I found out by means of my dreaming practices that a dreaming teacher mustcreate a didactic synthesis in order to emphasize a given point. In essence,what don Juan wanted I with my first task was to exercise my dreaming attentionby focusing it on the items of my dreams. To this effect he used as a spearheadthe idea of being aware of falling asleep. His subterfuge was to say that theonly way to be aware of falling asleep is to examine the elements of one'sdreams.

I realized, almost as soon as I had begun my dreaming practices, thatexercising the dreaming attention is the essential point in dreaming. To themind, however, it seems impossible that one can train oneself to be aware atthe level of dreams. Don Juan said that the active element of such training ispersistence, and that the mind and all its rational defenses cannot cope withpersistence. Sooner or later, he said, the mind's barriers fall, under itsimpact, and the dreaming attention blooms.

As I practiced focusing and holding my dreaming attention on the items ofmy dreams, I began to feel a peculiar self-confidence so remarkable that Isought a comment from don Juan.

"It's your entering into the second attention that gives you that senseof self-assurance," he said. "This calls for even more sobriety onyour part. Go slowly, but don't stop, and above all, don't talk about it. Justdo it!"

I told him that in practice I had corroborated what he had already toldme, that if one takes short glances at everything in a dream, the images do notdissolve. I commented that the difficult part is to break the initial barrierthat prevents us from bringing dreams to our conscious attention. I asked donJuan to give me his opinion on this matter, for I earnestly believed that thisbarrier is a psychological one created by our socialization, which puts apremium on disregarding dreams.

"The barrier is more than socialization," he replied. "It'sthe first gate of dreaming. Now that you've overcome it, it seems stupid to youthat we can't stop at will and pay attention to the items of our dreams. That'sa false certainty. The first gate of dreaming has to do with the flow of energyin the universe. It's a natural obstacle."

Don Juan made me agree then that we would talk about dreaming only in thesecond attention and as he saw fit. He encouraged me to practice in themeantime and promised no interference on his part.

As I gained proficiency in setting up dreaming, I repeatedly experiencedsensations that I deemed of great importance, such as the feeling that I wasrolling into a ditch just as I was falling asleep. Don Juan never told me thatthey were nonsensical sensations but let me record them in my notes. I realizenow how absurd I must have appeared to him. Today, if I were teaching dreaming,I would definitely discourage such a behavior. Don Juan merely made fun of me,calling me a covert egomaniac who professed to be fighting self-importance yetkept a meticulous, superpersonal diary called "My Dreams."

Every time he had an opportunity, don Juan pointed out that the energyneeded to release our dreaming attention from its socialization prison comesfrom redeploying our existing energy. Nothing could have been truer. Theemergence of our dreaming 'attention is a direct corollary of revamping ourlives. Since we have, as don Juan said, no way to plug into any external source

for a boost of energy, we must redeploy our existing energy, by any meansavailable.

Don Juan insisted that the sorcerers' way is the best means to I oil, soto speak, the wheels of energy redeployment, and that of I, all the items inthe sorcerers' way, the most effective is "losing self-importance."He was thoroughly convinced that this is ; indispensable for everything sorcerersdo, and for this reason he put an enormous emphasis on guiding all his studentsto fulfill this requirement. He was of the opinion that self-importance is notonly the sorcerers' supreme enemy but the nemesis of mankind.

Don Juan's argument was that most of our energy goes into upholding ourimportance. This is most obvious in our endless worry about the presentation ofthe self, about whether or not we are admired or liked or acknowledged. Hereasoned that if we were capable of losing some of that importance, twoextraordinary things would happen to us. One, we would free our energy fromtrying to maintain the illusory idea of our grandeur; and, two, we wouldprovide ourselves with enough energy to enter into the second attention tocatch a glimpse of the actual grandeur of the universe.

