knew it because something was telling me that if I did not
move, they would not move either.
It all came to an end, at a given moment, when I woke
up with a fright. I was immediately besieged by fears. A deep
preoccupation took hold of me. It was not psychological worry
but rather a bodily sense of anguish, sadness with no
apparent foundation.
The two strange shapes appeared to me from then on in
every one of my dreaming sessions.
Eventually, it was as if I dreamt only to encounter them.
They never attempted to move toward me or to interfere with
me in any way. They just stood there, immobile, in front of
me, for as long as my dream lasted…
Carlos Castaneda
The Art of Dreaming (1993)
…I had a most unusual dream. It started with the
appearance of a scout from the inorganic beings' world. The
scouts as well as the dreaming emissary had been strangely
absent from my dreams. I had not missed them or pondered
their disappearance. In fact, I was so at ease without them I
had even forgotten to ask don Juan about their absence.
In that dream, the scout had been, at first, a gigantic
yellow topaz, which I had found stuck in the back of a drawer.
The moment I voiced my intent to see, the topaz turned into
a blob of sizzling energy. I feared that I would be compelled
to follow it, so I moved my gaze away from the scout and
focused it on an aquarium with tropical fish. I voiced my
intent to see and got a tremendous surprise. The aquarium
emitted a low, greenish glow and changed into a large
surrealist portrait of a bejeweled woman. The portrait emitted
the same greenish glow when I voiced my intent to see.
As I gazed at that glow, the whole dream changed. I was
walking then on a street in a town that seemed familiar to
me; it might have been Tucson. I gazed at a display of
women's clothes in a store window and spoke out loud my
intent to see. Instantly, a black mannequin, prominently
displayed, began to glow. I gazed next at a saleslady who
came at that moment to rearrange the window. She looked at
me. After voicing my intent, I saw her glow. It was so