Thread: For castaneda fans

Originally Posted by Bolo

Let's just say that without this precious man, this site would probably not exist... no, I'm not exaggerating....

well then.. he has a new fan

Originally Posted by Arutad

What great deal? I didn't find much... In Art of Dreaming: one RC with your hands and a method to change dream scenes by falling asleep. All the rest either implies magic or is useless. From the useless category: move in dreams by concentrating on something to let it pull you (how limited is that? can't you walk or fly?), try to catch the moment of falling asleep (with no explanations or techniques).

That's all strictly about LDing that I remember, all the rest was magic. That's not a great deal. Did I miss something?

First of all, no RC in mentioned - looking at your hands is not a RC, it's just the first "task" a dreamer undertakes (a "technique"), then it becomes a focus aid. you are supposed to glance at 4 objects and back to your hands, and gradually increase the number of objects to include everything. (another technique) the purpose is to NOT let the objects and scenery change. - when you get to that point you will become aware to the moment of falling asleep! ("explanation"). ONLY AFTER you mastered this "first gate" you may continue to the second - which is NOT to "change dream scenes by falling asleep" BUT rather to "change dreams", that is, to "shift your assemblage point to a different position and then fix it in the new location- meaning: a way to control and change you AWARENESS (maybe you just prefer lucid sex)
. If you'll read carefully you'll find MUCH more!!! But you didn't read at all right??? do you want me to read it aloud for you over the phone?
AOD is a treasure! (aids from the books include: "not doing","stopping the internal dialog","recapitulation","magical passes" and many more)

Originally Posted by Bolo

First of all, no RC in mentioned - looking at your hands is not a RC, it's just the first "task" a dreamer undertakes (a "technique"), then it becomes a focus aid.

It works as an RC or a lucid aid, every time I tried it I became lucid. So what's the point in saying that it's not an RC?

the purpose is to NOT let the objects and scenery change.

And so? Is it possible? Can you do it?

I'm not against magic per se, only against things impossible to achieve that people claim to be achievable making the gullible type waste time for trying to achieve the same. This is one of those things. The dream will change, whether you like it or not.

when you get to that point you will become aware to the moment of falling asleep! ("explanation").

There are many many people who can do it without getting to any special point prior to that.

NOT to "change dream scenes by falling asleep" BUT rather to "change dreams", that is, to "shift your assemblage point to a different position and then fix it in the new location

In both cases the end result is the same, the dream scene changes, the only difference is that you give a more mystical description to the process.

I always thought all Castaneda wrote about was bullshit and that it was all made up letter by letter... until I tried it out in practise, and it all worked up until now, and I'm not only talking about the dreaming stuff. Anyway, my point is, his claims are so farfetched and unbelievable that you need to try this out for yourself and see for yourself before you can believe it. Just reading won't do you any good. Practise is the key.. but I guess castaneda is more for the hadcore LDers among us who want to lucid dream each night whenever they want to and not for those LDers who only lucid dream once in a while... for those people RCing and a dreamjournal will do.

Originally Posted by Arutad

It works as an RC or a lucid aid, every time I tried it I became lucid. So what's the point in saying that it's not an RC?............................................... ....

*In AOD , looking at your hands is not a RC... you are welcome to do whatever you want with it... It happened many times to me that I looked at my hands as a RC, and they looked real and didn't change at all - and I figured it wasn't a dream and lost a LD

*Yes I can make dream objects not change - until I run out of "dream attention"............ it gets better the more you practice it... why wouldn't it be possible?

*There is a difference between WILDing and beeing aware during "deep sleep" (that's what I mean by "falling asleep") ... and I'm glad people achieve this state.

*It's not just a mystical way to say the same thing... it's like the difference between a person who plays the piano well and then strats to improvise, and a person who didn't learn to play and is just hitting random keys claiming it's the same as what the pro does.... that's why it's the SECOND gate, not to be attempted before the first one is done....