It took me more than two years to be able to focus my unwavering dreamingattention on anything I wanted. And I became so proficient that I felt as if Ihad been doing it all my life. The eeriest part was that I could not conceiveof not having had that ability. Yet I could remember how difficult it had beeneven to think of this as a possibility. It occurred to me that the capabilityof examining the contents of one's dreams must be the product of a naturalconfiguration of our being, similar perhaps to our capability of walking. Weare physically conditioned to walk only in one manner, bipedally, yet it takesa monumental effort for us to learn to walk.

This new capacity of looking in glances at the items of my dreams was coupledwith a most insistent nagging to remind myself to look at the elements of mydreams. I knew about my compulsive bent of character, but in my dreams mycompulsiveness was vastly augmented. It became so noticeable that not only didI resent hearing my nagging at myself but I also began to question whether itwas really my compulsiveness or something else. I even thought I was losing mymind.

"I talk to myself endlessly in my dreams, reminding myself to look atthings," I said to don Juan.

I had all along respected our agreement that we would talk about dreamingonly when he brought up the subject. However, I thought that this was anemergency.

"Does it sound to you like it's not you but someone else?" heasked.

"Come to think of it, yes. I don't sound like myself at thosetimes."

"Then it's not you. It's not time yet to explain it. But let's saythat we are not alone in this world. Let's say that there are other worldsavailable to dreamers, total worlds. From those other total worlds, energeticentities sometimes come to us. The next time you hear yourself nagging atyourself in your dreams, get really angry and yell a command. Say, Stopit!"

I entered into another challenging arena to remember in my dreams to shoutthat command. I believe that, perhaps, out of being so tremendously annoyed athearing myself nagging, I did remember to shout, Stop it. The nagging ceasedinstantly it never again was repeated. "Does every dreamer experiencethis?" I asked don Juan in I saw him again.

"Some do," he answered, uninterestedly. I began to rant abouthow strange it had all been. He cut me off, saying, "You are ready now toget to the second gate of dreaming."

I seized the opportunity to seek answers for questions I had not been ableto ask him. What I had experienced the first time the made me dream had beenforemost in my mind. I told don Juan that I had observed the elements of my owndreams to my heart's content, and never had I felt anything even vaguelysimilar in terms of clarity and detail.

"The more I think about it," I said, "the more intriguingit becomes. Watching those people in that dream, I experienced a fear andrevulsion impossible to forget. What was that feeling, Don Juan?"

"In my opinion, your energy body hooked onto the foreign energy ofthat place and had the time of its life. Naturally, you felt afraid andrevolted; you were examining alien energy for I the first time in your life.

"You have a proclivity for behaving like the sorcerers of antiquity.The moment you have the chance, you let your I assemblage point go. That timeyour assemblage point shifted quite a distance. The result was that you, likethe old sorcerers, journeyed beyond the world we know. A most real butdangerous journey."

I bypassed the meaning of his statements in favor of my own I interest andasked him, "Was that city perhaps on another I planet?"

"You can't explain dreaming by way of things you know or suspect youknow," he said. "All I can tell you is that the city you visited wasnot in this world." "Where was it, then?"

"Out of this world, of course. You're not that stupid. That was thefirst thing you noticed. What got you going in circles is that you can'timagine anything being out of this world."

"Where is out of this world, don Juan?"

"Believe me, the most extravagant feature of sorcery is thatconfiguration called out of this world. For instance, you assumed that I wasseeing the same things you did. The proof is that you never asked me what Isaw. You and only you saw a city and people in that city. I didn't see anythingof the sort. I saw energy. So, out of this world was, for you alone, on thatoccasion, a city."

"But then, don Juan, it wasn't a real city. It existed only for me,in my mind."

"No. That's not the case. Now you want to reduce somethingtranscendental to something mundane. You can't do that. That journey was real.You saw it as a city. I saw it as energy. Neither of us is right orwrong."

"My confusion comes when you talk about things being real. You saidbefore that we reached a real place. But if it was real, how can we have twoversions of it?"

"Very simple. We have two versions because we had, at that time, twodifferent rates of uniformity and cohesion. I have explained to you that thosetwo attributes are the key to perceiving."

"Do you think that I can go back to that particular city?"

