me to fly in dreaming the next time.))

I was dreaming. A bunch of ridiculous things were going on with a
group of people in some foreign city. They all had some sort of
designs on me and I couldn't seem to escape their machinations.
While attempting to lose some people who were tailing me, I was able
to have a sober moment, stopped, and raised my hands up and
looked at them. Instantly I was free of all the crap, detached, aware.

There was so much nonsense going on with the people in the street that
I decided the best thing to do would be to change locations. I
momentarily tried to picture the image of my house, but couldn't.
However, at that moment I started to feel very light, as if I could float.
So I willed myself to float up into the air, and still looking at my hands,
rose high into the sky. At several hundred feet, I began to look
around. I was in Athens or Rome or some place where there were
lots of ancient ruins. The sky was a beautiful blue, and the hillsides
were very green. Something that looked like a colliseum was kind of
fascinating to me. Just then I woke up.

:::

((The following dream describes what happened when I tried to share
my dreaming experiences with a friend. In case the dream does not
make it clear, this is something I would advise you not to do...))

M and I were in some very large building. We stepped outside. The
sky was filled with millions of birds. More birds than you could ever
imagine, the whole sky was practically black with them. But actually,
the birds were white. They were also quite large, about the size of hawks.

Then I noticed that the enormous oak trees on the lawn were also
filled with these birds, and I pointed this out to M who apparently had
not even noticed. I must emphasize that the trees were totally filled
with birds, to the point that it looked like the trees were made out of
birds. Then the birds in the trees began to swim like eels, and we
were looking at these incredible living structures in the trees, when
suddenly, off to my left a huge lightning bolt crashed down with an
immediate explosion. It had hit one of the largest oaks and split it
down the middle.

Half of the giant tree began to fall towards M and I. For some reason,
M didn't even seem to notice this either. I yelled at him, briefly
pointing at the descending tree, and shoved him perpendicular to its
path. When I shoved him I fell down, then scrambled on all fours as
fast as possible in the opposite direction. The dream ended when the
huge trunk crashed to the ground between us, narrowly missing us
both.

:::

"Ordinary dreams get very vivid as soon as you begin to set up
dreaming,"..."That vividness and clarity is a formidable barrier"..."You
have the worst mania. You write down everything you can." (Ixtlan)

((Yessir. And here are brief descriptions of a few of the more
amusing ordinary dreams I maniacally recorded during a several
month period of heavy dreaming:))

Dreamed I went to W's house ((an elderly man I met shortly after
learning to dream, who paints amazing scenes from his dreaming,
and is a master dreamer in his own right---indeed he might have been
my teacher but I disagreed with him on some fundamental issues (I
now wonder if he was actually right about them))), entered the house
by myself and unannounced, and went to look at the paintings on the
walls. There were three I'd never seen: one of some temple, and two
of an oriental man with his head shaved making the gesture of
humble prayer with his hands. For some reason, I was sure the
paintings were of me. One in particular seemed to even resemble me
closely. It was not a painting of a neophyte, but more of a "the master
as a young man" picture.

Dreamed I went to my grandmother's house, climbed the old hill, and
stood in front of a huge magnolia tree on which there remained but a
single large flower. With great sadness and respect, as if heralding
the end of a dynasty or something, I plucked the flower and smelled
its lovely sweet smell. ((Years later, October 1994 I dreamed: March
11 is the day (I will explain why this line is in this post at a later
time.)))

A dream of defeat. I dreamed that somehow I had obtained a list
containing the names of all those people who had been selected to
carry on Castaneda's tradition of knowledge. My name was not on
the list.

Water dream ((growing up I had dozens of water dreams---they
comprised my dreaming path in adolescence)). Hovering in the air, I
saw a beautiful clear pool where I could spy down from above and
watch every sort of fish as if they were all trapped in one little pool.
Then I gazed at a wide open bay, (somewhere up north), with a
spectacular snow-capped mountain shore-line. Woke up wondering
about the Exxon oil spill.

Dreamed I was part of a group that got to go to Leningrad (St.
Petersburg). I led a group of people from our tour in sneaking into
and exploring an art gallery that was closed. We got chased around
by security people, and in the process I somehow lost one of my
shoes. Upon awakening I found I had removed one of my socks in
my sleep, leaving the other one on.

Dreamed I picked fruit from a single gorgeous tree from which grew
several different kinds of exquisitely perfect fruit. ((Woke up and went
to the store and bought fruit))

Dreamed I was walking to my little shack home ((I actually did live in
a little shack)), through a fierce wind---leaves blowing everywhere.
But my home is in a little valley, with huge trees, and other scattered
huts. It is a different age, long ago. The wind is alive and becomes
part of me. It merges with the shrubs and trees and changes their
very appearance before my eyes into a rough-hewn painting of ancient
fierceness. We, the hut dwellers, know we are on borrowed time, fear
the power of the wind. I hasten to my door, but pause a moment to
view the wild scene with awe before closing my door with relief.

Dreamed about that scene from the old "Kung Fu" TV show where
the monk trys to walk the rice paper. But instead of getting older and
gradually more successful, the monk, in each successive scene, grew
younger and younger, until he was a child crawling on his hands and
knees across the paper. Finally he was a baby lying on his back in
the middle, staring tranquilly at the ceiling of the large stone hall. On
waking I think of the Zen pointing at the original nature, and wonder if
I'm going the wrong way.

Not mine:

On a journey, I spent the night sleeping on the living room floor of a
friend of a friend who was a member of the Bahai faith. In the
morning she bounded downstairs and exclaimed that she had
dreamed all night long that the "Unity theme" was playing loud and
clear last night down in her living room. I simply said: "Perhaps it
was". ((not even a bit self-important, oh no, not me ;-)))

Dreamed that I was a member of the hated race in some sort of a
holocaust situation. They took us to a large building and started to
bar the doors, and I realized the whole place was a gas chamber. I
fled, and managed to get back out, along with a few others. It was a
novel feeling to know that people could hate to that extent based on
race, and novel feeling to contemplate the possibility of being thus
murdered.

The Second Coming:

Dreamed that I saw an enormous, luminous silver sword in the night
sky, almost like a sideways star of Bethlehem. From the tip of the
sword dripped a stream of shining silver, like blood, which seemed to
be falling to earth a few miles away from me. It immediately dawned
on me that it was pointing out a spot I was supposed to investigate.
Around me, some other people had seen, and apparently had the
same idea, for we all went to check it out. When we arrived the area
was lit with brilliant silver from the "sky river" falling down, and in the
center of the light there was a new-born baby lying in a cradle. As I
approached I became aware of a celestial music in the air, and came
close enough to see that the child was truly radiant. As I stood
staring, a person near me loudly proclaimed, "this time it's a girl!"

((There are several more, but mercifully, I'll stop here (I included the
most interesting ones). I quit doing this after rereading the above
remark by Don Juan, but just remember, it could happen to you...))

:::

"It starts with an initial act, which by the fact of being sustained
breeds unbending intent...Steady practice results in a great facility to
hold new dreaming positions with new dreams...because every time
this control is exercised the inner strength gets fortified...dreams by
themselves become more and more manageable, even orderly." (The Fire From Within)

Found my hands twice last night. I became aware while standing in a
village square in some foreign city. I raised my hands, and stared at
them, then began to shift my gaze back and forth between the
buildings around me and my hands, trying to form a complete picture
of the place. The area was interesting, but dilapidated. Buildings had
been torn down, leaving vacant lots. Across one such lot, in the
background, I could see some ancient ruins.

Suddenly the scene changed. I was standing in an enormous
courtyard, green with marvelous sculptured gardens, surrounded by
stately, highly ornamental buildings. I looked back at my hands, and
then began to repeat the exercise, taking in the new scene in the
same manner.

At one point I got the idea that the two places were the same, and
that the second scene was that run down village square as it had
been hundreds of years before. I had the definite impression that the
city was European. Formerly, the place had been majestic. I
maintained the sight of the place, and of my hands, as long as I
could. Then I woke up.

After going over the sequence in my mind, I went back to sleep.
Later that night, I found myself again in the same place. Again, I
raised my hands and stared at them, and then began to examine the
surrounding buildings. As a result, I have retained an extremely clear
picture of this place and of the feeling that went with it, one of
extraordinary grandeur.

:::

Another incident. J had a vision in the night so intense that it
frightened her. She woke me up and tried to tell me about it. She
tells me that I discussed it with her as if I understood perfectly, but I
have no memory of the conversation. I was in another altered state
of some sort. I only vaguely recall the end of the conversation. I had
been gibbering about something, then woke up enough to realize I
didn't have any idea what I was talking about. I said "scratch that, I'm
in one of those states again", and rolled over and went back to sleep.

The next day, after pressing her repeatedly for a description of her
vision (which seemed indescribable to her), I managed to get that:

"We were together in some place. The intensity of our relationship
and/or the experience was turning her inside out. Some kind of door
opened bathing everything with a blinding light." She insists that I
calmly told her that the same thing happened to me, but I have NO
memory of the incident or the conversation after the incident. She
says I made perfect sense through the whole conversation.

