You must be extremely careful, for you are about to fall prey to theinorganic beings," don Juan said to me, quite unexpectedly, after we hadbeen talking about something totally unrelated to dreaming.

His statement caught me by surprise. As usual, I attempted to defendmyself. "You don't have to warn me. I'm very careful," I assured him.

"The inorganic beings are plotting," he said. "I sensethat, and I can't console myself by saying that they set traps at the beginningand, in this manner, undesirable dreamers are effectively and permanentlyscreened out."

The tone of his voice was so urgent that I immediately had to reassure himI was not going to fall into any trap.

"You must seriously consider that the inorganic beings haveastounding means at their disposal," he went on. "Their awareness issuperb. In comparison, we are children, children with a lot of energy, whichthe inorganic beings covet."

I wanted to tell him that, on an abstract level, I had understood hispoint and his concern, but, on a concrete plane, I saw no reason for hiswarning, because I was in control of my dreaming practices.

A few minutes of uneasy silence followed before don Juan spoke again. Hechanged the subject and said that he had to bring to my attention a veryimportant issue of his dreaming instruction, an issue that had, so far,bypassed my awareness.

"You already understand that the gates of dreaming are specificobstacles," he said, "but you haven't understood yet that whatever isgiven as the exercise to reach and cross a gate is not really what that gate isall about."

"This is not clear to me at all, don Juan."

"I mean that it's not true to say, for example, that the second gateis reached and crossed when a dreamer learns to wake up in another dream, orwhen a dreamer learns to change dreams without waking up in the world of dailylife."

"Why isn't it true, don Juan?"

"Because the second gate of dreaming is reached and crossed only whena dreamer learns to isolate and follow the foreign energy scouts."

"Why then is the idea of changing dreams given at all?"

"Waking up in another dream or changing dreams is the drill devisedby the old sorcerers to exercise a dreamer's capacity to isolate and follow ascout."

Don Juan stated that following a scout is a high accomplishment and thatwhen dreamers are able to perform it, the second gate is flung open and theuniverse that exists behind it becomes accessible to them. He stressed that thisuniverse is there all the time but that we cannot go into it because we lackenergetic prowess and that, in essence, the second gate of dreaming is the doorinto the inorganic beings' world, and dreaming is the key that opens that door.

"Can a dreamer isolate a scout directly, without having to go throughthe drill of changing dreams?" I asked.

"No, not at all," he said. "The drill is essential. Thequestion here is whether this is the only drill that exists. Or can a dreamerfollow another drill?"

Don Juan looked at me quizzically. It seemed that he actually expected meto answer the question. "It's too difficult to come up with a drill ascomplete as the one the old sorcerers devised," I said, without knowingwhy but with irrefutable authority.

Don Juan admitted that I was absolutely right and said that the oldsorcerers had devised a series of perfect drills to go through the gates ofdreaming into the specific worlds that exist behind every gate. He reiteratedthat dreaming, being the old sorcerers' invention, has to be played by theirrules. He described the rule of the second gate in terms of a series of threesteps one, through practicing the drill of changing dreams, dreamers find outabout the scouts; two, by following the scouts, they enter into anotherveritable universe; and three, in that universe, by means of their actions,dreamers find out, on their own, the governing laws and regulations of thatuniverse.

Don Juan said that in my dealings with the inorganic beings, I hadfollowed the rule so well that he feared devastating consequences. He thoughtthat the unavoidable reaction on the part of the inorganic beings was going tobe an attempt to keep me in their world.

"Don't you think that you are exaggerating, don Juan?" I asked.I could not believe that the picture was as bleak as he was painting it.

"I am not exaggerating at all," he said, in a dry, serious tone.

"You'll see. The inorganic beings don't let anyone go, not without areal fight."

"But what makes you think they want me?"

"They've already shown you too many things. Do you really believethat they are going to all this trouble just to entertain themselves?"

Don Juan laughed at his own remark. I did not find him amusing. A strangefear made me ask him whether he thought I should interrupt or even discontinuemy dreaming practices.

"You have to continue your dreaming until you have gone through theuniverse behind the second gate," he said. "I mean that you alonemust either accept or reject the lure of the inorganic beings. That is why Iremain aloof and hardly ever comment on your dreaming practices."

