The Art of Dreaming

In this chapter, don Juan introduces the concept of “stalking” as the art of fixating the assemblage point, which is crucial for achieving perceptual “cohesion” in new worlds entered through dreaming. He explains that the mysterious voice Castaneda has been hearing is the “dreaming emissary,” a conscious but impersonal energy from the realm of inorganic beings, which he warns against trusting. To illustrate the long and complex history of sorcerers’ interactions with such forces, don Juan tells the story of “the tenant,” a death-defying sorcerer from antiquity who survives for millennia by forming a symbiotic, energy-draining relationship with his lineage of naguals. The chapter culminates with Castaneda performing a practical exercise in stalking, using a mesquite tree to fixate a minute shift in his assemblage point, which plunges him into a fully sensorial other world and highlights the difference between the “human unknown” sought by old sorcerers and the “nonhuman unknown” which is the goal of modern ones.