:::

Last night I "woke up" in the middle of the night with an expanded
feeling of the "other consciousness". I tried to get up, but I couldn't
move. I stuggled for a bit, then tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't.
The air was filled spiral patterns of energy like swirling lights. I felt
terribly wierd, as if some force was encompassing me.

I tried to get up again, and managed to get to my knees. I began to
crawl rapidly across the floor, and made it clear to the front door.
Then I tried to crawl through the closed door, but at once I was lying
my back in bed again, looking at those same energy patterns.

I tried to move again---no way. I tried to go back to sleep again---
nada. I thought then of my exercise, and raised up my hands and
stared at them in the dark. After a little of this, I looked around feeling
silly---I already know what the damned walls look like! Then I looked
at the back of my hands for a while. Finally I woke up.

:::

((Fear on the path:))

I suddenly awoke in the middle of the night with an inexplicable fear.
I leaped to my feet, and was able to take only one step before being
enveloped in one of the most intense feelings of terror that I have
ever experienced. I became so frightened that I could barely breathe
and my legs were trembling so much I could hardly walk. The
strange thing is that I did not have the slightest idea why I was afraid,
or even an inkling of what I might be worried about. Everything was
quiet. I could even remember what I had been dreaming about, and it
had been rather banal.

((However, just a few days before, I had written the following in my
journal:))

"I would like to know what is beating on my house.

Tapping noises. Sound purposeful in nature.

All around. On the windows. On the roof, on the walls.

Then gone for hours.

I sense a great presence.

Scares me shitless, chills me deep down.

It's everywhere, but nowhere.

I wish to hell it would go away."

:::

((I woke after dreaming of words for what seemed like hours, and
wrote this down:))

"I want to celebrate the evocation of the invocation, and dance in the
celebration of the dance."

"You're not dancing with anything but your own death!!"

This is the highest human dream.

This is planing out.

This is what I must refute.

This is what I must eradicate.

This is my major theme!

To get at the very root of the modern death!

((good luck figuring that one out))

:::

((The following are the only experiences I've had (except for "the
voice" in my head) that might conceivably have had something to do
with "inorganic beings". Then again, they might have had absolutely
nothing to do with such beings...))

She told me that she seemed to be encompassed by some sort of
energy that moved and caressed her as I did. She told me that I
could do anything I wanted with her. I told her that I knew what she
wanted but that she would have to wait until the time was just right...
She told me that it wasn't what she wanted, but that she was being
compelled by the outer force to tell me that. She fumbled about a
little, trying to describe this force which was still present, and was
keeping her in a semi-ecstatic state. Suddenly she said, "what the
hell!" Self-absorbed, she began stroking the air above her as if
feeling out the dimensions of an invisible object. Then she said,
"Jesus, I've got this thing!", holding her hands about two feet apart,
moving them slowly in and out, as if softly squeezing a giant nerf ball.
"There", she said, "I've got it compressed", with her hands about
sixteen inches apart. "Am I going crazy or what", she added, with a
little shudder.

She played with the force field or whatever it was for a minute, then
she told me that she had just realized that I was the one---that I was
the only one for her. I was impressed by all this, yet strangely
detached, and I told her that I had not yet come to a similar
realization. She told me to do what I needed to do---that she would
be there.

((My turn with the cosmic nerf balls ( about a month later))):

I was lying with J, on her bed, when I became aware of the energy
fields in the air above me---purple, vacillating shapes. I reached up
and handled them; it was like squeezing sponges made of light and
energy. J was lying quietly watching. It gave me an almost ecstatic
sensual feeling to squeeze one. Like nerve endings from another
dimension---like alien sex. I grabbed one with one hand, and plunged
my other hand deep inside it. This gave such a strange electric
feeling that I moaned aloud, and then woke up. J was lying beside
me, but was asleep.

:::

We had another one of those dream state conversations. This time I
remembered more of it than she did. It was like verse. She would
say her part, then I would say mine. And in a strange way, they
always meant exactly the same thing, but in completely different
words. Something was holding a conversation between us. I can
only remember the structure, not the actual words, but part of it was
definitely about love.

:::

"And then, as I looked in true horror, Genaro walked on the walls, with
his body parallel to the ground, and on the ceiling, with his head
upside down." (The Fire From Within)

Dreamed I was in a huge building with a very high ceiling, sort of like
a gymnasium. I was standing with my back against the south wall
when I began to rise up the wall. After rising a little ways, I stopped
and stayed there as if stuck to the wall.

At that point I became aware, and realized I could move at will on the
wall. I went up near the top, and slid around for a little bit, and then I
grew bolder and and got up and stood on the wall, and then began to
walk around the walls of the building (my body parallel to the floor). I
walked in a couple of circles all the way around the room very rapidly,
using will as a directional guide. I wondered if I was using lines of
any kind, but I could not see any ((I never do)).

Then I "woke up", and just as I did so, J opened my bedroom door
with a creak, and came walking in. I began to tell her about my
dreaming, becoming very animated and getting up and pacing around
the room as I spoke of the novelty of learning to walk in that way.
Then I noticed J was not even listening to me, and I began to become
extremely angry with her for not paying attention. At that moment I
woke up. Gasp!

:::

((The light-switch phenomenon in reverse:))

After reading all morning, I took a little nap around noon. When I
awoke, the bare double ceiling bulb was glaring in my face, and I
jumped up to turn off the light. I pulled on the string-chain, but the
light did not go off. I thought I hadn't pulled it hard enough, so I pulled
it again, hard, and thought I heard it click, but still the light remained
on. Baffled, and wondering if the mechanism had broken, I pulled the
chain again, twice. But still the light remained on. Finally it occurred
to me that I was dreaming, and as soon as I realized that, wham, I
was lying on my back on the couch where I had fallen asleep.

I tried to get up, but I was in that state where I cannot move, even
though I can see everything in the room, and can think as if I am wide
awake. I struggled to will movement, without success. I struggled to
wake up, without success. Then I decided to close my eyes and try
to float up out of my body. I had a distinct feeling of rising through the
air, and when I opened my eyes I seemed to be near the ceiling.
Then I was suddenly on my back on the couch again, unable to
move. I frantically tried to move my body, and I thought I was able to
jiggle my legs just a tiny bit. Then I frantically tried to wake up again.
I became frightened, thinking that I didn't have the energy to dream,
wake up, or do anything, and wondering if it was possible to get stuck
like this. An extreme feeling of pressure began building in my solar
plexus, and I became more frightened and tried to relax completely.
At the moment I relaxed completely I awoke.

:::

((Humorous dream of indulgence:))

I dreamed that I was in a large, completely packed, rather elegant
bar/restaurant. A battle was being fought. It was an army of cooks
and waiters. and waitresses against another army of consumers.

It was chaos---the consumers ordering everything they desired, the
cooks, waitresses, and waiters rushing to supply it. Feeding frenzy---
the noise and bustle of massive indulgence.

At first it seemed as though the consumers had the upper hand---the
wait people had worn, harried faces as they fought on desparately.
However, in the end there was dead calm. It was clear who was the
victor. The bloated consumers could scarcely walk. It was quiet.
The consumers had far too little energy remaining to say much, as
they wobbled toward exits, popping anti-acid tablets. The battle was
over. A couple of drunks ordered another round. The wait people
calmly began to clean up.

:::

Last night, instead of dreaming lucidly, I had one of those nights
where I dream in concepts, symbols, and sentences. All night long, I
kept waking up with some truly unique idea. A couple of times the
ideas seemed so good that I almost got up to write them down. I
didn't because I was afraid I would not go back to sleep. When I
awoke this morning, I felt almost as if I had written half of a book in
my sleep.

:::

Had a dream that I was in a field at night with some Mexican men. In
a way that I cannot remember (somehow I just knew it) the oldest
man told us that we were going to visit a girl who had cancer and had
only a short time to live, and that it was my task to take the illness
away. We all began to run across the field, and I noticed that the
men all moved with determination and purpose (I began to wonder
who they were, and became very aware at that point that I was
dreaming).

We met the girl and some of her family at the other end of the field,
and I began to talk to her. The conversation was peculiar, can't
remember word for word, but she gave the impression that she had
no hope. We walked then to a place where there was a party in her
honor (she was blonde, pretty, wearing a white dress).

In a very serious mood, I walked to the end of an extremely long dark
hallway by myself, and deliberated. I knew I was dreaming, and
wondered how I could use my attention to heal. I decided to practice
the right way of walking there in the hallway to build energy, but when
I curled my fingers I noticed that I was carrying some book. I looked
at it, it said "Linear Algebra" ((I was at that time completing a degree
in Mathematics)). I impatiently tossed it aside, and curled my fingers
and began slowly walking down the hall while consciously willing to
shut off the internal dialog.

The energy built rapidly, and by the time I arrived at the end of the
hall I was in a very powerful state. I could actually feel that my eyes
were shining intensely. I walked up and faced the girl, who was
sitting talking to a friend, and she looked at me with a slightly puzzled
and somewhat fearful look. I stopped and just stared at her, for it had
just occurred to me that I had no idea how to invoke the power. After
standing there in a quandary for a long time, trying to think of what I
should do to invoke the power, I awoke. ((What a fool!))