I confessed to him that I had been at a loss to explain why he was sogenerous in elucidating other aspects of his knowledge and so miserly withdreaming.

"I was forced to teach you dreaming," he said, "onlybecause that is the pattern set out by the old sorcerers. The path of dreamingis filled with pitfalls, and to avoid those pitfalls or to fall into them isthe personal and individual affair of each dreamer, and I may add that it is afinal affair."

"Are those pitfalls the result of succumbing to adulation or topromises of power?" I asked.

"Not only succumbing to those, but succumbing to anything offered bythe inorganic beings. There is no way for sorcerers to accept anything offeredby them, beyond a certain point."

"And what is that certain point, don Juan?"

"That point depends on us as individuals. The challenge is for eachof us to take only what is needed from that world, nothing more. To know what'sneeded is the virtuosity of sorcerers, but to take only what's needed is theirhighest accomplishment. To fail to understand this simple rule is the surestway of plummeting into a pitfall."

"What happens if you fall, don Juan?"

"If you fall, you pay the price, and the price depends on thecircumstances and the depth of the fall. But there is really no way of talkingabout an eventuality of this sort, because we are not facing a problem ofpunishment. Energetic currents are at stake here, energetic currents whichcreate circumstances that are more dreadful than death. Everything in thesorcerers' path is a matter of life or death, but in the path of dreaming thismatter is enhanced a hundred fold."

I reassured don Juan that I always exercised the utmost care in mydreaming practices, and that I was extremely disciplined and conscientious.

"I know that you are," he said. "But I want you to be evenmore disciplined and handle everything related to dreaming with kid gloves. Be,above all, vigilant. I can't foretell where the attack will come from."

"Are you seeing, as a seer, imminent danger for me, don Juan?"

"I have seen imminent danger for you since the day you walked in thatmysterious city, the first time I helped you round up your energy body."

"But do you know specifically what I should do and what I shouldavoid?"

"No, I don't. I only know that the universe behind the second gate isthe closest to our own, and our own universe is pretty crafty and heartless. Sothe two can't be that different."

I persisted in asking him to tell me what was in store for me. And heinsisted that, as a sorcerer, he sensed a state of general danger but that hecould not be more specific.

"The, universe of the inorganic beings is always ready tostrike," he went on. "But so is our own universe. That's why you haveto go into their realm exactly as if you were venturing into a war zone."

"Do you mean, don Juan, that dreamers always have to be afraid ofthat world?"

"No. I don't mean that. Once a dreamer goes through the universebehind the second gate, or once a dreamer refuses to I consider it as a viableoption, there are no more headaches."

Don Juan stated that only then are dreamers free to continue. f I was notsure what he meant; he explained that the universe behind the second gate is sopowerful and aggressive that it f serves as a natural screen or a testingground where dreamers are probed for their weaknesses. If they survive thetests, they can proceed to the next gate; if they do not, they remain forevertrapped in that universe.

I was left choking with anxiety but, in spite of my coaxing, that was allhe said. When I went home, I continued my journeys to the inorganic beings'realm, exerting great care. My carefulness seemed only to increase my sense ofenjoying those journeys. I got to the point that the mere contemplation of theinorganic beings' world was enough to create an exultation impossible todescribe. I feared that my delight was going to end sooner or later, but it wasnot so. Something unexpected made it even more intense.

On one occasion, a scout guided me very roughly through countless tunnels,as if searching for something, or as if it were trying to draw all my energyout and exhaust me. By the time it finally stopped, I felt as if I had run amarathon. I seemed to be at the edge of that world. There were no more tunnels,only blackness all around me. Then something lit up the area right in front ofme; there, light shone from an indirect source. It was a subdued light thatrendered everything diffusely gray or brownish. When I became used to thelight, I vaguely distinguished some dark, moving shapes. After a while, itseemed to me that focusing my dreaming attention on those moving shapes madethem substantial. I noticed that there were three types some of them wereround, like balls; others were like bells; and others yet like gigantic,undulating candle flames. All of them were basically round and the same size. Ijudged that they were three to four feet in diameter. There were hundreds,perhaps even thousands of them.