"You got me there. I don't know. Or perhaps I do know but can'texplain it. Or perhaps I can explain it but I don't want to. You'll have towait and figure out for yourself which is the case."

He refused any further discussion.

"Let's get on with our business," he said. "You reach thesecond gate of dreaming when you wake up from a dream into another dream. Youcan have as many dreams as you want or as many as you are capable of, but youmust exercise adequate control and not wake up in the world we know." Ihad a jolt of panic. "Are you saying that I should never wake up in thisworld?" I asked.

"No, I didn't mean that. But now that you have pointed it, I have totell you that it is an alternative. The sorcerers of antiquity used to do that,never wake up in the world we know. Some of the sorcerers of my line have doneit too. It certainly be done, but I don't recommend it. What I want is for youto wake up naturally when you are through with dreaming, but ; you are dreaming,I want you to dream that you wake up !in another dream."

I heard myself asking the same question I had asked the first I time hetold me about setting up dreaming. "But is it possible I to do that?"

Don Juan obviously caught on to my mindlessness and laughingly repeatedthe answer he had given me before. "Of course it's possible. This controlis no different from the control I we have over any situation in our dailylives."

I quickly got over my embarrassment and was ready to ask more questions,but don Juan anticipated me and began to I explain facets of the second gate ofdreaming, an explanation that made me yet more uneasy.

"There's one problem with the second gate," he said. "It'sa problem that can be serious, depending on one's bent of character. If ourtendency is to indulge in clinging to things or situations, we are in for asock in the jaw." "In what way, don Juan?"

"Think for a moment. You've already experienced the outlandish joy ofexamining your dreams' contents. Imagine yourself going from dream to dream,watching everything, examining every detail. It's very easy to realize that onemay sink to mortal depths. Especially if one is given to indulging."

"Wouldn't the body or the brain naturally put a stop to it?""If it's a natural sleeping situation, meaning normal, yes. But this isnot a normal situation. This is dreaming. A dreamer on crossing the first gatehas already reached the energy body. So what is really going through the secondgate, hopping from dream to dream, is the energy body."

"What's the implication of all this, don Juan?"

"The implication is that on crossing the second gate you must intenda greater and more sober control over your dreaming attention the only safetyvalve for dreamers."

"What is this safety valve?"

"You will find out for yourself that the true goal of dreaming is toperfect the energy body. A perfect energy body, among other things of course,has such a control over the dreaming attention that it makes it stop whenneeded. This is the safety valve dreamers have. No matter how indulging theymight be, at a given time, their dreaming attention must make themsurface."

I started all over again on another dreaming quest. This time the goal wasmore elusive and the difficulty even greater. Exactly as with my first task, Icould not begin to figure out what to do. I had the discouraging suspicion thatall my practice was not going to be of much help this time. After countlessfailures, I gave up and settled down to simply continue my practice of fixingmy dreaming attention on every item of my dreams. Accepting my shortcomingsseemed to give me a boost, and I became even more adept at sustaining the viewof any item in my dreams.

A year went by without any change. Then one day something changed. As Iwas watching a window in a dream, trying to find out if I could catch a glimpseof the scenery outside the room, some windlike force, which I felt as a buzzingin my ears, pulled me through the window to the outside. Just before that pull,my dreaming attention had been caught by a strange structure some distanceaway. It looked like a tractor. The next thing I knew, I was standing by it,examining it.

I was perfectly aware that I was dreaming. I looked around to find out ifI could tell from what window I had been looking. The scene was that of a farmin the countryside. No buildings were in sight. I wanted to ponder this.However, the quantity of farm machinery lying around, as if abandoned, took allmy attention. I examined mowing machines, tractors, grain harvesters, diskplows, thrashers. There were so many that I forgot my original dream. What Iwanted then was to orient myself by watching the immediate scenery. There wassomething in the distance that looked like a billboard and some telephone polesaround it.