:::

Dreamed that a voice told me to get up, and when I opened my eyes
and started to get up out of my bed a force took hold of me and
floated me up into the air. I was lying horizontally in the air in the
middle of my living room, and I floated there very still for some time,
in what felt like a very powerful and peaceful condition. Then
something else happened that I can't remember at all except that
something happened; and after that I woke up.

When I woke up, the power was off in my house (for real), yet it sent
chills up and down my spine to pull on that light chain and have no
light come on, and as usual to sit there wondering if I was awake or
dreaming. It had snowed very deep and the snow was still falling. It
was 2:30 A.M. I looked outside and there was wierd ball lightning
flashing through the thick clouds, and transformers were exploding on
some of the telephone poles. It was one of the most exquisitely
bizarre moments of my life.

:::

Dreamed I was standing in a field by the side of a dirt road. It was
autumn, and the trees were all a beautiful bright yellow. Had a
moment of awareness and commanded myself forcefully to look at
my hands. They whipped up quickly and in sharp focus, palms
toward me. I felt strong and was able to maintain staring at them for
about 30 seconds. They started to fade and I shifted my eyes to look
up the road to the west. Got a good clear picture of the countryside
in that direction. Then the picture began to go fuzzy. Looked back at
my hands and held them for about 10 seconds before they started to
fade again. Shifted my eyes again to look down the road to the east.
Again I got a good clear picture (even clearer than to the west). Then
it began to fade and I went back to my hands again. They began to
fade again in just a few seconds, and as I started to look north I woke
up.

::’

Dreamed that I was standing in a room with M and some girl who was
standing behind a screen so that I could just see her silhouette. I
decided to look at my hands, raised them up and gazed at them for a
moment and everything went completely black. I kept gazing, to see
if I could see my hands in the blackness, and all at once I was lying
on my bed staring at the outline of the window. I got up out of my
body. Movement was like gliding and had to be willed. I was just sort
of a presence floating in the middle of the room. For some reason I
moved over and hovered near the ceiling in the corner by C's
painting. Then I got the idea that I wanted to go out through the
ceiling, and tried to adopt the viewpoint of being on the roof. Just as I
tried this, everything went black again and I woke up in bed.

:::

"...while you are dreaming, I want you to dream that you wake up in
another dream." (The Art of Dreaming)

I have pretty much stopped looking at my hands ((I also quit writing
them down for a while during this period)), and have taken to just
dreaming with the full awareness that I'm dreaming. I keep exploring this
house. It's always the same place. ((Yet as we'll see, under pressure
I kept going back to looking at my hands:))

Dreamed I was in my dream house again. I woke up from another aware
dream on my bed in the dream house. Interesting, I thought that my dream
house was "reality", and that I had entered a state of "dreaming" there
(very much like when I walk around in my dreaming body in my house in Y).

It was dark. I was standing in my dream house kitchen looking into
the dark bedroom when a ghost-like woman began to appear. She
floated toward me and began to solidify. She had a very somber
face, and as she came closer I became irritated and began to tease
her by howling at her sarcastically. She kept approaching and I
decided I wasn't interested in her game. I raised my hands up and
stared at them. In an instant everything went completely black.

Then I realized I was standing on a vast plain, still looking at my
hands, but I could barely see them because the world was black. I
could see the horizon way off in the distance. The sky was a dark
charcoal gray with no stars and contrasted with the black ground. I
immediately thought of Juan's "black world".

Just then I "woke up" sitting up in my bed. It actually took me 10-15
seconds to realize that, although I was in my bed, it was my bed in
my dream house again. This time I felt as if I were "awake" in my dream
house (rather than in a dreaming state). I had a vague feeling that it
was impossible to be "awake" there, and after contemplating this for a
minute or two I woke up in my real bed , in my real house in Y.

:::

((As I mentioned at one point, when I did all this dreaming, back
before Usenet and the Lucidity Institute and stuff like that, I thought I
was the only one alive besides the warriors who was doing this stuff.
Occasionally I would indulge in the experience. I include the following
write-up to give an example of how shamelessly I indulged intellectually
in what I was doing. Try not to...))

Last night I found my hands. It happened in an interesting way. I had
been with J briefly, then she had disappeared and I had gone walking
trhough a house looking for her. A certain room struck me as being
"full of energy", and I began to get that feeling I would describe as:
"starting to leave the body but stopping right on the verge of
departure", or "Jean Paul Sartre's nausea without the nausea", or "a
sense of bringing the flow of time to a halt" or "backing up and out,
viewing things from stellar height". To use Juan's terminology, I must
note that the most noticeable feeling comes through the eyes---the
eyes "suck up the universe"---or "one beckons intent", inducing a
state of "heightened awareness". Though the "flow of time" is
probably not halted, the intensity freezes a picture of a moment as if
"one has belonged to that moment for all eternity". "Intent" being
nothing describable, when one beckons "it", one who is a novice that
is, one is tempted to believe that one did it oneself, one is. Yes, I can
see how some people might choose to describe the experience as
"becoming one with space-time". It is interesting to me that,
generally, I can only reach the condition in a dream state, or on
powerful drugs. The only approach to it (for me) in waking
consciousness has come through sitting Zazen, or chanting mantras,
or rare experiences of "Sartre's nausea with nausea". Anyhow...

As the feeling of "super-awareness" hit, as usual, I issued the
command and raised up my hands---first gazing at the backs for a
while, and then at the palms. Like last time, I did not examine the
surroundings, but continued simply staring at my hands for a very
long time. Then everything started to go black. I continued to stare
at my hands through the blackness. It reminded me of the day
before, when I had shown a coworker how to set the computer screen
colors so that the screen appeared to black out, though everything is
still normal and functional. After quite a bit of this, I awoke.

((Sheesh...))

:::

Was in that state where I can see the room and feel awake but
cannot move. I decided to slip a little bit back toward sleep and
immediately dreamed I was in a small square room with a very high
ceiling (25 feet). I decided for some reason to exercise my ability to
float, and as I willed it, began to float up to almost near the ceiling.
Then I raised up my hands and stared at them as I floated there.
They were a bit fuzzy and I felt sad that I didn't have enough energy.
Went back to semi-waking and then dream-composed a piece of jazz
music for flute.

:::

((In the Fire From Within, there are some great scenes where Genaro
sits and snores while dreaming and then suddenly leaps up to
engage in some activity. Here's a quote, from the chapter called The
Death Defiers:

"Genaro has shown you something extraordinary," don Juan said,
after Genaro had returned to where we were and had gone back to
sleep. "He has shown you something about the assemblage point
and dreaming. He's dreaming now, but he can act as if he were
fully awake and he can hear everything you say. From that position
he can do more than if he were awake."

He was silent for a moment as if assessing what to say next.
Genaro snored rhythmically.))

I "woke up", stood up and walked around my house for a bit feeling
strange before realizing I was dreaming (the night before I did the
same thing and actually went and laid back down without realizing I
was dreaming, and humorously, when I tried to go back to "sleep" was
when I woke up and realized I had been dreaming). With a thrilled
yet slightly anxious feeling (it had been a month since I had such an
experience) I realized I could look at my hands, and lifted them up
and stared at their outline in the dark room.

As usual, I walked to the window, and raised them again in the dim
moonlight. Then I pulled back the curtain, and placed my hands on
the cold window pane, staring at my hands and marveling at how
real that window felt.

Then, as I had done before, I opened the window, wrenched off the
screen and threw it aside, and climbed out the window (so real it was
exactly like really doing it, except that I felt stronger and lighter, and
had no trouble climbing out---however, I scraped my leg on the
window-sill, and it felt totally real).

As I walked out into the yard, about every 5 steps I raised my hands
up and stared at them for a moment (they were very clear). Then I
turned around and looked back at my house. Then I stared at my
hands once more. It is difficult to convey the excitement of this, which
stems from knowing that any moment you might wake up, combined
with knowing you are doing something "incredible", and also knowing
that it might be dangerous.

At this point I became aware of some things and made a decision:

1) I became aware that I was snoring as I stood there (this was
slightly irritating).

2) I became aware that I was dressed.

3) I became aware that some part of me was also back in bed,
snoring (for a moment I had considered the possibility that I was
sleepwalking and was really out in the yard), and this re-established
the certainty that I was dreaming.

4) I considered walking to the exact spot where I had been when I
tried to wake up before (in another experience), and trying it again,
but at the prompting of my "inner voice", decided not to.

Next I made up my mind to walk to the front door of my house, open
the door, and go back inside. I began to walk toward the front of my
house, again stopping about every 5 or 6 steps and staring at my
hands, still snoring continuously (this began to seem terribly weird to
me). I reached the front door, fished my key out of my pocket, and as
I tried to unlock the door I realized I was back inside my house. But
everything was different!

The lights were on. There was a large bed in the corner ((I slept on
a small futon)). There was a TV set which was on and Johnny
Carson was on ((I had no TV)). There was a huge sliding glass door
in the south wall where the window I climbed out had been. It's
difficult to explain this, but none of this even seemed unusual to me (I
have other "dream houses", in which I feel as natural and as comfortable
as in my "real house"---in fact, I simply felt that I was "back in my house").