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

I always thought all Castaneda wrote about was bullshit and that it was all made up letter by letter... until I tried it out in practise, and it all worked up until now, and I'm not only talking about the dreaming stuff. Anyway, my point is, his claims are so farfetched and unbelievable that you need to try this out for yourself and see for yourself before you can believe it. Just reading won't do you any good. Practise is the key.. but I guess castaneda is more for the hadcore LDers among us who want to lucid dream each night whenever they want to and not for those LDers who only lucid dream once in a while... for those people RCing and a dreamjournal will do.

I totally agree with everything you wrote :bravo:

He made three or four women commit suicide, I don't have to say more about him.

If you read his latests book you see how he devoloped some great delusion, and most importantly the "wise man" called Don Juan is imaginitive. If you dig deep enough you find out that he had his own little witch sect, treated them like he was some king, he was a total control freak, he made people leave their family and quit their job, he told his closes "witches" that they should kill themselves and they would all go to la-la land together in death. Also a lot of his books and alleged experiences was down right plagiarism.

It's actually a very tragic story..

Originally Posted by Specialis Sapientia

He made three or four women commit suicide, I don't have to say more about him.

If you read his latests book you see how he devoloped some great delusion, and most importantly the "wise man" called Don Juan is imaginitive. If you dig deep enough you find out that he had his own little witch sect, treated them like he was some king, he was a total control freak, he made people leave their family and quit their job, he told his closes "witches" that they should kill themselves and they would all go to la-la land together in death. Also a lot of his books and alleged experiences was down right plagiarism.

It's actually a very tragic story..

OMG! it means I also have to commit suicide....

Originally Posted by Bolo

Yes I can make dream objects not change - until I run out of "dream attention"

I didn't mean staring at something. It's easy, it's a dream law that when you look for a while, what you look at remains unchanged for a while. But can you look at all that you see in front of you, turn around, and check back how it looks? I bet it looks differently, although in a dream you may have not enough logical faculty to realize which details are different. Your dream attention as you call it failed you instantly, once you turned around to look at another part of your dream. And good luck with simpler things like opening a book and keeping at least one sentence on its page unchanged after looking away. Take dream characters into account, too. If somebody walks in, it's an involuntary change in the dream scene.

There is a difference between WILDing and beeing aware during "deep sleep" (that's what I mean by "falling asleep")

Do you know what a WILD is? It's being aware of falling asleep. Technically in NREM ("deep sleep") just like you say, NREM comes first in the dream cycle.

it's like the difference between a person who plays the piano well and then strats to improvise, and a person who didn't learn to play and is just hitting random keys claiming it's the same as what the pro does

Such insane boasting coming from somebody who doesn't know what a WILD is...

Specialis Sapientia, I see that it's falling on deaf ears . Bolo wouldn't want to understand that if she wanted to be a part of Castaneda's group, her only chance would be to hope that she's pretty enough to sleep with him.

Originally Posted by Arutad

Specialis Sapientia, I see that it's falling on deaf ears . Bolo wouldn't want to understand that if she wanted to be a part of Castaneda's group, her only chance would be to hope that she's pretty enough to sleep with him.

Yeh.. I thought about mentioning that part too.

LOL !

WILD goes through stage 1... I know what's a WILD...

I guess I shouldn't boast insanely no more ..... LOL...

You won... Carlos Castaneda -0 Arutad -1 Bolo -not pretty enough

Ok I'm content

Originally Posted by Specialis Sapientia

He made three or four women commit suicide, I don't have to say more about him.

If you read his latests book you see how he devoloped some great delusion, and most importantly the "wise man" called Don Juan is imaginitive. If you dig deep enough you find out that he had his own little witch sect, treated them like he was some king, he was a total control freak, he made people leave their family and quit their job, he told his closes "witches" that they should kill themselves and they would all go to la-la land together in death. Also a lot of his books and alleged experiences was down right plagiarism.

It's actually a very tragic story..

Who cares about his tragic story if the techniques work? Instead of arguing about the proficiency of the techniques you're arguing about how many girls he slept with lol, I think you might be slightly missing the point here No matter how many women that are going to commit suicide, it's not going to stop the techniques from working. What's next, you're going to falsify Albert Einstiens hypothesis's by comparing them to the number of times he cheated on his wife to determine their reliability?