The instant I focused my attention on that billboard, I was I next to it.The steel structure of the billboard gave me a fright. It I was menacing. Onthe billboard itself was a picture of a building. I read the text; it was anadvertisement for a motel. I had a I peculiar certainty that I was in Oregon ornorthern California.

I looked for other features in the environment of my dream. I sawmountains very far away and some green, round hills not I too far. On thosehills were clumps of what I thought were California oak trees. I wanted to bepulled by the green hills, but what pulled me were the distant mountains. I wasconvinced I that they were the Sierras.

All my dreaming energy left me on those mountains. But I before it did, Iwas pulled by every possible feature. My dream I ceased to be a dream. As faras my capacity to perceive was I concerned, I was veritably in the Sierras,zooming into ravines, I boulders, trees, caves. I went from scarp faces tomountain I peaks until I had no more drive and could not focus my dreamingattention on anything. I felt myself losing control. Finally, I there was nomore scenery, just darkness.

"You have reached the second gate of dreaming," don Juan 1 saidwhen I narrated my dream to him. "What you should do I* next is to crossit. Crossing the second gate is a very serious affair; it requires a mostdisciplined effort."

I was not sure I had fulfilled the task he outlined for me, because I hadnot really woken up in another dream. I asked don Juan about this irregularity.

"The mistake was mine," he said. "I told you that one hasto wake up in another dream, but what I meant is that one has to change dreamsin an orderly and precise manner, the way you have done it.

"With the first gate, you wasted a lot of time looking exclusivelyfor your hands. This time, you went directly to the solution without botheringto follow the given command to wake up in another dream."

Don Juan said that there are two ways of properly crossing the second gateof dreaming. One is to wake up in another dream, that is to say, to dream thatone is having a dream and then dream that one wakes up from it. The alternativeis to use the items of a dream to trigger another dream, exactly as I had done.

Just as he had been doing all along, don Juan let me practice without anyinterference on his part. And I corroborated the two alternatives he described.Either I dreamt that I was having a dream from which I dreamt I woke up or Izoomed from a definite item accessible to my immediate dreaming attention toanother one, not quite accessible. Or I entered into a slight variation of thesecond I gazed at any item of a dream, maintaining the gaze until the itemchanged shape and, by changing shape, pulled me into another dream through abuzzing vortex. Never was I capable, however, of deciding beforehand which ofthe three I would follow. My dreaming practices always ended by my running outof dreaming attention and finally waking up or by my falling into dark, deepslumber.

Everything went smoothly in my practices. The only disturbance I had was apeculiar interference, a jolt of fear or discomfort I had begun to experiencewith increasing frequency. My way of discarding it was to believe that it wasrelated to my ghastly eating habits or to the fact that, in those days, donJuan was giving me a profusion of hallucinogenic plants as part of my training.Those jolts became so prominent, however, that I had to ask don Juan's advice.

"You have entered now into the most dangerous facet of the sorcerers'knowledge," he began. "It is sheer dread, a veritable nightmare. Icould joke with you and say that I didn't mention this possibility to you outof regard for your cherished rationality, but I can't. Every sorcerer has toface it. Here is where, I fear, you might very well think you're going off thedeep end." Don Juan very solemnly explained that life and consciousness,being exclusively a matter of energy, are not solely the property of organisms.He said that sorcerers have seen that there are two types of conscious beingsroaming the earth, the organic and the inorganic, and that in comparing onewith the other, they have seen that both are luminous masses crossed from everyimaginable angle by millions of the universe's ; energy filaments. They aredifferent from each other in their s shape and in their degree of brightness.Inorganic beings are long and candlelike but opaque, whereas organic beings areround and by far the brighter. Another noteworthy difference, which don Juansaid sorcerers have seen, is that the life and consciousness of organic beingsis short-lived, because they are made to hurry, whereas the life of inorganicbeings is infinitely longer and their consciousness infinitely more calm anddeeper. "Sorcerers find no problem interacting with them," don Juanvent on. "Inorganic beings possess the crucial ingredient for interaction,consciousness."

"But do these inorganic beings really exist? Like you and Iexist?" I asked.