Suddenly I "woke up" again in the bed of my "dream house". I ran
to the sliding glass door to see if I had left it open (in my thoughts
somehow the door has now taken the place of my window). I really
thought I was awake this time, you see, and I wanted to check for
physical evidence of any actual travels that might have occurred. The
sliding glass door was ajar (which I took as evidence), and while
closing it and locking it (so real), I noticed that outside in my back
yard a torrential rain had just begun to fall. A lot of light was coming
through the large door, and from it I could see my tracks in the mud
leading out into the back yard.

Suddenly I was on the other side of the door, standing the rain,
snoring again. I became aware that I was still dreaming. I raised my
hands and stared at them again through the pouring rain, then began
to retrace my path out into the back yard. I walked all the way out to
where I had been before, turned around and looked back, and dimly
through the rain I saw my "real house". I looked at my hands one last
time, and began to walk back to the front door, this time through ankle
deep water (I became annoyed that I was getting so wet). When I
reached the front door, everything went black and I woke up in bed. I
jumped up and flipped the light switch (to make sure I was back for
real). I had a strange feeling of a tremendous pressure in my head. I
also had the feeling that if I just laid down and relaxed I could
immediately slip back into a dreaming state. I didn't want to do that,
so I got up and made myself a sandwich. By the time I finished
eating it, the pressure in my head was totally gone.

((It is difficult to convey how very long this experience seemed to last.
You start to get the idea that you could learn to do it for as long as
you want, and do most of the things you do normally.))

:::

I became aware in a dream while riding in a car with a woman. She
had taken me over to her house to look at some art, and was now
driving me home, but she had become lost (I had been gabbing, and
she didn't know Y ((the city))). I became aware right when she
related that she was lost.

I started saying things like: "don't worry about it, we're always lost",
and "we'll get there". At that point the city around us started changing
into different cities. I looked at her and told her: "This is only a
dream. Do you realize that, as we sit here in the same place, I am in
X, and you are in Y". And it was true, and I could even perceive it
either way. We were on the west side of the R River in Y, and we
were also coming in toward the west bank of the A River in X. She
looked at me and laughed, like "you're such a card!".

When we got to the river the highway went down a huge hill and
abruptly ended at the river bank. This definitely worried her, but since
I knew we were dreaming it didn't bother me at all.

There was a place there renting boats to get across the river, and I
wanted to rent one. We were going to, but then we noticed there was
a party going on on the lawn by the shore, and we wound up joining
it. JM was there, and I engaged him in a short conversation, finally
looking him in the eye and saying: "this is only a dream; do you
realize that?". He looked slightly worried, and contemplative, as if
were stopping to seriously entertain the idea. A girl nearby who had
overheard started to snigger. The party went on for a while and then I
awoke.

:::

I dreamed that I was surrounded by blackness, and was completely
encompassed by something, so that I could not move. As I became
aware of this, I began to struggle to move. Whatever was
surrounding me would give a little but would not yield. I felt extremely
frustrated, and struggled again and again in vain. I also had the
distinct feeling that I was in a situation I had been in before, almost a
feeling that I was dreaming a recurring dream.

All of a sudden I realized where I was. I was in the womb of a
woman, and I was a baby struggling to be born. With this realization,
I began to feel my way around the place a little, squishing all sorts of
gooshy things with my feet. I realized there must be an opening
somewhere in the smooth, warm elastic wall, and began consciously
feeling for it with my head. I found the opening, and began pushing
myself into it, almost desparately, and also began to feel the turbulent
ractions of the woman's body to my progress. There was a definite
feeling of anxiety connected with being enclosed in such a "tunnel",
and I wanted very much to accomplish the passage as quickly as
possible. But in some way, I felt confident. It stemmed from that
feeling, now familiar to me, of "trusting my personal power".

At this point the dream scene changed. I was sitting on the floor in
some living room, and across from me, staring at me, was a boy
about four or five years old. He pointed at me, and playfully called
out my name. He called me something like Darrel, or Aaron, or
Darren. I have wondered to this day if it was Aaron, for that is what
my wife would decide to name my son about a year later.

((Additional (happened about a year later):))

I dreamed of my son twice before his birth. I dreamed of him once as
a newborn babe, and once as a child of about three. The dreams
were visually accurate. At the age of three he looked very much like
he had in the dream. In the dream, I was standing to the side and
behind him, holding him back from playing in a fireplace fire. I
remember very distinctly the look and the feel of his eyes. There is
no doubt in my mind that I saw him, as he would be. Indeed, the
thing that stood out in the dream of him as a new born babe was also
his eyes. They were unusually bright and piercing and intelligent in
the newborn dream, and very soft and contemplative in the fireplace
dream. But both were unmistakable and to me very recognizable
aspects of what he would come to be.

:::

"...there are two ways of properly crossing the second gate of
dreaming. One is to wake up in another dream...the alternative is to
use the items of a dream to trigger another dream..." (The Art of
Dreaming)

Became aware in a dream while walking along a rocky ridge high on
a cliff wall overlooking a gorgeous clear lake. I hopped and skipped
for about 1/4 of a mile, boulder hopping, playfully performing
maneuvers that were quite dangerous, not afraid because I knew I
was in my dreaming body.

At that point I started sloping downward intending to go down to the
water, and then the dream scene changed and I was on a sandy
beach on a small cove of this same beautiful lake. There I began to
gaze briefly in every direction, trying to form a clear and lasting image
of the whole place, fully aware of trying to look at things as Juan had
recommended.

After taking the place in, I decided for some reason to go ahead and
look at my hands for a bit, thinking that it might help me to dream
longer. I sat there in the sand and stared at my hands for 10-15
seconds. A big wave suddenly came in then, and got me wet, and
splashed my glasses, which I then took off and tried to clean with my
wet shirt ((now there's something I wonder about---wearing glasses)).
I focused on the difference between no glasses, glasses, and wet
glasses. I wasn't sure there was much difference in clarity between
glasses and no glasses.

At this point I stood up and walked back toward the back of the cove,
and I found a trail that went off into the woods. I decided to take this
trail, and after walking a bit, all at once I found myself standing looking
at a small building in the woods. I got the feeling it was perhaps an
abandoned resort hotel.

Then the scene changed again and I was inside the hotel in what
seemed to be a combination lounge and gift shop. I performed my
systematic "intake" of the room, glancing in all directions, beginning to
wonder how long I could maintain the aware dream state. I raised
my hands again and looked at them briefly, again wondering if that
would help me keep going.

In the room, I found a dry t-shirt, so I took off the wet one and put on
the new one. Then I began to examine in detail the numerous wierd
"toys" that were on the shelves. Some were very unusual, and I
picked up and played with several of them). I must have become too
engrossed in this, for after doing this for a while, I woke up.

:::

Believe it or not, the above is not an exhaustive account of my
dreaming experiences of years ago (1987-1989), though it does
include the most interesting ones (except for all the dreaming
experiences I posted before writing this, which presumably are
already in the archives of the group somewhere). I hope you have
found my account in some way entertaining or informative.

It feels good to have found a place to publish all these dreams,
which I somewhat obsessively recorded long ago. Hopefully making
this available to others at last will help me to be less obsessive
about what I have done, and help me to move on...

David Worrell

ftp://ftp.earth.com/pub/archive/cc/articles/worrell-dreaming

(the original file this text was pulled from, had the text in one big unformatted block, without paragraphs)

Date: Wed, 09 Nov 1994 08:36:35 CST

From: [email protected]

Subject: File on Dreaming Experiences

((My present day comments are in double parentheses, like this)) First, a quote from the chapter "Becoming Accessible to Power" from Journey to Ixtlan: "I am going to teach you right here the first step to power."..."I am going to teach you how to set up dreaming."...He explained that to "set up dreaming" meant to have a concise and pragmatic control over the general situation of a dream, comparable to the control one has over any choice"... "You must start by doing something very simple," he said. "Tonight in your dreams you must look at your hands." ((The first time:)) I became aware while in a dream again. I seemed to be in my parents' house in X, but I wasn't really sure because the room kept changing. For most of the dream it was as it had been when I was about twelve years old. When I became aware that I was myself, that I was dreaming, and that I had volition, my first impulse, as usual, was to rush outside into the yard. I was lying on the bed. I began to struggle to move (it's really like a struggle to change your point of view), but then I remembered what had happened the last few times. I decided not to waste my energy this time, and thought that I would follow Don Juan's recommendation and look at my hands. The moment I decided to do that, all hell broke loose. The room began to buzz with an ominous tone (or my ears did), and I felt a heavy pressure all over. Thinking that I had better hurry before it got too weird, I flashed a command and quickly raised my hands to the level of my face and...WOW!

