The Art of Dreaming - Introduction

[Gav]

The Art of Dreaming Introduction

The Book and the Author:

The Art of Dreaming was written by Carlos Castaneda and first published in 1993. The book contains thirteen chapters and describes in the form of a story, his apprenticeship into dreaming with a Yaqui Indian – Don Juan.

A lot of speculation exists concerning the existence of Don Juan, and the validity of Carlos Castaneda's story. If you are interested in reading up on the confusing history of Castaneda's life and death, a balanced report can be found here:

www.geocities.com/skepdigest/sorcerer.html

Regardless of the source of Castaneda's knowledge or the existence of Don Juan, his books contain many deep and truthful lessons.

Many of the subjects Castaneda covers are just too unbelievable, but in dreams anything is possible right? In a world derived from human conciseness anything is possible?

I view Castaneda's work as a parable, the story is simply the provider of his message, and no matter what the critics say or choose to believe, there is a huge following of people seduced or awoken by his (Don Juan's) philosophy.

Keep an open mind, follow the book and record your dreams. Bare in mind that Castaneda believed in a philosophy of unattainability. This means mis-direction and lots of it, false people – false locations – false dates – but see past this and understand that the lessons are the value in the material, not the story which is simply the messenger.

The Work:

The book the Art of Dreaming has been chosen due to its accuracy at describing the progression of awareness is dreaming and astral projecting and also the profound affect this book has upon the dreams of its readers. Be it the story that invokes, or the lessons within, but many, many people who read this book has a drastic increase in dream attention.

This often dramatic increase in dream activity has also lead to several people I know not finishing the book due to a scary situation, or feeling out of control – however there are nearly twenty people taking part in this study so plenty of avenues exist to obtain support.

The study will take 13 weeks to complete – that is one week for each chapter of the book.

You can read the chapter as you wish, all in one night, or over the week, but try to record each of your dreams and thoughts on what those dreams and experiences might mean. For this purpose you will each have your own thread. It is up to you how much you fill in, but the more participation the better.

The Threads:

Please feel free to use this thread for any questions you may have regarding your ability to partake or confusion with the instructions of the work, or other non-dream related problems such as discussions regarding the authenticity of Castaneda or Don Juan.

A different thread will be set up for questions and discussion related to the actual dream work and views on the contents and metaphysics of the book. “The Art of Dreaming Discussion”. Please keep the contents of this thread on the topic of the actual work, that being dreams, techniques and metaphysics.

The reason I ask for only the work related questions in this thread is to maintain some coherent order as we have nearly twenty participants, so please try to adhere to this policy - remember questions about the structure of the work or the validity or anything (that is not metaphysical) please keep in this introduction thread. All questions regarding experience and practice of the work please post to the “The Art of Dreaming Discussion”

Each member taking part will also have their own thread to record their dreams, and thoughts as they progress. Please try and keep any discussion in those threads relevant to the dreams and thoughts of the individual concerned. If anyone has any point for discussion please raise it in the discussion thread as leaving it in your own thread may render it invisible.

Record in your thread as much information as you can, about your dreams, about your feelings, about your beliefs – anything goes so long as it is in relation to inspiration from your dreams – or those of others participating in the work.

Each Sunday after a chapter has been read I will write a summary of the chapter just gone and any good effects if present. This Summary will be posted in the discussion thread. This will be a brief summary as it will take me some time to correlate all of the information that you have all provided.

In addition I will write a conclusion to each chapter in my own dream thread, based on my thoughts an experiences, and I invite everyone else to also conclude each chapter in their own thread.

At the end of the thirteen weeks (the end of the book) I have a few experiments I would like to try in the area of shared experiences which I believe many of you will have already experienced during the initial thirteen weeks. This will extend the study by perhaps another couple of weeks but is non obligatory in that you do not have to take part in the final experiments just because you took part in the book reading.

I will then compile all of the information into one document with conclusions, statistics and results from the experimentation period. If anyone would wish for their thread to be exempt from inclusion in this final document please state so and it shall not be included. All participants will be credited for their contributions and the final document will be available free of charge for download from this forum.

If anyone has any questions arise during the study of a personal nature, r something that may not be suitable for the forum you may by all means email me directly. I will try my best to stay up to date with incoming questions.