"Of course they do," he replied. "Believe me, sorcerers areintelligent creatures; under no condition would they toy with aberrations ofthe mind and then take them for real." "Why do you say they arealive?"

"For sorcerers, having life means having consciousness. It meanshaving an assemblage point and its surrounding glow of awareness, a conditionthat points out to sorcerers that the being in front of them, organic orinorganic, is thoroughly capable of perceiving. Perceiving is understood bysorcerers as the precondition of being alive."

"Then the inorganic beings must also die. Is that true, donJuan?"

"Naturally. They lose their awareness just like we do, except thatthe length of their consciousness is staggering to the mind."

"Do these inorganic beings appear to sorcerers?"

"It's very difficult to tell what is what with them. Let's say thatthose beings are enticed by us or, better yet, compelled to interact withus."

Don Juan peered at me most intently. "You're not taking in any ofthis at all," he said with the tone of someone who has reached aconclusion.

"It's nearly impossible for me to think about this rationally,"I said.

"I warned you that the subject will tax your reason. The proper thingto do then is to suspend judgment and let things take, their course, meaningthat you let the inorganic beings come to you."

"Are you serious, don Juan?"

"Deadly serious. The difficulty with inorganic beings is that theirawareness is very slow in comparison with ours. It will take years for asorcerer to be acknowledged by inorganic beings. So, it is advisable to havepatience and wait. Sooner or later they show up. But not like you or I wouldshow up. Theirs is a most peculiar way to make themselves known."

"How do sorcerers entice them? Do they have a ritual?"

"Well, they certainly don't stand in the middle of the road and callout to them with trembling voices at the stroke of midnight, if that's what youmean."

"What do they do then?"

"They entice them in dreaming. I said that what's involved is morethan enticing them; by the act of dreaming, sorcerers compel those beings tointeract with them."

"How do sorcerers compel them by the act of dreaming?"

"Dreaming is sustaining the position where the assemblage point hasshifted in dreams. This act creates a distinctive energy *';. charge, whichattracts their attention. It's like bait to fish; they'll go for it. Sorcerers,by reaching and crossing the first two gates of dreaming, set bait for thosebeings and compel them to appear.

"By going through the two gates, you have made your bid-I ding knownto them. Now, you must wait for a sign from them."

"What would the sign be, don Juan?"

"Possibly the appearance of one of them, although that seems toosoon. I am of the opinion that their sign will be simply some interference inyour dreaming. I believe that the jolts of fear you are experiencing nowadaysare not indigestion but !energy jolts sent to you by the inorganicbeings."

"What should I do?"

"You must gauge your expectations."

I could not understand what he meant, and he carefully explained that ournormal expectation when engaging in interaction with our fellow men or withother organic beings is to get an immediate reply to our solicitation. Withinorganic beings, however, since they are separated from us by a mostformidable barrier - energy that moves at a different speed - sorcerers must gaugetheir expectations and sustain the solicitation for as long as it takes to beacknowledged.

"Do you mean, don Juan, that the solicitation is the same as thedreaming practices?" "Yes. But for a perfect result, you must add toyour practices the intent of reaching those inorganic beings. Send a feeling ofpower and confidence to them, a feeling of strength, of detachment. Avoid atany cost sending a feeling of fear or morbidity. "" are pretty morbidby themselves; to add your morbidity them is unnecessary, to say theleast."

"I'm not clear, don Juan, about the way they appear to sorcerers.What is the peculiar way they make themselves known?" "They do, attimes, materialize themselves in the daily world right in front of us. Most ofthe time, though, their invisible presence is marked by a bodily jolt, a shiverof sorts that comes from the marrow of the bones."

"What about in dreaming, don Juan?"

In dreaming we have the total opposite. At times, we feel them the way youare feeling them, as a jolt of fear. Most of the time, they materializethemselves right in front of us. Since at the beginning of dreaming we have noexperience whatsoever with them, they might imbue us with fear beyond measure.That is a real danger to us. Through the channel of fear, they can follow us tothe daily world, with disastrous results for us."