I did it! I was exhilarated, but then frightened, for my hands, which I could somehow see although the room was mostly dark, looked as though they had been underwater for hours. They were wrinkled and it felt like they were contorting under the heavy pressure around me which seemed to focus on them. They also seemed slightly green in hue. In the dream, I actually realized that my first attention was trying to distract me, and, ignoring all the strange feelings, I sat up and moved my hands into a stream of moonlight coming in the window. I could then see them very clearly. They were still withered and felt strange. At that point I got the idea that I could wake up in the dream, and immediately began intending to assume the viewpoint of the room completely. Simultaneously I heard two different voices and saw a vision. The first voice was calm and commanding; it said "No, you don't have enough energy, you'll die". The other voice cried "POISON - POISON - POISON!", and I saw an image of bottles lined up on the shelf with skulls and crossbones on them. The buzzing increased. The pressure increased. For a moment I was terrified because I couldn't move and I couldn't break the image of the dream. I started wondering if I could get back to my normal awareness. The best way of describing what came next is to say that I was somehow able to relax and trust my personal power to get me out of it. I woke up in my bed in Y. ((Right from the beginning, I was very taken with the idea of waking up in a dream scene. It took me a while to get to the point of acquiring the sobriety to accept that this was something I would need to work up to.)) ***

"Every time you look at anything in your dreams it changes shape."..."The trick in learning to set up dreaming is obviously not just to look at things but to sustain the sight of them. Dreaming is real when one has succeeded in bringing everything into focus. Then there is no difference what you do when you sleep and what you do when you are not sleeping." ..."pick one thing in advance and find it in your dreams. I said your hands because they'll always be there. When they begin to change shape you must move your sight away from them and pick something else, and then look at your hands again. It takes a long time to perfect this technique." (Ixtlan) Again I had that strange experience of coming into awareness in the middle of a dream. I was in some building in a dark stairwell. I wanted to move to a lighter place before looking at my hands, but I didn't want to take a chance on losing awareness, so I flashed the command and raised them in the semi-darkness. They looked a little withered. The right hand was closed while the left was open, even though I was trying to hold them both open. I began to will the right hand to open, and saw a "ghost hand" opening straight up out of a closed fist. Then I decided to turn them around and stare at the backs instead of the palms. That worked, both were very clear. I quickly walked up the remaining stairs and went through a door (I am never able to remember just how I get through doors; often it is like I just walk right through them), finding myself in a large, dim circular corridor. I raised my hands in front of my face, again looking at the palms, and this time both hands were fine. I felt I was getting stronger, becoming more aware.

I began to walk slowly, taking brief glances at the corridor and the corridor walls, then glancing back at my hands which I kept extended in front of me with the palms face up. All of a sudden a human came walking up behind me on my right. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and put my hands down, as he had been looking at me like "what the hell are you doing?". He passed me and I kept walking to a slightly brighter lounge area that branched off the corridor. I was sneaking glances at my hands whenever I could. It was novel to be dreaming among people (there were several in the lounge and in the corridor). I actually felt as if I had to conceal my activities, very much as I do in waking consciousness. Then I came to a door to the outside, and decided to go out. It was a bright sunny day (seemed to be about midday in spring or summer). I realized where I was. I was on a college campus, and I had been walking around in the Student Union building. I looked at my hands in the sunshine, and feeling happy and strong, went walking out across a lush green lawn. My body felt so good I began to run. Although I was running quite fast, it was smooth and effortless. There were students everywhere and I began to want to find a solitary dreaming position. I got the feeling that I had a room in one of the towers, and began to make my way toward that tower, still quite aware that I was dreaming. However, when I got to the door of my tower, there was a crowd. Students were yelling stuff, the noise was irritating, and strangely, there was a church service going on in the first floor lobby, blocking my path to the elevators and the stairs.

I resolved to walk right through the middle of the service without losing my purpose, and set out, but at that moment I awoke. (Upon awakening I realized that it would be difficult for me to "select a topic for dreaming" because I have no clear idea about where to go.) *** ((It was this same desire to find a suitable place for dreaming that led me to fly in dreaming the next time.)) I was dreaming. A bunch of ridiculous things were going on with a group of people in some foreign city. They all had some sort of designs on me and I couldn't seem to escape their machinations. While attempting to lose some people who were tailing me, I was able to have a sober moment, stopped, and raised my hands up and looked at them. Instantly I was free of all the crap, detached, aware. There was so much nonsense going on with the people in the street that I decided the best thing to do would be to change locations. I momentarily tried to picture the image of my house, but couldn't. However, at that moment I started to feel very light, as if I could float. So I willed myself to float up into the air, and still looking at my hands, rose high into the sky. At several hundred feet, I began to look around. I was in Athens or Rome or some place where there were lots of ancient ruins. The sky was a beautiful blue, and the hillsides were very green. Something that looked like a coliseum was kind of fascinating to me. Just then I woke up. *** ((The following dream describes what happened when I tried to share my dreaming experiences with a friend. In case the dream does not make it clear, this is something I would advise you not to do...)) M and I were in some very large building.

We stepped outside. The sky was filled with millions of birds. More birds than you could ever imagine, the whole sky was practically black with them. But actually, the birds were white. They were also quite large, about the size of hawks. Then I noticed that the enormous oak trees on the lawn were also filled with these birds, and I pointed this out to M who apparently had not even noticed. I must emphasize that the trees were totally filled with birds, to the point that it looked like the trees were made out of birds. Then the birds in the trees began to swim like eels, and we were looking at these incredible living structures in the trees, when suddenly, off to my left a huge lightning bolt crashed down with an immediate explosion. It had hit one of the largest oaks and split it down the middle. Half of the giant tree began to fall towards M and I. For some reason, M didn't even seem to notice this either. I yelled at him, briefly pointing at the descending tree, and shoved him perpendicular to its path. When I shoved him I fell down, then scrambled on all fours as fast as possible in the opposite direction. The dream ended when the huge trunk crashed to the ground between us, narrowly missing us both. *** "Ordinary dreams get very vivid as soon as you begin to set up dreaming,"..."That vividness and clarity is a formidable barrier"..."You have the worst mania. You write down everything you can." (Ixtlan) ((Yessir. And here are brief descriptions of a few of the more amusing ordinary dreams I maniacally recorded during a several month period of heavy dreaming:)) Dreamed I went to W's house ((an elderly man I met shortly after learning to dream, who paints amazing scenes from his dreaming, and is a master dreamer in his own right---indeed he might have been my teacher but I disagreed with him on some fundamental issues (I now wonder if he was actually right about them))), entered the house by myself and unannounced, and went to look at the paintings on the walls.

There were three I'd never seen: one of some temple, and two of an oriental man with his head shaved making the gesture of humble prayer with his hands. For some reason, I was sure the paintings were of me. One in particular seemed to even resemble me closely. It was not a painting of a neophyte, but more of a "the master as a young man" picture. Dreamed I went to my grandmother's house, climbed the old hill, and stood in front of a huge magnolia tree on which there remained but a single large flower. With great sadness and respect, as if heralding the end of a dynasty or something, I plucked the flower and smelled its lovely sweet smell. ((Years later, October 1994 I dreamed: March 11 is the day (I will explain why this line is in this post at a later time.))) A dream of defeat. I dreamed that somehow I had obtained a list containing the names of all those people who had been selected to carry on Castaneda's tradition of knowledge. My name was not on the list. Water dream ((growing up I had dozens of water dreams---they comprised my dreaming path in adolescence)). Hovering in the air, I saw a beautiful clear pool where I could spy down from above and watch every sort of fish as if they were all trapped in one little pool. Then I gazed at a wide open bay, (somewhere up north), with a spectacular snow-capped mountain shore-line. Woke up wondering about the Exxon oil spill. Dreamed I was part of a group that got to go to Leningrad (St. Petersburg). I led a group of people from our tour in sneaking into and exploring an art gallery that was closed. We got chased around by security people, and in the process I somehow lost one of my shoes. Upon awakening I found I had removed one of my socks in my sleep, leaving the other one on. Dreamed I picked fruit from a single gorgeous tree from which grew several different kinds of exquisitely perfect fruit. ((Woke up and went to the store and bought fruit)) Dreamed I was walking to my little shack home ((I actually did live in a little shack)), through a fierce wind---leaves blowing everywhere. But my home is in a little valley, with huge trees, and other scattered huts.

It is a different age, long ago. The wind is alive and becomes part of me. It merges with the shrubs and trees and changes their very appearance before my eyes into a rough-hewn painting of ancient fierceness. We, the hut dwellers, know we are on borrowed time, fear the power of the wind. I hasten to my door, but pause a moment to view the wild scene with awe before closing my door with relief. Dreamed about that scene from the old "Kung Fu" TV show where the monk tries to walk the rice paper. But instead of getting older and gradually more successful, the monk, in each successive scene, grew younger and younger, until he was a child crawling on his hands and knees across the paper. Finally he was a baby lying on his back in the middle, staring tranquilly at the ceiling of the large stone hall. On waking I think of the Zen pointing at the original nature, and wonder if I'm going the wrong way. Not mine: On a journey, I spent the night sleeping on the living room floor of a friend of a friend who was a member of the Bahai faith. In the morning she bounded downstairs and exclaimed that she had dreamed all night long that the "Unity theme" was playing loud and clear last night down in her living room. I simply said: "Perhaps it was". ((not even a bit self-important, oh no, not me ;-))) Dreamed that I was a member of the hated race in some sort of a holocaust situation. They took us to a large building and started to bar the doors, and I realized the whole place was a gas chamber.

