There are many books that sculpted my way of seeing the world, therefore influencing the art I’m creating, but if I have to choose, the one that is the most resonant with my practice is the 8th book of Carlos Castaneda - “The Art of Dreaming”, written in 1993. The story begins, or better said continues with some of Castaneda’s spiritual knowledge gained in Mexico, as an apprentice of a Yaqui sorcerer – Don Juan Matus, who indirectly becomes the second character of the narrative.
From the first paragraph, Castaneda is luring you into his realm with a detailed, comforting, esoteric approach about other worlds that exist at the same time as ours:
“Don Juan contended that our world which we believed to be unique and absolute is only one in a cluster of consecutive worlds arranged like the layers of an onion…He asserted that even though we’ve been energetically conditioned to perceive solely our world, we still have the capability of entering into those other realms which are as real, unique, absolute and engulfing, as our own world is. Don Juan explained to me that for us to perceive those other realms, not only do we have to covet them, but also we need to have sufficient energy to seize them”.
It is noteworthy that in order for this book to be written Castaneda had to be Don Juan’s apprentice for 10 years, beginning in 1960. The Art of Dreaming was published 20 years after Don Juan’s disappearance. Bizarrely, Castaneda describes their adventures in the present tense, in the ‘second attention’, which is an alternate world of heightened awareness, experienced through the practice of lucid dreaming.
This story discusses ancient dreaming practices that alter the state of consciousness, techniques that even science fiction cannot fathom. Castaneda is travelling into new worlds, where he discovers strange but dangerous beings, as well as connecting his ‘energy body’, or spirit, with another person in order to explore the unknown together.
Don Juan's conception was that our entrapment in processing our perception to fit a social mould loses its power when we realise we have accepted this mould, as an inheritance from our ancestors, without bothering to examine it.
"To perceive a world of hard objects that had either a positive or a negative value must have been utterly necessary for our ancestors' survival," don Juan said."After ages of perceiving in such a manner, we are now forced to believe that the world is made up of objects."
I had many questions while reading Castaneda’s books. His experiences are so strange and almost incomprehensible, that my rational mind tried to deny it and classify it as unreal. Even Castaneda, as an anthropologist and man of reason, denies most of the information received from Don Juan:
"In those days, my mind would simply refuse to consider any way to understand the world except the one with which I was familiar. Don Juan's claims and the points he struggled to raise were outlandish propositions that I could not accept but could not refuse either."
In reading Castaneda, I felt intoxicated by the possibilities of our own minds. Dreaming raises
questions about the nature of reality. A characteristic aspect of dreams is that people believe them to be real as they are dreaming, no matter how bizarre or illogical the experience may seem once consciousness is regained. Moreover, we know more than we are aware of consciously, and what is under the surface emerges from our dreams and memories. Freud famously used dream experiences to help make meaning in people’s lives, while Jung theorised dreaming as a gateway to a deeper layer of the unconscious mind, with new possibilities. In Castaneda’s world, when we focus our attention, practice with discipline and let go of our preconceptions, the impossible becomes possible through the medium of dreams:
"The difficulty is in breaking the retaining wall we all have in our minds that holds us in place. To break it, all we need is energy. Once we have energy, seeing happens to us by itself. The trick is in abandoning our fort of self-complacency and false security. I am telling you about the principles of sorcery not with the hope that you will memorise them but with the hope that you will practice them."
As a witness of Castaneda’s experiences through reading his books and as an avid dreamer, I believe that “The Art of Dreaming” is a guide for any person who wants to discover and practice the magic of dreaming. His writing encouraged me to shift my perception about the world, therefore influencing the art I’m creating. Castaneda has left a written monument that invites the reader to suspend their disbelief and, like an adventurer, explore the seemingly endless possibilities of the human psyche - to transcend beyond the physical and rational laws of our reality.
Through 10 years of apprenticeship, endeavour, and exploration - all while putting his sanity at stake - Castaneda created a priceless bundle of stories to learn from. Castaneda has built a community and cult like following that shares ideas and visions connected to the power of mind and spirit. This world may seem unreal, even impossible, but maybe that is part of its timeless appeal.
Real or unreal, his stories still remain a mystery, but no doubt Castaneda was a very creative writer, giving his generation a fresh way of looking at the world that went beyond rational and linear calculations.
"Don Juan's said that the sorcerers of antiquity, the first ones to see the essence of the universe, described it in the best manner. They said that the essence of the universe resembles incandescent threads stretched into infinity in every conceivable direction, luminous filaments that are conscious of themselves in ways impossible for the human mind to comprehend."
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