"In what way, don Juan?"

"Fear can settle down in our lives, and we would have to be mavericksto deal with it. Inorganic beings can be worse than a pest. Through fear theycan easily drive us raving mad."

"What do sorcerers do with inorganic beings?"

"They mingle with them. They turn them into allies. They formassociations, create extraordinary friendships. I call them vast enterprises,where perception plays the uppermost role. We are social beings. We unavoidablyseek the company of consciousness.

"With inorganic beings, the secret is not to fear them. And this mustbe done from the beginning. The intent one has to send out to them has to be ofpower and abandon. In that intent one must encode the message T don't fear you.Come to see me. If you do, I'll welcome you. If you don't want to come, 111miss you.' With a message like this, they'll get so curious that they'll comefor sure."

Why should they come to seek me, or why on earth should I seek them?"

Dreamers, whether they like it or not, in their dreaming seek associationswith other beings. This may come to you as a shock, but dreamers automaticallyseek groups of beings, nexuses of inorganic beings in this case. Dreamers seekthem avidly."

"This is very strange to me, don Juan. Why would dreamers dothat?"

"The novelty for us is the inorganic beings. And the novelty them isone of our kind crossing the boundaries of their realm. The thing you must bearin mind from now on is that organic beings with their superb consciousnessexert a tremendous pull over dreamers and can easily transport them into worldsbeyond description.

"The sorcerers of antiquity used them, and they are the ones whocoined the name allies. Their allies taught them to move the assemblage pointout of the egg's boundaries into the non-human universe. So when they transporta sorcerer, they transport him to worlds beyond the human domain." As Iheard him talk, I was plagued by strange fears and misgivings, which he promptlyrealized.

"You are a religious man to the end." He laughed. "Now,you're feeling the devil breathing down your neck. Think about dreaming inthese terms dreaming is perceiving more than hat we believe it is possible toperceive." In my waking hours, I worried about the possibility thatorganic conscious beings really existed. When I was dream-ling, however, myconscious worries did not have much effect. The jolts of physical fearcontinued, but whenever they happened a strange calmness always trailed behind,a calmness I that took control of me and let me proceed as if I had no fear atfall.

It seemed at that time that every breakthrough in dreaming happened to mesuddenly, without warning. The presence of ; inorganic beings in my dreams wasno exception. It happened I while I was dreaming about a circus I knew in mychildhood. ! The setting looked like a town in the mountains in Arizona. I ;began to watch people with the vague hope I always had that I ; would see againthe people I had seen the first time don Juan I made me enter into the secondattention.

As I watched them, I felt a sizable jolt of nervousness in the pit of mystomach; it was like a punch. The jolt distracted me, and I lost sight of thepeople, the circus, and the mountain town in Arizona. In their place stood twostrange-looking figures. They were thin, less than a foot wide, but long,perhaps seven feet. They were looming over me like two gigantic earthworms.

I knew that it was a dream, but I also knew that I was seeing. Don Juan haddiscussed seeing in my normal awareness and in the second attention as well.Although I was incapable of experiencing it myself, I thought I had understoodthe idea of directly perceiving energy. In that dream, looking at those twostrange apparitions, I realized that I was seeing the energy essence ofsomething unbelievable.

I remained very calm. I did not move. The most remarkable thing to me wasthat they didn't dissolve or change into something else. They were cohesivebeings that retained their candlelike shape. Something in them was forcingsomething in me to hold the view of their shape. I knew it because somethingwas 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. Iwas immediately besieged by fears. A deep preoccupation took hold of me. It wasnot psychological worry but rather a bodily sense of anguish, sadness with noapparent foundation.

The two strange shapes appeared to me from then on in every one of my dreamingsessions. Eventually, it was as if I dreamt only to encounter them. They neverattempted to move toward me or to interfere with me in any way. They just stoodthere, immobile, in front of me, for as long as my dream lasted. Not only did Inever make any effort to change my dreams but I even forgot the original questof my dreaming practices.

