Gateway to the Nagual’s World – South the place of Dreaming

In my case, don Juan wanted an omen before he taught me the ritual. That omen came when don Juan and I were driving through a border town in Arizona and a policeman stopped me. The policeman thought I was an illegal alien. Only after I had shown him my passport, which he suspected of being a forgery, and other documents, did he let me go. Don Juan had been in the front seat next to me all the time, and the policeman had not given him a second glance. He had focused solely on me. Don Juan thought the incident was the omen he was waiting for.

His interpretation of it was that it would be very dangerous for me to call attention to myself, and he concluded that my world had to be one of utter simplicity and candor – elaborate ritual and pomp were out of character for me. He conceded, however, that a minimal observance of ritualistic patterns was in order when I made my acquaintance with his warriors. I had to begin by approaching them from the south, because that is the direction that power follows in its ceaseless flux. Life force flows to us from the south, and leaves us flowing toward the north. He said that the only opening to a Nagual’s world was through the south, and that the gate was made by two female warriors, who would have to greet me and would let me go through if they so decided.

He took me to a town in central Mexico, to a house in the countryside. As we approached it on foot from a southerly direction, I saw two massive Indian women standing four feet apart, facing each other. They were about thirty or forty feet away from the main door of the house, in an area where the dirt was hard-packed. The two women were extraordinarily muscular and stern. Both had long, jet-black hair held together in a single thick braid. They looked like sisters. They were about the same height and weight – I figured that they must have been around five feet four, and weighed 150 pounds. One of them was extremely dark, almost black, the other much lighter. They were dressed like typical Indian women from central Mexico – long, full dresses and shawls, homemade sandals.

Don Juan made me stop three feet from them. He turned to the woman on our left and made me face her. He said that her name was Cecilia and that she was a dreamer. He then turned abruptly, without giving me time to say anything, and made me face the darker woman, to our right. He said that her name was Delia and that she was a stalker. The women nodded at me. They did not smile or move to shake hands with me, or make any gesture of welcome. Don Juan walked between them as if they were two columns marking a gate. He took a couple of steps and turned as if waiting for the women to invite me to go through. The women stared at me calmly for a moment. Then Cecilia asked me to come in, as if I were at the threshold of an actual door.

Don Juan led the way to the house. At the front door we found a man. He was very slender. At first sight he looked extremely young, but on closer examination he appeared to be in his late fifties. He gave me the impression of being an old child: small, wiry, with penetrating dark eyes. He was like an elfish apparition, a shadow. Don Juan introduced him to me as Emilito, and said that he was his courier and all-around helper, who would welcome me on his behalf.

It seemed to me that Emilito was indeed the most appropriate being to welcome anyone. His smile was radiant; his small teeth were perfectly even. He shook hands with me, or rather he crossed his forearms and clasped both my hands. He seemed to be exuding enjoyment; anyone would have sworn that he was ecstatic in meeting me. His voice was very soft and his eyes sparkled.

We walked into a large room. There was another woman there. Don Juan said that her name was Teresa and that she was Cecilia’s and Delia’s courier. She was perhaps in her early thirties, and she definitely looked like Cecilia’s daughter. She was very quiet but very friendly. We followed don Juan to the back of the house, where there was a roofed porch.

It was a warm day. We sat there around a table, and after a frugal dinner we talked until after midnight. Emilito was the host. He charmed and delighted everyone with his exotic stories. The women opened up. They were a great audience for him. To hear the women’s laughter was an exquisite pleasure. They were tremendously muscular, bold, and physical. At one point, when Emilito said that Cecilia and Delia were like two mothers to him, and Teresa like a daughter, they picked him up and tossed him in the air like a child.

Of the two women, Delia seemed the more rational, down- to-earth. Cecilia was perhaps more aloof, but appeared to have greater inner strength. She gave me the impression of being more intolerant, or more impatient; she seemed to get annoyed with some of Emilito’s stories. Nonetheless, she was definitely on the edge of her chair when he would tell what he called his “tales of eternity.” He would preface every story with the phrase, ‘Do you, dear friends, know that. . . ?’

The story that impressed me most was about some creatures that he said existed in the universe, who were the closest thing to human beings without being human; creatures who were obsessed with movement and capable of detecting the slightest fluctuation inside themselves or around them. These creatures were so sensitive to motion that it was a curse to them. It gave them such pain that their ultimate ambition was to find quietude. Emilito would intersperse his tales of eternity with the most outrageous dirty jokes. Because of his incredible gifts as a raconteur, I understood every one of his stories as a metaphor, a parable, with which he was teaching us something.

 Don Juan said that Emilito was merely reporting about things he had witnessed in his journeys through eternity. The role of a courier was to travel ahead of the Nagual, like a scout in a military operation. Emilito went to the limits of the second attention, and whatever he witnessed he passed on to the others.