I fled, and managed to get back out, along with a few others. It was a novel feeling to know that people could hate to that extent based on race, and novel feeling to contemplate the possibility of being thus murdered. The Second Coming: Dreamed that I saw an enormous, luminous silver sword in the night sky, almost like a sideways star of Bethlehem. From the tip of the sword dripped a stream of shining silver, like blood, which seemed to be falling to earth a few miles away from me. It immediately dawned on me that it was pointing out a spot I was supposed to investigate. Around me, some other people had seen, and apparently had the same idea, for we all went to check it out. When we arrived the area was lit with brilliant silver from the "sky river" falling down, and in the center of the light there was a new-born baby lying in a cradle. As I approached I became aware of a celestial music in the air, and came close enough to see that the child was truly radiant. As I stood staring, a person near me loudly proclaimed, "this time it's a girl!" ((There are several more, but mercifully, I'll stop here (I included the most interesting ones). I quit doing this after rereading the above remark by Don Juan, but just remember, it could happen to you...)) ***

"It starts with an initial act, which by the fact of being sustained breeds unbending intent...Steady practice results in a great facility to hold new dreaming positions with new dreams...because every time this control is exercised the inner strength gets fortified...dreams by themselves become more and more manageable, even orderly." (The Fire From Within) Found my hands twice last night. I became aware while standing in a village square in some foreign city. I raised my hands, and stared at them, then began to shift my gaze back and forth between the buildings around me and my hands, trying to form a complete picture of the place. The area was interesting, but dilapidated. Buildings had been torn down, leaving vacant lots. Across one such lot, in the background, I could see some ancient ruins. Suddenly the scene changed. I was standing in an enormous courtyard, green with marvelous sculptured gardens, surrounded by stately, highly ornamental buildings. I looked back at my hands, and then began to repeat the exercise, taking in the new scene in the same manner. At one point I got the idea that the two places were the same, and that the second scene was that run down village square as it had been hundreds of years before. I had the definite impression that the city was European. Formerly, the place had been majestic. I maintained the sight of the place, and of my hands, as long as I could. Then I woke up. After going over the sequence in my mind, I went back to sleep. Later that night, I found myself again in the same place. Again, I raised my hands and stared at them, and then began to examine the surrounding buildings. As a result, I have retained an extremely clear picture of this place and of the feeling that went with it, one of extraordinary grandeur. *** Another incident. J had a vision in the night so intense that it frightened her. She woke me up and tried to tell me about it.

She tells me that I discussed it with her as if I understood perfectly, but I have no memory of the conversation. I was in another altered state of some sort. I only vaguely recall the end of the conversation. I had been gibbering about something, then woke up enough to realize I didn't have any idea what I was talking about. I said "scratch that, I'm in one of those states again", and rolled over and went back to sleep. The next day, after pressing her repeatedly for a description of her vision (which seemed indescribable to her), I managed to get that: "We were together in some place. The intensity of our relationship and/or the experience was turning her inside out. Some kind of door opened bathing everything with a blinding light." She insists that I calmly told her that the same thing happened to me, but I have NO memory of the incident or the conversation after the incident. She says I made perfect sense through the whole conversation. *** Last night I "woke up" in the middle of the night with an expanded feeling of the "other consciousness". I tried to get up, but I couldn't move. I struggled for a bit, then tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't. The air was filled spiral patterns of energy like swirling lights. I felt terribly weird, as if some force was encompassing me. I tried to get up again, and managed to get to my knees. I began to crawl rapidly across the floor, and made it clear to the front door. Then I tried to crawl through the closed door, but at once I was lying my back in bed again, looking at those same energy patterns. I tried to move again---no way. I tried to go back to sleep again--- nada. I thought then of my exercise, and raised up my hands and stared at them in the dark. After a little of this, I looked around feeling silly---I already know what the damned walls look like! Then I looked at the back of my hands for a while. Finally I woke up. *** ((Fear on the path:)) I suddenly awoke in the middle of the night with an inexplicable fear. I leaped to my feet, and was able to take only one step before being enveloped in one of the most intense feelings of terror that I have ever experienced.

I became so frightened that I could barely breathe and my legs were trembling so much I could hardly walk. The strange thing is that I did not have the slightest idea why I was afraid, or even an inkling of what I might be worried about. Everything was quiet. I could even remember what I had been dreaming about, and it had been rather banal. ((However, just a few days before, I had written the following in my journal:)) "I would like to know what is beating on my house. Tapping noises. Sound purposeful in nature. All around. On the windows. On the roof, on the walls. Then gone for hours. I sense a great presence. Scares me shitless, chills me deep down. It's everywhere, but nowhere. I wish to hell it would go away." *** ((I woke after dreaming of words for what seemed like hours, and wrote this down:)) "I want to celebrate the evocation of the invocation, and dance in the celebration of the dance." "You're not dancing with anything but your own death!!" This is the highest human dream. This is planing out. This is what I must refute. This is what I must eradicate. This is my major theme! To get at the very root of the modern death! ((good luck figuring that one out)) *** ((The following are the only experiences I've had (except for "the voice" in my head) that might conceivably have had something to do with "inorganic beings".

Then again, they might have had absolutely nothing to do with such beings...)) She told me that she seemed to be encompassed by some sort of energy that moved and caressed her as I did. She told me that I could do anything I wanted with her. I told her that I knew what she wanted but that she would have to wait until the time was just right... She told me that it wasn't what she wanted, but that she was being compelled by the outer force to tell me that. She fumbled about a little, trying to describe this force which was still present, and was keeping her in a semi-ecstatic state. Suddenly she said, "what the hell!" Self-absorbed, she began stroking the air above her as if feeling out the dimensions of an invisible object. Then she said, "Jesus, I've got this thing!", holding her hands about two feet apart, moving them slowly in and out, as if softly squeezing a giant nerf ball. "There", she said, "I've got it compressed", with her hands about sixteen inches apart. "Am I going crazy or what", she added, with a little shudder. She played with the force field or whatever it was for a minute, then she told me that she had just realized that I was the one---that I was the only one for her. I was impressed by all this, yet strangely detached, and I told her that I had not yet come to a similar realization. She told me to do what I needed to do---that she would be there. ((My turn with the cosmic nerf balls ( about a month later))): I was lying with J, on her bed, when I became aware of the energy fields in the air above me---purple, vacillating shapes. I reached up and handled them; it was like squeezing sponges made of light and energy. J was lying quietly watching. It gave me an almost ecstatic sensual feeling to squeeze one.

Like nerve endings from another dimension---like alien sex. I grabbed one with one hand, and plunged my other hand deep inside it. This gave such a strange electric feeling that I moaned aloud, and then woke up. J was lying beside me, but was asleep. *** We had another one of those dream state conversations. This time I remembered more of it than she did. It was like verse. She would say her part, then I would say mine. And in a strange way, they always meant exactly the same thing, but in completely different words. Something was holding a conversation between us. I can only remember the structure, not the actual words, but part of it was definitely about love. *** "And then, as I looked in true horror, Genaro walked on the walls, with his body parallel to the ground, and on the ceiling, with his head upside down." (The Fire From Within) Dreamed I was in a huge building with a very high ceiling, sort of like a gymnasium. I was standing with my back against the south wall when I began to rise up the wall. After rising a little ways, I stopped and stayed there as if stuck to the wall. At that point I became aware, and realized I could move at will on the wall. I went up near the top, and slid around for a little bit, and then I grew bolder and got up and stood on the wall, and then began to walk around the walls of the building (my body parallel to the floor). I walked in a couple of circles all the way around the room very rapidly, using will as a directional guide. I wondered if I was using lines of any kind, but I could not see any ((I never do)). Then I "woke up", and just as I did so, J opened my bedroom door with a creak, and came walking in.

I began to tell her about my dreaming, becoming very animated and getting up and pacing around the room as I spoke of the novelty of learning to walk in that way. Then I noticed J was not even listening to me, and I began to become extremely angry with her for not paying attention. At that moment I woke up. Gasp! *** ((The light-switch phenomenon in reverse:)) After reading all morning, I took a little nap around noon. When I awoke, the bare double ceiling bulb was glaring in my face, and I jumped up to turn off the light. I pulled on the string-chain, but the light did not go off. I thought I hadn't pulled it hard enough, so I pulled it again, hard, and thought I heard it click, but still the light remained on. Baffled, and wondering if the mechanism had broken, I pulled the chain again, twice. But still the light remained on. Finally it occurred to me that I was dreaming, and as soon as I realized that, wham, I was lying on my back on the couch where I had fallen asleep. I tried to get up, but I was in that state where I cannot move, even though I can see everything in the room, and can think as if I am wide awake. I struggled to will movement, without success. I struggled to wake up, without success. Then I decided to close my eyes and try to float up out of my body.