When I finally discussed with don Juan what was happening to me, I hadspent months solely viewing the two shapes.

"You are stuck at a dangerous crossroad," don Juan said."It isn't right to chase these beings away, but it isn't right either to Ilet them stay. For the time being, their presence is a hindrance I to yourdreaming."

"What can I do, don Juan?"

"Face them, right now, in the world of daily life, and tell them tocome back later, when you have more dreaming power."

"How do I face them?"

"It's not simple, but it can be done. It requires only that you haveenough guts, which of course you do."

Without waiting for me to tell him that I had no guts at all, he I took meto the hills. He lived then in northern Mexico, and he had given me the totalimpression he was a solitary sorcerer, an I old man forgotten by everybody andcompletely outside the main current of human affairs. I had surmised, however,that 1 he was intelligent beyond measure. And because of this I was I willingto comply with what I half-believed were mere eccentricities.

The cunningness of sorcerers, cultivated through the ages, was don Juan'strademark. He made sure that I understood all I Could in my normal awarenessand, at the same time, he made I sure that I entered into the second attention,where I under-I stood or at least passionately listened to everything he taughtme. In this fashion, he divided me in two. In my normal consciousness, I couldnot understand why or how I was more than willing to take his eccentricitiesseriously. In the second attention, it all made sense to me.

His contention was that the second attention is available to all of us,but, by willfully holding on to our half-cocked rationality, some of us morefiercely than others, keep the second I attention at arm's length. His idea wasthat dreaming brings down the barriers that surround and insulate the secondattention.

The day he took me to the hills of the Sonora desert to meet the inorganicbeings, I was in my normal state of awareness. Yet somehow I knew I had to dosomething that was certainly going to be unbelievable.

It had rained lightly in the desert. The red dirt was still wet, and as Iwalked it got clumped up in the rubber soles of my shoes. I had to step onrocks to remove the heavy chunks of dirt. We walked in an easterly direction,climbing toward the hills. When we got to a narrow gully between two hills, donJuan stopped.

"This is for sure an ideal place to summon your friends," hesaid.

"Why do you call them my friends?"

"They have singled you out themselves. When they do that, it meansthat they seek an association. I've mentioned to you that sorcerers form bondsof friendship with them. Your case seems to be an example. And you don't evenhave to solicit them."

"What does such a friendship consist of, don Juan?"

"It consists of a mutual exchange of energy. The inorganic beingssupply their high awareness, and sorcerers supply their heightened awarenessand high energy. The positive result is an even exchange. The negative one isdependency on both parties.

"The old sorcerers used to love their allies. In fact, they lovedtheir allies more than they loved their own kind. I can foresee terribledangers in that."

"What do you recommend I do, don Juan?"

"Summon them. Size them up, and then decide yourself what todo."

"What should I do to summon them?"

"Hold your dream view of them in your mind. The reason they havesaturated you with their presence in your dreams is that they want to create amemory of their shape in your mind. And this is the time to use thatmemory."

Don Juan forcefully ordered me to close my eyes and keep closed. Then heguided me to sit down on some rocks. I felt the hardness and the coldness ofthe rocks. The rocks were planted; it was difficult to keep my balance.

"Sit here and visualize their shape until they are just like they arein your dreams," don Juan said in my ear. "Let me know hen you havethem in focus."

It took me very little time and effort to have a complete mental pictureof their shape, just like in my dreams. It did lot surprise me at all that Icould do it. What shocked me was t, although I tried desperately to let donJuan know I had pictured them in my mind, I could not voice my words or myeyes. I was definitely awake. I could hear everything.

I heard don Juan say, "You can open your eyes now." I openedthem with no difficulty. I was sitting cross-legged on the rocks, which werenot the same ones I had felt under me hen I sat down. Don Juan was just behindme to my right. I tried to turn around to face him, but he forced my head toremain straight. And then I saw two dark figures, like two thin tree trunks,right in front of me.