I knew that I was having a strange, sophisticated vision, yet those shapeswere so real that I found myself reacting with genuine queasiness. I got thenauseating feeling of being over a nest of giant, round, brown and grayishbugs. I felt somehow safe, though, hovering above them. I discarded all theseconsiderations, however, the moment I realized that it was idiotic of me tofeel safe or ill at ease, as if my dream were a real-life situation. However,as I observed those buglike shapes squirm, I became very disturbed at the ideathat they were about to touch me.

"We are the mobile unit of our world," the emissary's voicesaid, all of a sudden. "Don't be afraid. We are energy, and, for sure,we're not intending to touch you. It would be impossible anyway. We are separatedby real boundaries."

After a long pause, the voice added, "We want you to join us. Comedown to where we are. And don't be ill at ease. You are not ill at ease withthe scouts and certainly not with me. The scouts and I are just like theothers. I am bell-shaped, and scouts are like candle flames."

That last statement was definitely a cue of sorts for my energy body. Onhearing it, my queasiness and fear vanished. I descended to their level, andthe balls and bells and candle flames surrounded me. They came so close to methat they would have touched me had I had a physical body. Instead, we wentthrough one another, like encapsulated air puffs.

I had, at that point, an unbelievable sensation. Although I did not feelanything with or in my energy body, I was feeling and recording the mostunusual tickling somewhere else; soft, airlike things were definitely goingthrough me, but not right there. The sensation was vague and fast and did notgive me time to catch it fully. Instead of focusing my dreaming attention onit, I became entirely absorbed in watching those oversized bugs of energy.

At the level where we were, it seemed to me that there was a commonalitybetween the shadow entities and myself size.

(Perhaps it was because I judged them to be the same size as my energybody that I felt almost cozy with them. On examining them, I concluded that Idid not mind them at all. They were impersonal, cold, detached, and I likedthat immensely. I wondered for an instant whether my disliking them one minuteand liking them the next was a natural consequence of dreaming or product ofsome energetic influence those entities were exerting on me.

"They are most likable," I said to the emissary, at the very Imoment I was overpowered by a wave of profound friendship for even affectionfor them.

No sooner had I spoken my mind than the dark shapes scurried away, likebulky guinea pigs, leaving me alone in semi-darkness.

"You projected too much feeling and scared them off," theemissary's voice said. "Feeling is too hard for them, and for me for thatmatter." The emissary actually laughed shyly.

My dreaming session ended there. On awakening, my first reaction was topack my bag to go to Mexico and see don Juan. However, an unexpecteddevelopment in my personal life made it impossible for me to travel, in spiteof my frantic preparations to leave. The anxiety resulting from this setbackinterrupted my dreaming practices altogether. I did not engage my consciousvolition to stop them; I had unwittingly put so , much emphasis on thisspecific dream that I simply knew if I could not get to don Juan there was nopoint in continuing dreaming.

After an interruption that lasted over half a year, I became more and moremystified by what had happened. I had no idea that my feelings alone were goingto stop my practices. I wondered then if the desire would be sufficient toreinstate it. It was! Once I had formulated the thought of reentering dreaming,my practices continued as if they had never been interrupted. The scout pickedup where we had left off and took me directly to the vision I'd had during mylast session.

"This is the shadows' world," the emissary's voice said as soonas I was there. "But, even though we are shadows, we shed light. Not onlyare we mobile but we are the light in the tunnels. We are another kind ofinorganic being that exists here. There are three kinds one is like an immobiletunnel, the other is like a mobile shadow. We are the mobile shadows. Thetunnels give us their energy, and we do their bidding."

The emissary stopped talking. I felt it was daring me to ask about thethird kind of inorganic being. I also felt that if I did not ask, the emissarywould not tell me.

"What's the third kind of inorganic being?" I said.

The emissary coughed and chuckled. To me, it sounded like it relishedbeing asked. "Oh, that's our most mysterious feature," it said."The third kind is revealed to our visitors only when they choose to staywith us."

"Why is that so?" I asked.

"Because it takes a great deal of energy to see them," theemissary answered. "And we would have to provide that energy."

I knew that the emissary was telling me the truth. I also knew that ahorrendous danger was lurking. Yet I was driven by a curiosity without limits.I wanted to see that third kind.