I had a distinct feeling of rising through the air, and when I opened my eyes I seemed to be near the ceiling. Then I was suddenly on my back on the couch again, unable to move. I frantically tried to move my body, and I thought I was able to jiggle my legs just a tiny bit. Then I frantically tried to wake up again. I became frightened, thinking that I didn't have the energy to dream, wake up, or do anything, and wondering if it was possible to get stuck like this. An extreme feeling of pressure began building in my solar plexus, and I became more frightened and tried to relax completely. At the moment I relaxed completely I awoke. *** ((Humorous dream of indulgence:)) I dreamed that I was in a large, completely packed, rather elegant bar/restaurant. A battle was being fought. It was an army of cooks and waiters. and waitresses against another army of consumers. It was chaos---the consumers ordering everything they desired, the cooks, waitresses, and waiters rushing to supply it. Feeding frenzy--- the noise and bustle of massive indulgence. At first it seemed as though the consumers had the upper hand---the wait people had worn, harried faces as they fought on desperately. However, in the end there was dead calm. It was clear who was the victor. The bloated consumers could scarcely walk. It was quiet. The consumers had far too little energy remaining to say much, as they wobbled toward exits, popping anti-acid tablets.

The battle was over. A couple of drunks ordered another round. The wait people calmly began to clean up. *** Last night, instead of dreaming lucidly, I had one of those nights where I dream in concepts, symbols, and sentences. All night long, I kept waking up with some truly unique idea. A couple of times the ideas seemed so good that I almost got up to write them down. I didn't because I was afraid I would not go back to sleep. When I awoke this morning, I felt almost as if I had written half of a book in my sleep. ** Had a dream that I was in a field at night with some Mexican men. In a way that I cannot remember (somehow I just knew it) the oldest man told us that we were going to visit a girl who had cancer and had only a short time to live, and that it was my task to take the illness away. We all began to run across the field, and I noticed that the men all moved with determination and purpose (I began to wonder who they were, and became very aware at that point that I was dreaming). We met the girl and some of her family at the other end of the field, and I began to talk to her. The conversation was peculiar, can't remember word for word, but she gave the impression that she had no hope. We walked then to a place where there was a party in her honor (she was blonde, pretty, wearing a white dress). In a very serious mood, I walked to the end of an extremely long dark hallway by myself, and deliberated. I knew I was dreaming, and wondered how I could use my attention to heal. I decided to practice the right way of walking there in the hallway to build energy, but when I curled my fingers I noticed that I was carrying some book. I looked at it, it said "Linear Algebra" ((I was at that time completing a degree in Mathematics)). I impatiently tossed it aside, and curled my fingers and began slowly walking down the hall while consciously willing to shut off the internal dialog. The energy built rapidly, and by the time I arrived at the end of the hall I was in a very powerful state.

I could actually feel that my eyes were shining intensely. I walked up and faced the girl, who was sitting talking to a friend, and she looked at me with a slightly puzzled and somewhat fearful look. I stopped and just stared at her, for it had just occurred to me that I had no idea how to invoke the power. After standing there in a quandary for a long time, trying to think of what I should do to invoke the power, I awoke. ((What a fool!)) *** Dreamed that a voice told me to get up, and when I opened my eyes and started to get up out of my bed a force took hold of me and floated me up into the air. I was lying horizontally in the air in the middle of my living room, and I floated there very still for some time, in what felt like a very powerful and peaceful condition. Then something else happened that I can't remember at all except that something happened; and after that I woke up. When I woke up, the power was off in my house (for real), yet it sent chills up and down my spine to pull on that light chain and have no light come on, and as usual to sit there wondering if I was awake or dreaming. It had snowed very deep and the snow was still falling. It was 2:30 A.M. I looked outside and there was weird ball lightning flashing through the thick clouds, and transformers were exploding on some of the telephone poles. It was one of the most exquisitely bizarre moments of my life. *** Dreamed I was standing in a field by the side of a dirt road. It was autumn, and the trees were all a beautiful bright yellow. Had a moment of awareness and commanded myself forcefully to look at my hands.

They whipped up quickly and in sharp focus, palms toward me. I felt strong and was able to maintain staring at them for about 30 seconds. They started to fade and I shifted my eyes to look up the road to the west. Got a good clear picture of the countryside in that direction. Then the picture began to go fuzzy. Looked back at my hands and held them for about 10 seconds before they started to fade again. Shifted my eyes again to look down the road to the east. Again I got a good clear picture (even clearer than to the west). Then it began to fade and I went back to my hands again. They began to fade again in just a few seconds, and as I started to look north I woke up. *** Dreamed that I was standing in a room with M and some girl who was standing behind a screen so that I could just see her silhouette. I decided to look at my hands, raised them up and gazed at them for a moment and everything went completely black. I kept gazing, to see if I could see my hands in the blackness, and all at once I was lying on my bed staring at the outline of the window. I got up out of my body. Movement was like gliding and had to be willed. I was just sort of a presence floating in the middle of the room. For some reason I moved over and hovered near the ceiling in the corner by C's painting. Then I got the idea that I wanted to go out through the ceiling, and tried to adopt the viewpoint of being on the roof.

Just as I tried this, everything went black again and I woke up in bed. *** "...while you are dreaming, I want you to dream that you wake up in another dream." (The Art of Dreaming) I have pretty much stopped looking at my hands ((I also quit writing them down for a while during this period)), and have taken to just dreaming with the full awareness that I'm dreaming. I keep exploring this house. It's always the same place. ((Yet as we'll see, under pressure I kept going back to looking at my hands:)) Dreamed I was in my dream house again. I woke up from another aware dream on my bed in the dream house. Interesting, I thought that my dream house was "reality", and that I had entered a state of "dreaming" there (very much like when I walk around in my dreaming body in my house in Y). It was dark. I was standing in my dream house kitchen looking into the dark bedroom when a ghost-like woman began to appear. She floated toward me and began to solidify. She had a very somber face, and as she came closer I became irritated and began to tease her by howling at her sarcastically. She kept approaching and I decided I wasn't interested in her game. I raised my hands up and stared at them. In an instant everything went completely black. Then I realized I was standing on a vast plain, still looking at my hands, but I could barely see them because the world was black.

I could see the horizon way off in the distance. The sky was a dark charcoal gray with no stars and contrasted with the black ground. I immediately thought of Juan's "black world". Just then I "woke up" sitting up in my bed. It actually took me 10-15 seconds to realize that, although I was in my bed, it was my bed in my dream house again. This time I felt as if I were "awake" in my dream house (rather than in a dreaming state). I had a vague feeling that it was impossible to be "awake" there, and after contemplating this for a minute or two I woke up in my real bed , in my real house in Y. *** ((As I mentioned at one point, when I did all this dreaming, back before Usenet and the Lucidity Institute and stuff like that, I thought I was the only one alive besides the warriors who was doing this stuff. Occasionally I would indulge in the experience. I include the following write-up to give an example of how shamelessly I indulged intellectually in what I was doing. Try not to...)) Last night I found my hands. It happened in an interesting way. I had been with J briefly, then she had disappeared and I had gone walking through a house looking for her. A certain room struck me as being "full of energy", and I began to get that feeling I would describe as: "starting to leave the body but stopping right on the verge of departure", or "Jean Paul Sartre's nausea without the nausea", or "a sense of bringing the flow of time to a halt" or "backing up and out, viewing things from stellar height". To use Juan's terminology,

I must note that the most noticeable feeling comes through the eyes---the eyes "suck up the universe"---or "one beckons intent", inducing a state of "heightened awareness". Though the "flow of time" is probably not halted, the intensity freezes a picture of a moment as if "one has belonged to that moment for all eternity". "Intent" being nothing describable, when one beckons "it", one who is a novice that is, one is tempted to believe that one did it oneself, one is. Yes, I can see how some people might choose to describe the experience as "becoming one with space-time". It is interesting to me that, generally, I can only reach the condition in a dream state, or on powerful drugs. The only approach to it (for me) in waking consciousness has come through sitting Zazen, or chanting mantras, or rare experiences of "Sartre's nausea with nausea". Anyhow... As the feeling of "super-awareness" hit, as usual, I issued the command and raised up my hands---first gazing at the backs for a while, and then at the palms. Like last time, I did not examine the surroundings, but continued simply staring at my hands for a very long time. Then everything started to go black. I continued to stare at my hands through the blackness. It reminded me of the day before, when I had shown a coworker how to set the computer screen colors so that the screen appeared to black out, though everything is still normal and functional.

After quite a bit of this, I awoke. ((Sheesh...)) *** Was in that state where I can see the room and feel awake but cannot move. I decided to slip a little bit back toward sleep and immediately dreamed I was in a small square room with a very high ceiling (25 feet). I decided for some reason to exercise my ability to float, and as I willed it, began to float up to almost near the ceiling. Then I raised up my hands and stared at them as I floated there. They were a bit fuzzy and I felt sad that I didn't have enough energy. Went back to semi-waking and then dream-composed a piece of jazz music for flute. *** ((In the Fire From Within, there are some great scenes where Genaro sits and snores while dreaming and then suddenly leaps up to engage in some activity. Here's a quote, from the chapter called The Death Defiers: "Genaro has shown you something extraordinary," don Juan said, after Genaro had returned to where we were and had gone back to sleep. "He has shown you something about the assemblage point and dreaming. He's dreaming now, but he can act as if he were fully awake and he can hear everything you say. From that position he can do more than if he were awake." He was silent for a moment as if assessing what to say next. Genaro snored rhythmically.))