In the general discussion thread please feel free to answer questions as well as ask, after all this is a shared work and the discussion is valuable.

This work will officially start on Sunday 21st of August. This gives a few more days for some participants to prepare and others to obtain the book.

This means that your first dream to be recorded would be on the following Monday (record Sundays dream).

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask.

Kindest Regards
Gav

[incubus]

I few points to discuss. I have been reading Carlos' Journey to Ixtlan, and it goes through the apprenticeship with don Juan starting from the beginning. I am finding this book inspirational. I have no problem believing that the old eccentric man existed at all, despite the strange claims made. I know there are variable facts published throughout Carlo's work that describe different accounts that contradict his actual meetings. However don Juan was always trying to get Carlos to precieve the universe in a different manner. A reality that is difficult to comprehend, made of energy, vast, and un-understandable. I think Carlos' stories change based on a furthering understanding of the universe, and the teachings of his master. Some do not believe his stories based on Carlos' hard headed refusal to believe don Juan. But truly I believe Carlos was simply trying to get through to the thickest of people, so he had to embelish his own disbelief, in order to get through to everyone, and cover every arguement. He does also raise strange things that can be difficult to believe. Who would believe the wind is wilfull, or that the animals and plants can talk? Those are just a couple of his outrageous claims, but how can someone think that we understand everything, without thinking we are so important? After all the world is flat right? Don Juan did not what anyone to know anything about him, so he could not have no 'personal history'. So that he could ultimately protect himself from the negative ties of the world, and be free from people's negative judgements. I find it offensive that people do not respect his wishes, and would seek him out to take his picture etc. I personally do not want to know about Carlos', or don Juan's personal history, as that is how they would want it. And really it makes no difference to the message, but to provide us with a judgement. Perhaps that is why they were not to be found, because they do not want fame or anyone to know about them, besides by the great teachings. I am very excited to start this project, and I know everyone who reads his book will ultimately change, and for the better. I have my book in Toronto now, and so I should have it on Monday, or Tuesday! Thanks also for waiting for the stragelers, and sorry to everyone who is dieing to get started, as I can understand. Thanks!

[Blake]

Just a quick question... are we supposed to record EVERY dream we have? Or just the more prominent ones? It seems like it could get pretty time consuming and long to write ALL dreams we have.

[nani]

Great introduction, have no questions. Thanks Gav, for all that, sounds terrific !
I would love to take part from the beginning till the end, all included so to say ! lgn

[incubus]

My book came today! Such a soft little book, very flimsey, light, and delicate. lol. Lots of words though! Mine is a reprint with the newer cover. I will continue to finish his older book in the meantime, and wait for the start of the study!

[~¤LilacSky¤~]

question gav real quick..do you think that by reading this book that it could open us up to more synchronicities and perhaps attract more things of our subconscious in waking life to us??
because there has been only a few books that ive read that have kind been guides in a way, you know..and Im thinking perhaps this book will be that for myself and others..??
note-just had deja vu while I wrote the last sentance..lol..
anyway I get the feeling this is one of those types of books that seems to open up our awareness to the point that our lifes seem to make more sense..and patterns,situations unravel themselves as we figure them out ..does that make sense gav??

[Gav]

Incubus:

Some excellent points, the existence of Don Juan is most certainly a possibility, other books exist from authors claiming to have met and studied under him, but these could be legit or could be people jumping on the band wagon.

As you state it is important to regard Don Juan's underlying philosophy of unattainability when we consider the passage of false or misdirected information – the reality is that if Castaneda followed this philosophy himself then we have no reason to believe that he would have given us any direct links to the real Don Juan, be that Don Juan the Yaqui Indian or Don Juan – Castaneda – either way – Don Juan as a real Shaman with false credentials – or Don Juan as a thought form created for the books – Don Juan creates a layer of unattainability.

Castaneda escapes attainability by blessing Don Juan with all the knowledge and making himself out to be a slow learning suburbanite, and if Don Juan exists or existed as a person he escaped attainability through Carlos. The two protect each others energetic interests. Be this coincidental or a deliberate fabrication matters not.

