Carlos Castaneda - The Art of Dreaming

THE ART OF DREAMING

7. The Blue Scout

I was dreaming an utterly nonsensical dream. Carol Tiggs was by my side. She was speaking to me, although I could not understand what she said. Don Juan was also in my dream, as were all the members of his party. They seemed to be trying to drag me out of a foggy, yellowish world.

After a serious effort, during which I lost and regained sight of them various times, they succeeded in extricating me from that place. Since I could not conceive the sense of all that endeavor, I finally figured that I was having a normal, incoherent dream.

My surprise was staggering when I woke up and found myself in bed, in don Juan's house. I was incapable of moving. I had no energy at all. I did not know what to think, although I immediately sensed the gravity of my situation. I had the vague feeling that I had lost my energy because of fatigue caused by dreaming.

Don Juan's companions seemed to be extremely affected by whatever was happening to me. They kept on coming into my room, one at a time. Each stayed for a moment, in complete silence, until someone else showed up. It appeared to me that they were taking turns watching over me. I was too weak to ask them to explain their behavior.

During the subsequent days, I began to feel better, and they started to talk to me about my dreaming. At first, I did not know what they wanted of me. Then it dawned on me, because of their questions, that they were obsessed with the shadow beings. Every one of them appeared to be scared and said to me more or less the same thing. They insisted that they had never been in the shadows' world. Some of them even claimed that they did not know it existed. Their claims and reactions increased my sense of bewilderment and my fear.

The questions everyone asked were, "Who took you into that world? Or how did you even begin to know how to get there?" When I told them that the scouts had shown me that world, they could not believe me. Obviously, they had surmised that I had been there, but since it was not possible for them to use their personal experience as a reference point, they were unable to fathom what I was saying. Yet they still wanted to know all I could tell them about the shadow beings and their realm. I obliged them. All of them, with the exception of don Juan, sat by my bed, hanging on every word I said. However, every time I asked them about my situation, they scurried away, just like the shadow beings.

Another disturbing reaction, which they never had before, was that they frantically avoided any physical contact with me. They kept their distance, as if I were carrying the plague. Their reaction worried me so much that I felt obliged to ask them about it. They denied it. They seemed insulted and even went so far as to insist on proving to me that I was wrong. I laughed heartily at the tense situation that ensued. Their bodies went rigid every time they tried to embrace me.

Florinda Grau, don Juan's closest cohort, was the only member of his party who lavished physical attention on me and tried to explain to me what was going on. She told me that I had been discharged of energy in the inorganic beings' world and charged again, but that my new energetic charge was a bit disturbing to the majority of them.

Florinda used to put me to bed every night, as if I were an invalid. She even spoke to me in baby talk, which all of them celebrated with gales of laughter. But regardless of how she made fun of me, I appreciated her concern, which seemed to be real.

I have written about Florinda before in connection with my meeting her. She was by far the most beautiful woman I had ever met. Once I said to her, and I really meant it, that she could have been a fashion magazine model.

"Of a magazine of nineteen ten," she retorted.

Florinda, although she was old, was not old at all. She was young and vibrant. When I asked don Juan about her unusual youthfulness, he replied that sorcery kept her in a vital state. Sorcerers' energy, he remarked, was seen by the eye as youth and vigor.

After satisfying their initial curiosity about the shadows' world, don Juan's companions stopped coming into my room, and their conversation remained at the level of casual inquiries about my health. Every time I tried to get up, however, there was someone around who gently put me back to bed. I did not want their ministrations, yet it seemed that I needed them; I was weak. I accepted that. But what really took its toll on me was not having anyone explain to me what I was doing in Mexico when I had gone to bed to dream in Los Angeles. I asked them repeatedly. Every one of them gave me the same answer, "Ask the nagual. He's the only one who can explain it."

Finally, Florinda broke the ice. "You were lured into a trap: That's what happened to you," she said.

"Where was I lured into a trap?"

"In the world of the inorganic beings, of course. That has been the world you've been dealing with for years. Isn't that so?"

"Most definitely, Florinda. But can you tell me about the kind of trap it was?"

"Not really. All I can tell you is that you lost all your energy there. But you fought very well."

"Why am I sick, Florinda?"

"You are not sick with an illness: You were energetically wounded. You were critical, but now you are only gravely wounded."

"How did all this happen?"

"You entered into a mortal combat with the inorganic beings, and you were defeated."

"I don't remember fighting anyone, Florinda."

"Whether you remember or not is immaterial. You fought and were outclassed. You didn't have a chance against those masterful manipulators."

"I fought the inorganic beings?"

"Yes. You had a mortal encounter with them. I really don't know how you have survived their death blow."

She refused to tell me anything else and hinted that the nagual was coming to see me any day.

The next day don Juan showed up. He was very jovial and supportive. He jokingly announced that he was paying me a visit in his capacity of energy doctor. He examined me by gazing at me from head to toe.

"You're almost cured," he concluded.

"What happened to me, don Juan?" I asked.

"You fell into a trap the inorganic beings set for you," he answered.

"How did I end up here?"

"Right there is the big mystery, for sure," he said and smiled jovially, obviously trying to make light of a serious matter. "The inorganic beings snatched you, body and all. First they took your energy body into their realm when you followed one of their scouts; and then they took your physical body."

Don Juan's companions seemed to be in a state of shock. One of them asked don Juan whether the inorganic beings could abduct anyone. Don Juan answered that they certainly could. He reminded them that the nagual Elias was taken into that universe, and he definitely did not intend to go there.

All of them assented with a nod. Don Juan continued speaking to them, referring to me in the third person. He said that the combined awareness of a group of inorganic beings had first consumed my energy body by forcing an emotional outburst from me: to free the blue scout. Then the combined awareness of the same group of inorganic beings had pulled my inert physical mass into their world. Don Juan added that without the energy body one is merely a lump of organic matter that can be easily manipulated by awareness.

"The inorganic beings are glued together, like the cells of the body," don Juan went on. "When they put their awareness together, they are unbeatable. It's nothing for them to yank us out of our moorings and plunge us into their world. Especially if we make ourselves conspicuous and available, like he did."