sleep of no dreaming

I've always thought this was a nice little dig at Carlos Castaneda ... and his book "The Art of Dreaming", which is one of the best outlines as to how one can learn from their dreams ... but it is way too deeply hidden in the story line and strangeness of the story.

 

There was, more than one, in that book that there is a question about sleeping and "not dreaming" ... just plain rest ... to which Don Juan plainly says ... find out for yourself. Why you asking me? ... which suggested that there is a side of it all that is possible and do'able, but it is not "describable", and it is not of this world.  Mostly because we do not have the terminology to be able to describe it. And this has been around as a concept before via John Lilly (The Center of the Cyclone) and Rober Monroe (Journeys out of the Body) and also Edgar Cayce. And also by many other mystics going back hundreds of years but not having the terminology for it all that we do today. Castaneda would have been already burnt at the stake 500 years ago even before his first book was published!

 

Taisha Abelar (The Sorcerer's Crossing) and Florinda Donner (Being in Dreaming), both from the Castaneda styled works, also wrote beautifully about the subject, and they are much better than Carlos ever was, and their ability to bring this down to our body level is much better suited for understanding and learning than the idealistic and conceptual style of Carlos that had us wondering all the time! Both the ladies are far better writers and much more "centered" on the work, than they are centered in "ideas".