As you suggest we need not judge them (him) as the messages in the books stand regardless of there origin, and if correctly understood the lessons n of Don Juan teach us that this world is one of conscious assimilation and that the only thing worth doing here is laughing and preparing to die – or enter the second attention. The true power play is to be unattached to the world around us, to be free and act by will. Those overly concerned that Don Juan might not exist to the extent that they denounce Castaneda's work because of this fear are still very much under the control of the material world and its myriad of rigid – simple black or white – facts and figures.

The most important lesson of course is that Don Juan's physical existence does not matter, but he exists regardless in the minds of everyone who believes in him, and in the realm of the mind he is ultimately dynamic and wholly unattainable the true credence of his own philosophy.

Thanks for your thoughts Incubus.

Blake:

Hope all is going well in Nevada!!

You do not need to input more than you feel capable of doing, if you only have one or two dreams a week to input that is fine, but the more input the better. Reasons are two fold:

1)Each day you perform the act of writing down your dreams you are training the memory to retain that information that it would normally discard. You only have to write down your dreams a few mornings before your recall improves dramatically!! Incidentally the reasons that this works are because you are reiterating the dream to yourself, there by committing it to long term memory, and also because you are using a mental trigger to spark the remembrance of your dreams – that trigger is the act of writing you are committing each morning – You could if you liked stand on your head and recite the dream to yourself mentally for the same effect (but upside down!!).
2)The more information you log the more useful it will be to find trends and patterns with other members of the study and for writing conclusions at the end of chapters and the book.

The important thing though – is do as much as you can don't worry if you cannot commit your life to it!! Just do what you can.,

Lilac:

Hi Ronni. Yes.

This book is most certainly one of those that helps us see. I believe you will have some excellent experiences as a result of this book.

The synchronicity is stronger the less we resist the material. The more we accept what we read without question – so fore allowing it to form in our subconscious or even unconscious thought process, the more of an affect it will have upon both our waking and dream lives. Dogma restricts experience, and this is one of those books that will help shed a little.

The book contains some deep truths, often delivered through radical new ways of viewing the world which will leave you questioning the rationality of them and the common world view, it is those questions, the ones that make you question the way you see reality that can induce transformation of the self, after all we are a reflection of our perception of reality, change the perception of reality and we change with it.

This is a very powerful book, but like any such work it is meaningless to those who cannot see teachings within its pages. Given the interest and knowledge gestured by our forum members in the field of dreams and astral projection I am sure that a lot will benefit greatly from this book.

Back to synchronicity I am sure that the arrival of this book in many peoples lives is synchronous to their requirement for its lessons.


Kind Regards
Gav

[~¤LilacSky¤~]

thats awesome gav, I look forward to it even more...and its always so great when a book can influence you so much that you began to transform and its always interesting to see how your life will follow the manifestions of these changes from within..this has not happend to me in a while , however it has many times before and I always stress to others how reading can do so much more than give you knowledge..
so thanks gav for your comments..

[Gav]

Hi all,

Just to let everyone know that once you have posted and in effect taken ownership of your Art of Dreaming Journal thread it will be removed from sticky.

So if you think that your thread has dissapeared make sure to check the bottom of the page, and possibily the next page also.

Remember that posting will bring your thread to the front so if you have not posted in a while you more than likely find your thread towards the back of the stack or on the second page.

Gav

[~¤LilacSky¤~]

thanks gav!!
and also so we just read the first chapter for now? is this correct? I just want to make sure..thanks again..

[nani]

I would need a little help on one thing:
Some words I will not find in a my translator, so I`ll have to find a translation for myself. To start with right from the beginning: german "Montagepunkt" could be called "mounting-point"

I understood it like yes we read one chapter in one week. So I do read each night 4-5 pages (read them several times) right before sleep - to be sure I understood them and take them seriously with me into my dream. Hope that is right !? lgn

[Gav]

Hi Nani and Lilac,

Yes one chapter a week, to be read as you like during that week.

You could read the whole chapter over and over each night or divide it up so a little is read each night, or read it at the beginning of the week and not read again until the next chapter the following week.

Nani mounting point is a reasonable translation, but assemblage point would be more accurate. It represents a point where everything comes together (assembles).

Gav