The emissary seemed to be aware of my mood. "Would you like to seethem?" it asked casually.

"Most certainly," I said.

"All you have to do is to say out loud that you want to stay withus," the emissary said with a nonchalant intonation.

"But if I say that, I have to stay, right?" I asked.

"Naturally," the emissary said in a tone of ultimate conviction."Everything you say out loud in this world is for keeps."

I could not help thinking that, if the emissary had wanted to trick meinto staying, all it had to do was lie to me. I would not have known thedifference.

"I cannot lie to you, because a lie doesn't exist," the emissarysaid, intruding into my thoughts. "I can tell you only about what exists.In my world, only intent exists; a lie has no intent behind it; therefore, ithas no existence." I wanted to argue that there is intent even behindlies, but before I could voice my argument, the emissary said that behind liesthere is intention but that intention is not intent. I could not keep mydreaming attention focused on the argument the emissary was posing. It went tothe shadow beings. Suddenly, I noticed that they had the appearance of a herdof range, childlike animals. The emissary's voice warned me to told my emotionsin check, for sudden bursts of feelings had the capacity to make them disperse,like a flock of birds. "What do you want me to do?" I asked."Come down to our side and try to push or pull us," the emissary'svoice urged me. "The quicker you learn to do that, the quicker you'll beable to move things around in your world ?y merely looking at them."

My merchant's mind went berserk with anticipation. I was instantly amongthem, desperately trying to push them or pull them. After a while, I thoroughlyexhausted my energy. I had then the impression that I had been trying to dosomething equivalent to lifting a house with the strength of my teeth.

Another impression I had was that the more I exerted myself, the greaterthe number of shadows. It was as if they were com-ling from every corner towatch me, or to feed on me. The moment I had that thought, the shadows againscurried away.

"We are not feeding on you," the emissary said. "We allcome to feel your energy, very much like what you do with sunlight on a coldday."

The emissary urged me to open up to them by canceling out my suspiciousthoughts. I heard the voice, and, as I listened to what it was saying, Irealized that I was hearing, feeling, and thinking exactly as I do in my dailyworld. I slowly turned to see around me. Taking the clarity of my perception asa gauge, I concluded that I was in a real world.

The emissary's voice sounded in my ears. It said that for me the onlydifference between perceiving my world and perceiving theirs was thatperceiving their world started and ended in the blink of an eye; perceivingmine did not, because my awareness - together with the awareness of an immensenumber of beings like me, who held my world in place with their intent - wasfixed on my world. The emissary added that perceiving my world started andended the same way for the inorganic beings, in the blink of an eye, butperceiving their world did not, because there were immense numbers of themholding it in place with their intent.

At that instant the scene started to dissolve. I was like a diver, andwaking up from that world was like swimming up to reach the surface.

In the following session, the emissary began its dialogue with me byrestating that a totally coordinated and coactive relationship existed betweenmobile shadows and stationary tunnels. It finished its statement saying,"We can't exist without each other."

"I understand what you mean," I said.

There was a touch of scorn in the emissary's voice when it retorted that Icould not possibly understand what it means to be related in that fashion,which was infinitely more than being dependent. I intended to ask the emissaryto explain what it meant by that, but the next instant I was inside of what Ican only describe as the very tissue of the tunnel. I saw some grotesquelymerged, glandlike protuberances that emitted an opaque light. The thoughtcrossed my mind that those were the same protuberances that had given me theimpression of being like Braille. Considering that they were energy blobs threeto four feet in diameter, I began to wonder about the actual size of thosetunnels.

"Size here is not like size in your world," the emissary said."The energy of this world is a different kind of energy; its featuresdon't coincide with the features of the energy of your world, yet this world isas real as your own."

The emissary went on to say that it had told me everything ! about theshadow beings when it described and explained the I protuberances on thetunnels' walls. I retorted that I had heard the explanations but I had not paidattention to them because I j believed that they did not pertain directly todreaming.

"Everything here, in this realm, pertains directly to dreaming,"the emissary stated.

I wanted to think about the reason for my misjudgment, but I my mindbecame blank. My dreaming attention was waning. I was having trouble focusingit on the world around me. I braced myself for waking up. The emissary startedto speak again, and the sound of its voice propped me up. My dreaming attentionperked up considerably.