I "woke up", stood up and walked around my house for a bit feeling strange before realizing I was dreaming (the night before I did the same thing and actually went and laid back down without realizing I was dreaming, and humorously, when I tried to go back to "sleep" was when I woke up and realized I had been dreaming). With a thrilled yet slightly anxious feeling (it had been a month since I had such an experience) I realized I could look at my hands, and lifted them up and stared at their outline in the dark room. As usual, I walked to the window, and raised them again in the dim moonlight. Then I pulled back the curtain, and placed my hands on the cold window pane, staring at my hands and marveling at how real that window felt. Then, as I had done before, I opened the window, wrenched off the screen and threw it aside, and climbed out the window (so real it was exactly like really doing it, except that I felt stronger and lighter, and had no trouble climbing out---however, I scraped my leg on the window-sill, and it felt totally real). As I walked out into the yard, about every 5 steps I raised my hands up and stared at them for a moment (they were very clear). Then I turned around and looked back at my house. Then I stared at my hands once more.

It is difficult to convey the excitement of this, which stems from knowing that any moment you might wake up, combined with knowing you are doing something "incredible", and also knowing that it might be dangerous. At this point I became aware of some things and made a decision: 1) I became aware that I was snoring as I stood there (this was slightly irritating). 2) I became aware that I was dressed. 3) I became aware that some part of me was also back in bed, snoring (for a moment I had considered the possibility that I was sleepwalking and was really out in the yard), and this re-established the certainty that I was dreaming. 4) I considered walking to the exact spot where I had been when I tried to wake up before (in another experience), and trying it again, but at the prompting of my "inner voice", decided not to. Next I made up my mind to walk to the front door of my house, open the door, and go back inside. I began to walk toward the front of my house, again stopping about every 5 or 6 steps and staring at my hands, still snoring continuously (this began to seem terribly weird to me). I reached the front door, fished my key out of my pocket, and as I tried to unlock the door I realized I was back inside my house. But everything was different!

The lights were on. There was a large bed in the corner ((I slept on a small futon)). There was a TV set which was on and Johnny Carson was on ((I had no TV)). There was a huge sliding glass door in the south wall where the window I climbed out had been. It's difficult to explain this, but none of this even seemed unusual to me (I have other "dream houses", in which I feel as natural and as comfortable as in my "real house"---in fact, I simply felt that I was "back in my house"). Suddenly I "woke up" again in the bed of my "dream house". I ran to the sliding glass door to see if I had left it open (in my thoughts somehow the door has now taken the place of my window). I really thought I was awake this time, you see, and I wanted to check for physical evidence of any actual travels that might have occurred. The sliding glass door was ajar (which I took as evidence), and while closing it and locking it (so real), I noticed that outside in my back yard a torrential rain had just begun to fall. A lot of light was coming through the large door, and from it I could see my tracks in the mud leading out into the back yard. Suddenly I was on the other side of the door, standing the rain, snoring again.

I became aware that I was still dreaming. I raised my hands and stared at them again through the pouring rain, then began to retrace my path out into the back yard. I walked all the way out to where I had been before, turned around and looked back, and dimly through the rain I saw my "real house". I looked at my hands one last time, and began to walk back to the front door, this time through ankle deep water (I became annoyed that I was getting so wet). When I reached the front door, everything went black and I woke up in bed. I jumped up and flipped the light switch (to make sure I was back for real). I had a strange feeling of a tremendous pressure in my head. I also had the feeling that if I just laid down and relaxed I could immediately slip back into a dreaming state. I didn't want to do that, so I got up and made myself a sandwich. By the time I finished eating it, the pressure in my head was totally gone. ((It is difficult to convey how very long this experience seemed to last. You start to get the idea that you could learn to do it for as long as you want, and do most of the things you do normally.)) *** I became aware in a dream while riding in a car with a woman. She had taken me over to her house to look at some art, and was now driving me home, but she had become lost (I had been gabbing, and she didn't know Y ((the city))).

I became aware right when she related that she was lost. I started saying things like: "don't worry about it, we're always lost", and "we'll get there". At that point the city around us started changing into different cities. I looked at her and told her: "This is only a dream. Do you realize that, as we sit here in the same place, I am in X, and you are in Y". And it was true, and I could even perceive it either way. We were on the west side of the R River in Y, and we were also coming in toward the west bank of the A River in X. She looked at me and laughed, like "you're such a card!". When we got to the river the highway went down a huge hill and abruptly ended at the river bank. This definitely worried her, but since I knew we were dreaming it didn't bother me at all. There was a place there renting boats to get across the river, and I wanted to rent one. We were going to, but then we noticed there was a party going on the lawn by the shore, and we wound up joining it. JM was there, and I engaged him in a short conversation, finally looking him in the eye and saying: "this is only a dream; do you realize that?". He looked slightly worried, and contemplative, as if were stopping to seriously entertain the idea. A girl nearby who had overheard started to snigger. The party went on for a while and then I awoke. *** I dreamed that I was surrounded by blackness, and was completely encompassed by something, so that I could not move. As I became aware of this, I began to struggle to move.

Whatever was surrounding me would give a little but would not yield. I felt extremely frustrated, and struggled again and again in vain. I also had the distinct feeling that I was in a situation I had been in before, almost a feeling that I was dreaming a recurring dream. All of a sudden I realized where I was. I was in the womb of a woman, and I was a baby struggling to be born. With this realization, I began to feel my way around the place a little, squishing all sorts of gooshy things with my feet. I realized there must be an opening somewhere in the smooth, warm elastic wall, and began consciously feeling for it with my head. I found the opening, and began pushing myself into it, almost desperately, and also began to feel the turbulent reactions of the woman's body to my progress. There was a definite feeling of anxiety connected with being enclosed in such a "tunnel", and I wanted very much to accomplish the passage as quickly as possible. But in some way, I felt confident. It stemmed from that feeling, now familiar to me, of "trusting my personal power". At this point the dream scene changed. I was sitting on the floor in some living room, and across from me, staring at me, was a boy about four or five years old. He pointed at me, and playfully called out my name. He called me something like Darrel, or Aaron, or Darren.

I have wondered to this day if it was Aaron, for that is what my wife would decide to name my son about a year later. ((Additional (happened about a year later):)) I dreamed of my son twice before his birth. I dreamed of him once as a newborn babe, and once as a child of about three. The dreams were visually accurate. At the age of three he looked very much like he had in the dream. In the dream, I was standing to the side and behind him, holding him back from playing in a fireplace fire. I remember very distinctly the look and the feel of his eyes. There is no doubt in my mind that I saw him, as he would be. Indeed, the thing that stood out in the dream of him as a new born babe was also his eyes. They were unusually bright and piercing and intelligent in the newborn dream, and very soft and contemplative in the fireplace dream. But both were unmistakable and to me very recognizable aspects of what he would come to be. *** "...there are two ways of properly crossing the second gate of dreaming. One is to wake up in another dream...the alternative is to use the items of a dream to trigger another dream..." (The Art of Dreaming) Became aware in a dream while walking along a rocky ridge high on a cliff wall overlooking a gorgeous clear lake. I hopped and skipped for about 1/4 of a mile, boulder hopping, playfully performing maneuvers that were quite dangerous, not afraid because I knew I was in my dreaming body.

At that point I started sloping downward intending to go down to the water, and then the dream scene changed and I was on a sandy beach on a small cove of this same beautiful lake. There I began to gaze briefly in every direction, trying to form a clear and lasting image of the whole place, fully aware of trying to look at things as Juan had recommended. After taking the place in, I decided for some reason to go ahead and look at my hands for a bit, thinking that it might help me to dream longer. I sat there in the sand and stared at my hands for 10-15 seconds. A big wave suddenly came in then, and got me wet, and splashed my glasses, which I then took off and tried to clean with my wet shirt ((now there's something I wonder about---wearing glasses)). I focused on the difference between no glasses, glasses, and wet glasses. I wasn't sure there was much difference in clarity between glasses and no glasses. At this point I stood up and walked back toward the back of the cove, and I found a trail that went off into the woods. I decided to take this trail, and after walking a bit, all at once I found myself standing looking at a small building in the woods. I got the feeling it was perhaps an abandoned resort hotel. Then the scene changed again and I was inside the hotel in what seemed to be a combination lounge and gift shop. I performed my systematic "intake" of the room, glancing in all directions, beginning to wonder how long I could maintain the aware dream state.

I raised my hands again and looked at them briefly, again wondering if that would help me keep going. In the room, I found a dry t-shirt, so I took off the wet one and put on the new one. Then I began to examine in detail the numerous weird "toys" that were on the shelves. Some were very unusual, and I picked up and played with several of them). I must have become too engrossed in this, for after doing this for a while, I woke up. *** Believe it or not, the above is not an exhaustive account of my dreaming experiences of years ago (1987-1989), though it does include the most interesting ones (except for all the dreaming experiences I posted before writing this, which presumably are already in the archives of the group somewhere). I hope you have found my account in some way entertaining or informative. It feels good to have found a place to publish all these dreams, which I somewhat obsessively recorded long ago. Hopefully making this available to others at last will help me to be less obsessive about what I have done, and help me to move on... - David Worrell

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