Here’s the deal with shared dreaming.
It likely happens all the time, in regular dreaming.
But since both parties are “out to lunch”, that’s not of much use.
For example your wife shows up, but you think she’s a trout.
Don’t they all look like trout in the morning, when they turn on their side, move their head in close to your face, and pucker up to kiss?
You think that doesn’t carry over into dreaming?
It’s so mixed up in dreaming that there’s almost never any way to actually figure out if a particular person was in there.
And it’s very very rare. The universe is vast, and the dreaming double has access to all of it.
If you get lucky and figure one out for sure, you won’t be able to do that again. So it doesn’t matter.
Unless you have some kind of bizarre book deal going on, and absent any actual sorcery knowledge to brag about, anecdotal stories will have to suffice.
On the other hand, someone actually capable of doing a deliberate “visit” (go to the other person in the dreaming double) will have equally as poor results.
The person you visit has to be in heightened awareness in order to perceive it.
I do that often. Not under my control, but it happens randomly.
No one but Cholita even notices me. And, not being noticed, again there’s no way to prove whether it really was them you visited.
It just happens. You don’t do it yourself. You look, and think, “Isn’t that Bob???”
But Bob goes his own way.
It actually comes out and says all this in a place or two in the books. That both parties have to be in heightened awareness, to have the kinds of cool interactions we see in the books.
Everyone forgets that part!
I get that all the time. Someone will ask, “What about that technique on page 64?”
I have to remind them that on page 54 they were struck on the back, putting a huge dent in their luminous shell.
We can’t do the techniques requiring heightened awareness, without getting there first.
But it’s all rather obvious if you think about it.
As Carlos said, with some people their dreaming double is, “right there”.
He pointed to his side, to show how it stands right next to them.
If just having a visit from the dreaming double was enough to get someone’s attention, we’d all know about it. Because although such people are few in number, there are billions of people.
The ones who’s dreaming double is, “right there”, would get a reputation as a ghoul, if people could perceive that.
Cholita’s dreaming double has likely been around her all the time I’ve known her, but it was only getting to heightened awareness that allowed me to perceive the “visit”.
In fact, a time or two I didn’t get to heightened awareness for a few days, and then decided it was time or I’d slip back to my miserable normal position of the assemblage point.
And the instant I got there, Cholita showed up.
Last time she did a Vanna White imitation, emphasizing a dark tunnel I could enter to come play in her dreaming copy of the house.
So when some guy private chats any of you and says, “Psssttt… Don’t tell anyone, but I can teach you shared dreaming. I’ll prove it to you, and visit for free.”
I hope I don’t have to explain how that old con works.
There’s a dozen people on the hook! And if those don’t work out, he’s always on the hunt.
Squirrels need to find nuts in order to keep up their squirreliness. And they never give up.
One potential “customer” who wants it badly because it’s self-flattering, is sure to take liberties in interpreting successes.
There’s a lot of mental illness in the Castaneda community.
Bottom line: I don’t think anyone in Carlos’ group, including him, could visit you in dreaming.
If Carol could do that, Bruce, Reni, and Nyei would have a lot more interesting things to teach.
, one less band-aid to rip off later. I was thinking about the end scene in Taisha’s manuscript where she, Florinda, Carol and others from don Juan’s group as well as other apprentices meet up in a parallel reality as real and as stable as this one.