"Dreaming is the vehicle that brings dreamers to this world,"the emissary said, "and everything sorcerers know about dreaming wastaught to them by us. Our world is connected to yours by a door called dreams.We know how to go through I that door, but men don't. They have to learnit."

The emissary's voice went on explaining what it had already explained tome before.

"The protuberances on the tunnels walls are shadow beings," itsaid. "I am one of them. We move inside the tunnels, on their walls,charging ourselves with the energy of the tunnels, which is our energy."

An idle thought crossed my mind I was really incapable of conceiving asymbiotic relationship such as the one I was witnessing.

"If you would stay among us, you would certainly learn to peel whatit is like to be connected as we are connected," the emissary said.

The emissary seemed to be waiting for my reply. I had the feeling thatwhat it really wanted was for me to say that I had decided to stay. "Howmany shadow beings are in each tunnel?" I asked to change the mood andimmediately regretted it because the emissary began to give me a detailedaccount of the numbers and functions of the shadow beings in each tunnel. Itsaid that each tunnel had a specific number of dependent entities, whichperformed specific functions having to do with the needs and expectations ofthe supporting tunnels.

I did not want the emissary to go into more detail. I reasoned that theless I knew about the tunnel and shadow beings the better off I was. Theinstant I formulated that thought, the emissary stopped, and my energy bodyjerked as if it had been pulled by a cable. The next moment, I was fully awake,in my bed.

From then on, I had no more fears that could have interrupted mypractices. Another idea had begun to rule me the idea that I had foundunparalleled excitation. I could hardly wait every day to start dreaming andhave the scout take me to the shadows' world. The added attraction was that myvisions of the shadows' world became even more true to life than before. Judgedby the subjective standards of orderly thoughts, orderly visual and auditorysensory input, orderly responses on my part, my experiences, for as long asthey lasted, were as real as any situation in our daily world. Never had I hadperceptual experiences in which the only difference between my visions and myeveryday world was the speed with which my visions ended. One instant I was ina strange, real world, and the next instant I was in my bed.

I craved don Juan's commentaries and explanations, but I was stillmarooned in Los Angeles. The more I considered my situation, the greater myanxiety; I even began to sense that something in the inorganic beings' realmwas brewing at tremendous speed.

As my anxiety grew, my body entered into a state of profound fright,although my mind was ecstatic in the contemplation of the shadows' world. Tomake things worse, the dreaming emissary's voice lapsed into my dailyconsciousness. One day while I was attending a class at the university, I heardthe voice say, over and over, that any attempt on my part to end ;my dreamingpractices would be deleterious to my total aims. It argued that warriors do notshy away from a challenge and that I had no valid rationale for discontinuingmy practices. I agreed with the emissary. I had no intention of stoppinganything, and the voice was merely reaffirming what I felt.

Not only did the emissary change but a new scout appeared on the scene. Onone occasion, before I had begun to examine the items of my dream, a scoutliterally jumped in front of me and aggressively captured my dreamingattention. The notable feature of this scout was that it did not need to gothrough any energetic metamorphosis; it was a blob of energy from the start. Inthe blink of an eye, the scout transported me, without my having to voice myintent to go with it, to another part of the inorganic beings' realm the worldof the saber-toothed tigers.

I have described in my other works glimpses of those visions. I sayglimpses because I did not have sufficient energy then to render theseperceived worlds comprehensible to my linear mind.

My nightly visions of the saber-toothed tigers occurred regularly for along time, until one night when the aggressive scout that had taken me for thefirst time to that realm suddenly appeared again. Without waiting for myconsent, it took me to the tunnels.

I heard the emissary's voice. It immediately went into the longest andmost poignant sales pitch I had heard so far. It told me about theextraordinary advantages of the inorganic beings' world. It spoke of acquiringknowledge that would definitely stagger the mind and about acquiring it by thesimplest act, of staying in those marvelous tunnels. It spoke of incrediblemobility, of endless time to find things, and, above all, of being pampered bycosmic servants that would cater to my slightest whims.

"Aware beings from the most unbelievable corners of the cosmos staywith us," the emissary said, ending its talk. "And they love theirstay with us. In fact, no one wants to leave."

