Bookmark
By J. Patricia Henkin
By J. Patricia Henkin
Carlos Castaneda
The style of Carlo Castaneda's The Art of Dreaming can immediately draw you into the story if you enjoy books written in the first person, in journal or diary style prose. There is an author's note, at the very beginning, in which he claims to have apprenticed for thirteen years with a Mexican Yaqui Indian sorcerer, don Juan Matus, who taught him many things. This book, however, is devoted to those teachings dealing only with the art of dreaming.
The first thing to be considered is that there are significant differences between modern and ancient sorcerers. Ancient sorcerers "...existed in Mexico perhaps thousands of years before the Spanish Conquest,.. modern sorcerers, by contrast, don Juan portrayed as men renowned for their sound minds and their capacity to rectify the course of sorcery if they deemed it necessary."
To fully participate in the art of dreaming, don Juan explains a person must be free, free to search, perceive without obsession, able to deal in the abstract. Now there is something I know I can do well--deal in the abstract.
The learned teacher actually believes more in the power or insight of the modern day sorcerer as opposed to those of the past who were "brilliant but lacking in wisdom." Ancient sorcerers used not only a physical but esoteric ability to see externally and internally within the subject to determine that individual's progression through the seven gates leading to mastering the art of dreaming.
Don Juan's methods initially involve teaching his students to perceive energy in all things in the Universe, even those we consider to be inanimate. This would prevent us from fitting things into pre-established molds; it would allow freedom of a higher mental power to take over.
This said, Castaneda goes on to explain his first and shall we say unsuccessful attempts at which I believe today would be called lucid dreaming. It took the author what seemed like forever (and to the end of the chapter) to accomplish the elementary feat of remembering to look at his hands once he began to dream. This demonstrates an individual's power or command over the dream itself. Once this was finally done, he moved on to the second gate wherein the individual will be able to stop the dream when they so desire. The third gate allows individuals to see themselves asleep. And so on and so forth.
If you like diary-style writing and you like the subject matter, the book is interesting. This book is also highly acclaimed in its genre but I have to say that it's still one of those books you borrow from the library, not buy. Most of the information is well-known to followers of this subject and merely presented in a one-on-one easy to understand manner rather than as a fifty dollar a word paper presented at some highbrow seminar on dreaming techniques.
Visions Magazine Index