From “The Eagle’s Gift” by Carlos Castaneda, Part Three.

Dream of the Four Pronged nagal – 30-04-2025

Here is this morning’s dream.

I am with Charlie whom I know to be an extrovert highly talkative nagal’s courier. We are in a courtyard with white stone walls some draped in rude pink bougainvillea. We are sat at a two seater small white bistro style table in the sun. He is talking animatedly and says that there are some people he would like me to meet. We are in a leafy rich suburb of Pretoria South Africa. He says again that are some people he would like me to meet, now.

The first is just around the corner. He leads me off to a small shopping / administrative area. There is a 1960s style polygon shaped building with a large, covered porch and outdoor seating. It is a community library and an outreach of the university. We enter and there are all sorts of posters in the vestibule advertising events. Behind the librarian’s desk is a medium height medium build white woman. She has an immaculate grey straight haired bob and is dressed in a well pressed blouse and trousers. There are small black butterflies as a motif on her white blouse. Around her neck on a lanyard are spectacles. Charlie introduces me and she speaks in a Germanic Dutch English accent. It is different from Afrikaans and highly educated. She says that she likes the East. I already know this, she is an Easterly Stalker who works at the university library most of the time. In her spare time, she is highly athletic and a free climber. She is lithe.

Charlie then leads me off South into a township near Cape Town. We go to a government run drop in centre / nursery. It is next to a pop-up health centre for adults with HIV. We go into the centre and I can immediately hear the booming tones of a large woman, who is telling someone off in a well humoured manner. She is laughing. As we approach, I can see a large buxom and overweight black woman with corn-row dreadlocks. She has a gold ring piercing in her left nostril and left ear. She is about six feet tall and, in all respects, larger than life. Around her are numerous toddlers and small children. It is chaotic yet somehow together. She hugs Charlie fiercely and squashes him to her bosom. When she sees me, she suddenly becomes coy and suspicious. She inspects me and breaks into a radiant ear to ear grin. There is no need for a hug because we can feel each other’s hearts. She is a Southerly Stalker.

Charlie then takes me to Western Cape to an isolated penitentiary inland from the coast. It is surrounded by razor wire and heavily guarded. We pull up to the guard house in our car. He stays in the car as only I am allowed in. The guards have been expecting me. They open the gate and let me in. I walk in unaccompanied. There are no more guards. I open the first gate and then a door. Inside in a dark room of considerable size there is an electric fence surrounding an enclosure. On it are danger high-voltage signs. I can see a man inside the enclosure. He is wearing a wide brimmed hat and a long dark brown bushwhacker’s coat. I can pass through the electric fence without any problems, with ease. I know that it does not constrain him either. We are at home in the darkness of the room. We stand brooding together in the darkness. He is a Man Behind the Scenes and I know him to be seventh ray. I can see his eyes but not his face in the darkness. We know each other very well, across lifetimes.

The dream ends.

Dream Within a Dream, Dream 21-2-2025

Here is this morning’s dream.

The dream starts in a central European city with a long and elegant history. It has a feel like old-town central Vienna. I am in an ornate and semi-antique laden room. I am sat at a low “coffee” table in a small leather bound armchair. I can smell the leather.

A man walks into the room. His is nearly as tall as the doorway and well over six feet tall. He moves with grace, poise and elegance. He has long, not quite shoulder length, luxuriant blonde hair which falls partially across his face. He looks and feels like Michael York. {Closest match}

He is expensively dressed though the clothes are not new. He has expensive English shoes on. His air is European of indeterminate nature, though slightly Scandi-Germanic. He is of noble and aristocratic stock. Although I have never met him in person I know him from my Toltec meditations fifteen years ago. He is Toltec nagal of high degree.

He sits in a large dark green leather chair alongside me. I can see a ring on his finger, a gold stud in his left ear and an expensive looking Swiss gold watch.

We are very pleased to see each other and amused at the circumstance.

He tells me that he has had a dream which he would like to discuss with me. I say that I like doing this. He knows.

He says that in the dream he goes to a tailors in St James’s London. There he is ushered into a back room for a fitting. They ask him to partially undress and then offer him a pristine dark, near jet black suit to try on. It is near a dinner jacket but not quite. The material he says was exquisite and the fit near perfect.

He says that the tailor says that they have been saving this suit for him for a long time. They have been waiting. The sleeves are ever so slightly too long. The tailor takes the jacket and scuttles off to the back room. In the meantime, an assistant removes his shirt and fits him with a crisp new white shirt without a collar. He places small ornate cufflinks to the wrists. They have an initial on which he knows is his.