The thought that crossed my mind at that moment was that servitude wasdefinitely antithetical to me. I had never been at ease with servants or withbeing served.

The scout took over and made me glide through many tunnels. It came to ahalt in a tunnel that seemed somehow larger than the others. My dreamingattention became riveted on the size and configuration of that tunnel, and itwould have stayed glued there had I not been made to turn around. My dreamingattention focused then on a blob of energy a bit bigger than the shadowentities. It was blue, like the blue in the center of a candle's flame. I knewthat this energy configuration was not a shadow entity and that it did notbelong there.

I became absorbed in sensing it. The scout signaled me to leave, but somethingwas making me impervious to its cues. I remained, uneasily, where I was.However, the scout's signaling broke my concentration, and I lost sight of theblue shape.

Suddenly, a considerable force made me spin around and put me squarely infront of the blue shape. As I gazed at it, it turned into the figure of aperson very small, slender, delicate, almost transparent. I desperatelyattempted to determine whether it was a man or a woman, but, hard as I tried, Icould not.

My attempts to ask the emissary failed. It flew away quite abruptly,leaving me suspended in that tunnel, facing now an unknown person. I tried totalk to that person the way I talked to the emissary. I got no response. I felta wave of frustration at not being able to break the barrier that separated us.Then I was besieged by the fear of being alone with someone who might have beenan enemy.

I had a variety of reactions triggered by the presence of that stranger. Ieven felt elation, because I knew that the scout had finally shown me anotherhuman being caught in that world. I only despaired at the possibility that wewere not able to communicate perhaps because that stranger was one of thesorcerers of antiquity and belonged to a time different from mine.

The more intense my elation and curiosity, the heavier I became, until amoment in which I was so massive that I was I back in my body, and back in theworld. I found myself in Los Angeles, in a park by the University ofCalifornia. I was standing on the grass, right in the line of people playinggolf.

The person in front of me had solidified at the same rate. We stared ateach other for a fleeting instant. It was a girl, perhaps six or seven yearsold. I thought I knew her. On seeing her, my elation and curiosity grew so outof proportion that they triggered a reversal. I lost mass so fast that inanother instant I was again a blob of energy in the inorganic beings' I realm.The scout came back for me and hurriedly pulled me away.

I woke up with a jolt of fright. In the process of surfacing into thedaily world, something had let a message slip through. My mind went into afrenzy trying to put together what I knew or thought I knew. I spent more thanforty-eight continuous hours attempting to get at a hidden feeling or a hiddenknowledge that had gotten stuck to me. The only success I had was to sense aforce - I fancied it to be outside my mind or my body - that told me not totrust my dreaming anymore.

After a few days, a dark and mysterious certainty began to get hold of me,a certainty that grew by degrees until I had no doubt about its authenticity Iwas sure that the blue blob of energy was a prisoner in the inorganic beings'realm.

I needed don Juan's advice more desperately than ever. I knew that I wasthrowing years of work out the window, but couldn't help it; I droppedeverything I was doing and ran to Mexico.

"What do you really want?" don Juan asked me as a way to containmy hysterical babbling.

I could not explain to him what I wanted because I did not know it myself.

"Your problem must be very serious to make you run like this,"don Juan said with a pensive expression.

"It is, in spite of the fact that I can't figure out what my problemreally is," I said.

He asked me to describe my dreaming practices in all the detail that waspertinent. I told him about my vision of the little girl and how it hadaffected me at an emotional level. He instantly advised me to ignore the eventand regard it as a blatant attempt, on the part of the inorganic beings, tocater to my fantasies. He remarked that if dreaming is overemphasized, itbecomes what it was for the old sorcerers a source of inexhaustible indulging.

For some inexplicable reason, I was unwilling to tell don Juan about therealm of the shadow entities. It was only when he discarded my vision of thelittle girl that I felt obliged to describe to him my visits to that world. Hewas silent for a long time, as if he were overwhelmed.

When he finally spoke, he said, "You are more alone than I thought,because I can't discuss your dreaming practices at all. You are at the positionof the old sorcerers. All I can do is to repeat to you that you must exerciseall the care you are able to muster up."