I stared at them openmouthed; they were not as tall as in my dreams. Theyhad shrunk to half their size. Instead of being shapes of opaque luminosity,they were now two condensed, dark, almost black, menacing sticks.

"Get up and grab one of them," don Juan ordered me, "anddon't let go, no matter how it shakes you."

I definitely did not want to do anything of the sort, but some I unknowndrive made me stand up against my will. I had at that moment the clearrealization that I would end up doing I what he had ordered me to, although Ihad no conscious intention of doing so.

Mechanically, I advanced toward the two figures, my heart pounding nearlyout of my chest. I grabbed the one to my right. I What I felt was an electricdischarge that almost made me drop fine dark figure. Don Juan's voice came tome as if he had been yelling from a distance away. "You drop it and you'redone for," he said.

I held on to the figure, which twirled and shook. Not like a massiveanimal would, but like something quite fluffy and light, although stronglyelectrical. We rolled and turned on the sand of the gully for quite some time.It gave me jolt after jolt of some sickening electric current. I thought it wassickening because I fancied it to be different from the energy I had alwaysencountered in our daily world. When it hit my body, it tickled me and made meyell and growl like an animal, not in anguish but in a strange anger.

It finally became a still, almost solid form under me. It lay inert. Iasked don Juan if it was dead, but I did not hear my voice.

"Not a chance," said someone laughing, someone who was not donJuan. "You've just depleted its energy charge. But don't get up yet. Liethere just a moment longer."

I looked at don Juan with a question in my eyes. He was examining me withgreat curiosity. Then he helped me up. The dark figure remained on the ground.I wanted to ask don Juan if the dark figure was all right. Again, I could notvoice my question. Then I did something extravagant. I took it all for real. Upto that moment something in my mind was preserving my rationality by takingwhat was happening as a dream, a dream induced by don Juan's machinations.

I went to the figure on the ground and tried to lift it up. I could notput my arms around it because it had no mass. I became disoriented. The samevoice, which was not don Juan's, told me to lie down on top of the inorganicbeing. I did it, and both of us got up in one motion, the inorganic being likea dark shadow attached to me. It gently separated from me and disappeared,leaving me with an extremely pleasant feeling of completeness.

It took me more than twenty-four hours to regain total control of myfaculties. I slept most of the time. Don Juan checked me from time to time byasking me the same question, "Was the inorganic being's energy like fire orlike water?"

My throat seemed scorched. I could not tell him that the energy jolts Ihad felt were like jets of electrified water. I have never felt jets ofelectrified water in my life. I am not sure if it is possible to produce themor to feel them, but that was the image playing in my mind every time don Juanasked his key question.

Don Juan was asleep when I finally knew I was completely recovered.Knowing that his question was of great importance, I woke him up and told himwhat I had felt.

"You are not going to have helping friends among the inorganicbeings, but relationships of annoying dependence," he stated. "Beextremely careful. Watery inorganic beings are more given to excesses. The oldsorcerers believed that they were more loving, more capable of imitating, orperhaps even having feelings. As opposed to the fiery ones, who were thought tobe more serious, more contained than the others, but also more pompous."

"What's the meaning of all this for me, don Juan?"

"The meaning is too vast to discuss at this time. My recommendationis that you vanquish fear from your dreams and from your life, in order tosafeguard your unity. The inorganic being you depleted of energy and thenrecharged again was thrilled out of its candlelike shape with it. It'll come toyou for more."

"Why didn't you stop me, don Juan?"

"You didn't give me time. Besides, you didn't even hear me shoutingat you to leave the inorganic being on the ground."

"You should have lectured me, beforehand, the way you always do,about all the possibilities."

"I didn't know all the possibilities. In matters of the inorganicbeings, I am nearly a novice. I refused that part of the sorcerers' knowledgeon the ground that it is too cumbersome and capricious. I don't want to be atthe mercy of any entity, organic or inorganic."

That was the end of our exchange. I should have been worried because ofhis definitely negative reaction, but I was not. I somehow was certain thatwhatever I had done was all right.

I continued my dreaming practices without any interference from theinorganic beings.