The tailor returns and puts the jacket on. It now fits perfectly. He is encouraged to walk up and down the room and inspect in a mirror. As he does this, he notes in the left lower outer jacket pocket a lump. He reaches in a pulls out a fluorescent green-yellow tennis ball cut exactly in half. He puts one half in each hand and looks carefully at it. The dream ends on that note.

I say to him that a long while ago I used to frequent St James’s, implicit is not just in this lifetime.

He asks me what I make of it.

I say to him that the feeling of the tennis ball is that of all the cleavages in the world which is rife now with separation and division. That the new suit represents for him a new role which he must step into. He is ready, fit for it. He has been waiting for a long time and it now nears.

He says that this was pretty much what he thought.

He reaches into his left jacket pocket and hands to me a fluorescent green-yellow tennis ball cut exactly in half.

He jokes that wherever he goes he now keeps finding them…

The dream ends.

Unprecedented Dreaming

For me it has been a useful exercise to group these dreams thematically and see the scope and variety of subject matter. Many people are interested in dreams and things like lucid dreaming. There is an attempt to gain scientific credibility for dream studies using instrumentation and the statistical methods of psychology. Taken as a whole the opus of dreams published here and those not yet published may be unprecedented, and unique. Who else dreams of vajras, patents, lamas and hydrogen bonded water clusters?   

Am I simply an anomaly or is there something more significant at work?

In general people seek to promote their own ideas and profile. The not invented here syndrome can be found on all sides. Group mind is very anti anyone or any idea which does not originate in the group. Outsiders are not very welcome especially if they challenge the status quo or question current operational dogma.

I did, religiously, a Toltec dreaming practice daily at least once a day for eight years. I did it on the Victoria line of a morning. If you can do dreaming practice on a crowded rush hour tube you can do it anywhere. The control has to be good. The intent behind this practice is to connect with the dreamer {Soul or reincarnating Jiva} and then to hand over the steering wheel of the earthly vehicle to her. To live life according to the advice given in dreams, to surrender control.

Subsequent to this I did a meditation called the master in the heart which has a similar purpose, of connection. It builds the Antahkarana, a rāja yoga. One could say that Toltec dreaming draws inspiration down and the yoga builds upwards. They are rose and lotus visualisations. Union or at-one-ment are the goals or aim if you like. It does not require wearing tight leggings or looking fit / hot. It does mean that some measure of letting go of imagined control is needed.

Because I am good at visualisation, I have extended the rāja yoga to “places” beyond any written account. In Toltec terms a steady pictorial visualisation is an active dream in which you imagine and hold fast an image. These dream thought forms tend to stabilize when they are “accurate” and reproducible.  For example, the Sahasrāra chakra or crown chakra is one such visualisation. Opening this chakra and going beyond it is a death practice in which one opens the exit door. In order to do this one needs to stretch the sūtrātman anchoring the life inside the body. It is a risky thing to do, control must be impeccable. I first did this in a detached house in the middle of a wood on a country estate a distance from interruption and people. During the day I was quite alone in a “cabin” in a wood.

Because I am a scientist by training and I used to train smart young things in science at a top university and at high school sixth form levels. I even had postdoctoral workers. I have kept lab books or dream journals. The rāja yoga or active dream meditations were extensive with some of the thought forms taking weeks and months to build.  What one experiences in passing to a “higher” more “rarefied” state of consciousness is a kind of “membrane” which has to be transcended / popped. Each new state is difficult to hold or stabilize. Yet with practice it can be done. Here is one page from my dream journal.

In these meditations slight residual corporeal awareness remains but all sense of earth-time vanishes. There is a distant awareness of the room. One continues breathing but unconsciously so. I did record electroencephalograms {EEG} and video for a few of these. The EEG is, aside from very low frequency and amplitude theta, essentially flat despite the visualisation.

These meditations have a sensation of extensive travel to non-mundane “levels” “states” or “places”.

There is no way that I could adequately convey the experience to others. Unless you have “gone” there yourself you cannot know. Of particular assistance was the mantra associated with the Heart Sutra which one can chant in order to change between states when working upwards.

Gate gate, para gate, para sum gate bodhi svaha

Gone gone, gone beyond, gone beyond the beyond, hail the awakening

I was in conscious control doing this during daylight and without drugs or booze.

One needs to take great care to come back “down” and into body consciousness. At first the “path” downwards is as slow as the “upward”. In time one knows the way “home” and this can be done more quickly.

I guess these meditations are a form of white tantra. They are situated at anja and above and have nothing to do with basal tantra. In some later meditations three centres are active, heart, anja and sahasrāra.

In my book active visualisation and 3d {sometimes +} thought form building is active dreaming.

Of course I could be kidding myself, but I somehow doubt that.

This is what I mean by dreamyoga…