"Why do you say that I am at the position of the old sorcerers?"

"I've told you repeatedly that your mood is dangerously like the oldsorcerers'. They were very capable beings; their flaw was that they took to theinorganic beings' realm like fish take to the water. You are in the same boat.You know things about it that none of us can even conceive. For instance, Inever knew about the shadows' world; neither did the nagual Julian or thenagual Elias, in spite of the fact that he spent a long time in the world ofthe inorganic beings."

"But what difference does knowing the shadows' world make?"

"A great deal of difference. Dreamers are taken there only when theinorganic beings are sure the dreamers are going to stay in that world. We knowthis through the old sorcerers' stories."

"I assure you, don Juan, that I have no intention whatsoever ofstaying there. You talk as if I am just about to be lured by promises ofservice or promises of power. I am not interested in either, and that'sthat."

"At this level, it isn't that easy anymore. You've gone beyond thepoint where you could simply quit. Besides, you had the misfortune of beingsingled out by a watery inorganic being. Remember how you tumbled with it? Andhow it felt? I told you then that watery inorganic beings are the mostannoying. They are dependent and possessive, and once they sink their hooks,they never give up."

"And what does that mean in my case, don Juan?" "It meansreal trouble. The specific inorganic being who's running the show is the oneyou grabbed that fatal day. Over the years, it has grown familiar with you. Itknows you intimately."

I sincerely remarked to don Juan that the mere idea that an inorganicbeing knew me intimately made me sick to my stomach.

"When dreamers realize that the inorganic beings have noappeal," he said, "it is usually too late for them, because by thenthe inorganic beings have them in the bag."

I felt in the depths of me that he was talking abstractly, about dangersthat might exist theoretically but not in practice. I was secretly convincedthere was no danger of any sort.

"I am not going to allow the inorganic beings to lure me in any way,if that's what you're thinking," I said.

"I am thinking that they are going to trick you," he said."Like they tricked the nagual Rosendo. They are going to set you up, andyou won't see the trap or even suspect it. They are smooth operators. Now theyhave even invented a little girl."

"But there is no doubt in my mind that the little girl exists,"I insisted.

"There is no little girl," he snapped. "That bluish blob ofenergy is a scout. An explorer caught in the inorganic beings' realm. I've saidto you that the inorganic beings are like fishermen; they attract and catchawareness."

Don Juan said that he believed, without a doubt, that the bluish blob ofenergy was from a dimension entirely different from ours, a scout that gotstranded and caught like a fly in a spider's web.

I did not appreciate his analogy. It worried me to the point of physicaldiscomfort. I did mention this to don Juan, and he told me that my concern withthe prisoner scout was making him feel very close to despair.

"Why does this bother you?" I asked.

"Something is brewing in that confounded world," he said."And I can't figure out what it is."

While I remained with don Juan and his companions, I did not dream at allabout the inorganic beings' world. As usual, my practice was to focus mydreaming attention on the items of my dreams and to change dreams. As a way tooffset my concerns don Juan made me gaze at clouds and at faraway mountainpeaks. The result was an immediate feeling of being level with the clouds, orthe feeling that I was actually at the faraway mountain peaks.

"I am very pleased, but very worried," don Juan said as acomment on my effort. "You are being taught marvels, and you don't evenknow it. And I don't mean that you are being taught by me."

"You are talking about the inorganic beings, true?"

"Yes, the inorganic beings. I recommend that you don't gaze atanything; gazing was the old sorcerers' technique. They were able to get totheir energy bodies in the blink of an eye, simply by gazing at objects oftheir predilection. A very impressive technique, but useless to modernsorcerers. It does nothing to increase our sobriety or our capacity to seekfreedom. All it does is pin us down to concreteness, a most undesirable state."

Don Juan added that, unless I kept myself in check, by the time I hadmerged the second attention with the attention of my everyday life, I was goingto be an insufferable man. There was, he said, a dangerous gap between mymobility in the second attention and my insistence on immobility in myawareness of the daily world. He remarked that the gap between the two was sogreat that in my daily state I was nearly an idiot, and in the second attentionI was a lunatic.

