Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan’s Teachings

M: In the early stages of perceptions, partitioning is a willful task that requires effort, and it doesn’t integrate well into a whole. The idea is to “recognize” the experience for it’s attributes, without attempting to place specific “boundaries” (partitions) around it. The “recognition” will aid in the definitions sufficiently without forming boundaries.

R: I’ve actually entered into volitional dreaming from an awake state in bed. Those are the best.

M: You are more advanced than you represent/admit yourself to be. Now, ask yourself “why” you don’t commit to acceptance and try to partition yourself.

R: I wrote more on this kind of dreaming with this line of yours in mind. On this part; It strikes me that the word “advanced” also partitions. I don’t mean to misrepresent myself. I don’t think about admitting anything to myself, dreaming wise. I’ve accepted it all (dreaming) just as a fact of my life. Is there something there that you see me as not accepting? Accepting it as second attention experiences just came to my mind and right off I would say about that that the phrase “second attention” is just a phrase to me. And I like it as a phrase with its meaning of “another” equally valid attention to the daily world one. And that fits very well with what dreaming is to me. So I guess I’m back to not understanding what it is that you are seeing that I’m not accepting. As for partitioning, is there something you see there that I did not clarify above?

R: Others start by flying and I immediately then know it is a volitional dream at which point I usually land and start practicing (or sometimes not) what the CC books have instructed to do for your level of dreaming. But, like I say, I’ve never actually been cued to the point of actually acknowledging in the dream “this has to be a dream” and yet not accept that and act upon it.

M: How about “this is an experience, what am I going to learn from this?”, as an application of adventure?

R: Yes, yes, but, this has to become my way in the first attention before I’ll have a chance in hell of being able to do it in an unrecognized second attention situation like that dream was.

R: What do you mean “as an application of adventure”

M: Drawing from my own approach/experience(s) the following may be useful. The first occasion of travel into the third attention, I was a bit surprised, but instantly recognized what was happening to me. I “floated” along “for the ride” with the attitude of “well, wow, I wonder where this is taking me, and why, and this might really be a challenging adventure”. That is the spirit of what I mean. Impeccability requires the self-confidence that if something occurs that violates my impeccability I’ll know it and immediately have the power/ability of blowing myself out of the experience and back into the safety of the 1st attention. Since that can be accomplished on the instant at any time, then all I have to do is to allow the “adventure” to take me and in that manner, all I have to do is be alert.

R: I felt very stupid when I woke up. All I can think is that I also don’t usually have dreams that exactly copy what I’m expecting to really happen in real life, and this one did, so I just couldn’t believe it was a dream no matter the “funny counting.”

R: At the beach with my daughter I was starring at the sky and it’s sliver of a moon up there on what was a bright sunny day and I saw (only in full turned ON internal dialogue), little specks of scattered light flickering, but it seemed to just be the kind of thing you would expect upon, say, pressing on closed eyelids.

M: You experienced seeing, and you still find excuses not to accept. Amazing. You didn’t press on your eyes to artificially create a response. You saw energy from the universe. When you see the cocoon of what CC would call “a nagual” you will see the same electrical flickering within the golden-amber color. Rather than extend your hand “into” the flickering that you were seeing, where you could feel it, you choose to accept the experience. When you feel it, it will feel like “electric ants” on the surface of the skin of your hand, then if you don’t withdraw, the energy will pass “through” your hand. If you then extend your will/intent into the energy flow through your hand, you would be able to “see” the modification the flickering of the field of energy you perceived. You would be actually able to interact with the energy and alter it’s course. You would be able to learn how to channel/join with the energy to shape and heal, with practice. You would be able to “join” with the energy and learn how to use it to increase your own energy. In travelling into and through, fully immersed in the third attention, this sparkling energy becomes a platform for one to “surf”: it empowers, and you have begun to see it.

R: Oh. When I read that, I guess it was two days ago now, I set out to “play” with it. I told my daughter (13) about it and she says that she can see it also. I can, I’ve found, see it at will when I look into the blue sky or clouds (though it’s harder to notice in clouds). I’ve now extended my hand into it but until this just now reading, I’d forgotten that you said you could feel it like electric ants, and I was looking for a “field change” which I didn’t find. I find it a bit disconcerting that I don’t have to do anything much special to be able to see it, although crossing the eyes makes it happen the fastest (faster as in the perception of it starts up more quickly). That’s really energy flow and not some optical thing like the mass of floaters in my eyeballs? Well, I know it is not that and if it was optical it would seem that I could reproduce it starring at a light blue wall. I hate to be a pain with my scepticism but, as I mentioned before, I don’t even have to turn off the internal dialogue to achieve it and that seems at least a little bit unfair somehow.

M: It’s already noted that you have ability, so your skepticism is really skepticism about yourself more than anything else. You can “see”, but interaction requires more intent and will – there’s the difference. One has to “link” self with the energy for it to become proactive and interactive.

R: Remember now, try and have a little bit of patience here with me, I’m the one who has never known a waking unusual experience and to be told now that a little flickering is my seeing energy flow like others can’t (won’t?), well, it doesn’t quite seem like much to write home about. I also realized that I’ve been seeing this at times for a long long time … and, I just now realized, that I’ve always suspected it as possibly being something special.

M: Patience is a very important part of loosing the human form …

R: For some reason, I think you should be glad that I’m a sceptic, even if it is frustrating for you. I am listening and I’d love to spend the day playing with the perception of these flickers. The second I feel electric ants I’ll probably pee in my pants. Remember, NO WAKING ANYTHING SO FAR, but some flickers? Come on, it’s got to get better than that! But I’ll be patience, I’m thrilled to death that you told me I’d done something: seen energy flow. I am definitely out there playing with that one and doing my best to be open to the experience.

M: It’s hard to say “just feel” because it seems like that, however, there is a linkage to cause that. One basically takes a piece of one’s own energy and links it to the field. Remember the “airplane” exercise we rattled about some time ago. Start with the exercise, hands “feeling”. When the warmth overcomes your hands, slowly look up into the sky, look at the sparkling, then slowly turn your palms into the sparkling, and feel.

R: I have definitely seen energy in dreaming … twice. Once in front of a bush, once like above me over a street I was walking down and both times the colors were astoundingly bright and vivid and flickering and very localized. That’s what I want to see!!! Well, that’s what I’d love to see again, anyway.

M: You will.

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R: I am further along, because of your emails, in returning to the listening state during daily life. Also, listening to my compilation has taken on new meaning after your emails.