Before I went home, I took the liberty of discussing my dreaming visionsof the shadows' world with Carol Tiggs, although don Juan had advised me not todiscuss them with anybody. She was most understanding and most interested,since she was my total counterpart. Don Juan was definitely annoyed with me forhaving revealed my troubles to her. I felt worse than ever. Self-pity possessedme, and I began to complain about always doing the wrong thing.

"You haven't done anything yet," don Juan snapped at me."That much, I know."

Was he right! On my next dreaming session, at home, all hell broke loose.I reached the shadows' world, as I had done on countless occasions; thedifference was the presence of the blue energy shape. It was among the othershadow beings. I felt it was possible that the blob had been there before and Ihadn't noticed it. As soon as I spotted it, my dreaming attention wasinescapably attracted to that blob of energy. In a matter of seconds, I wasnext to it. The other shadows came to me, as usual, but I paid no attention tothem.

All of a sudden, the blue, round shape turned into the little girl I hadseen before. She craned her thin, delicate, long neck to one side and said in abarely audible whisper, "Help me!" Either she said that or Ifantasized that she said it. The result was the same I stood frozen, galvanizedby genuine concern. I experienced a chill, but not in my energy mass. I felt achill in another part of me. This was the first time I was completely awarethat my experience was thoroughly separate from my sensorial feelings. I wasexperiencing the shadows' world, with all the implications of what I normallyconsider experiencing I was able to think, to assess, to make decisions; I hadpsychological continuity; in other words, I was myself. The only part of methat was missing was my sensorial self. I had no bodily sensations. All myinput came through seeing and hearing. My rationality then considered a strangedilemma seeing and hearing were not physical faculties but qualities of thevisions I was having.

"You are really seeing and hearing," the emissary's voice said,erupting into my thoughts. "That is the beauty of this place. You canexperience everything through seeing and hearing, without having to breathe.Think of it! You don't have to breathe! You can go anywhere in the universe andnot breathe."

A most disquieting ripple of emotion went through me, and, again, I didnot feel it there, in the shadows' world. I felt it in another place. I becameenormously agitated by the obvious yet veiled realization that there was a liveconnection between the me that was experiencing and a source of energy, asource of sensorial feeling located somewhere else. It occurred to me that thissomewhere else was my actual physical body, which was asleep in my bed.

At the instant of this thought, the shadow beings scurried away, and thelittle girl was alone in my field of vision. I watched her and became convincedthat I knew her. She seemed to falter as if she were about to faint. Aboundless wave of affection for her enveloped me.

I tried to speak to her, but I was incapable of uttering sounds. It becameclear to me then that all my dialogues with the emissary had been elicited andaccomplished by the emissary's energy. Left to my own devices, I was helpless.I attempted next to direct my thoughts to the little girl. It was useless. Wewere separated by a membrane of energy I could not pierce.

The little girl seemed to understand my despair and actually communicatedwith me, directly into my thoughts. She told me, essentially, what don Juan hadalready said that she was a scout caught in the webs of that world. Then sheadded that she had adopted the shape of a little girl because that shape wasfamiliar to me and to her and that she needed my help as much as I needed hers.She said this to me in one clump of energetic feeling, which was like wordsthat came to me all at once. I had no difficulty understanding her, althoughthis was the first time anything of the sort had happened to me.

I did not know what to do. I tried to convey to her my sensation ofincapacity. She seemed to comprehend me instantly. She silently appealed to mewith a burning look. She even smiled as if to let me know that she had left itup to me to extricate her from her bonds. When I retorted, in a thought, that Ihad no abilities whatsoever, she gave me the impression of a hysterical childin the throes of despair.

I frantically tried to talk to her. The little girl actually cried, like achild her age would cry, out of desperation and fear. I couldn't stand it. Icharged at her, but with no effective result. My energy mass went through her.My idea was to lift her up and take her with me. I attempted the same maneuverover and over until I was

I exhausted. I stopped to consider my next move. I was afraid that my dreamingattention was going to wane, and then I would lose sight of her. I doubted thatthe inorganic beings would bring me back to that specific part of their realm.It seemed to me that this was going to be my last visit to them the visit thatcounted.

Then I did something unthinkable. Before my dreaming attention vanished, Iyelled loud and clear my intent to merge my energy with the energy of thatprisoner scout and set it free.