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

Who cares about his tragic story if the techniques work? Instead of arguing about the proficiency of the techniques you're arguing about how many girls he slept with lol, I think you might be slightly missing the point here No matter how many women that are going to commit suicide, it's not going to stop the techniques from working. What's next, you're going to falsify Albert Einstiens hypothesis's by comparing them to the number of times he cheated on his wife to determine their reliability?

Its the difference between
a) gravity works because of physics
b) gravity works because an invisible purple space elephant is holding us down by blowing air from its massive trunk.

Who cares as long as gravity works, right?

Originally Posted by moonshine

Its the difference between
a) gravity works because of physics
b) gravity works because an invisible purple space elephant is holding us down by blowing air from its massive trunk.

Who cares as long as gravity works, right?

LOL !

"gravity works because of physics"

Think about this sentence..... It's completely nonsensical !

Say, darling, are you pretty enough to sleep with our beloved space elephant? It's time someone would return his purpleness a favor (blow job comes to mind) !
Is gravity is a homosexual ? or should I do the job? (after I'm done with Castaneda of course)

Oh that's getting ridiculous.

ChaybaChayba says that some techniques work, so everything is true. How so? Sure some of them might work, many meditative techniques produce hallucinations if you're patient, not only Castaneda's. However it doesn't tell us anything about how truthful his other claims are. If you choose to believe in them, you do it blindly.

Chayba, I remember your thread about great power of the pineal gland. Now you can start your own religion, create cool stories and stuff around it, and wait till people who are successful with this method buy everything else you've made up additionally. And there will be successful people for sure, just like there would be such people even if it was about great power of the toe, so get ready for fame!

On a serious note, it's really weird for thinking people to see how fans who managed to make something work (at least I hope so, otherwise it's all empty talk from your side) immediately extrapolate it to encompass everything.

Originally Posted by Arutad

there would be such people even if it was about great power of the toe].

LOLLLL

Arutad, let me remind you that both me and Chayba don't believe in Castaneda's story... (Chayba, correct me if I'm wrong)

NEVERTHELESS, his books are GREAT!!! they are sophisticated and colorful, inspiring, artful and very very interesting !!! (and I usually don't fall for new Age and stuff like that...) Sure, lots of people are pist off for understandable reasons, but lighten up... it's just great art... give it a try....

Wow. Bolo sure is in a laughing mood today, judging by the number of "lol's" hes typed up. Y'know, to indicate how "amused" he is.

But surelyBOLO can't be suggesting that the physics and gravitational forces are unrelated? That really would be worth a few LOLs. If I was 12.

Originally Posted by moonshine

Wow. Bolo sure is in a laughing mood today, judging by the number of "lol's" hes typed up. Y'know, to indicate how "amused" he is.

But surelyBOLO can't be suggesting that the physics and gravitational forces are unrelated? That really would be worth a few LOLs. If I was 12.

What amazes me isn't the LOL-s themselves, but rahter way she uses them
"Loughing out Loud Loud Loud Loud"...

I think her point was that saying "gravity works because of physics" is basically the same as saying "2 + 2 works because of mathematics". Physics isn't really a reason, it's an explanation.

Originally Posted by Bolo

Arutad, let me remind you that both me and Chayba don't believe in Castaneda's story... (Chayba, correct me if I'm wrong)

You can't remind what you've never said. Besides, the story is inevitably linked to the claims. If the story is untrue, then many claims are untrue.

As for books, they're irritatingly boring, written in a dry manner. I have no idea how they managed to become bestsellers, but people say that back in time there was nothing else at all...

Originally Posted by khh

I think her point was that saying "gravity works because of physics" is basically the same as saying "2 + 2 works because of mathematics". Physics isn't really a reason, it's an explanation.

Well it's pretty clear that he spoke about natural laws that are now known as laws of physics, not about physics as a science.

Originally Posted by Gus

..castaneda talks in the art of dreaming about 4 of th 7 gates of dreaming and one of them is being able to dream yourself to concrete places in this world, ie. dream of seeing yourself in bed.

That's not quite right. CC never wrote that bit about "seeing yourself in bed." He wrote that DJ said about "seeing yourself asleep" which is not necessarily the same thing. No mention of any bed. You may remember that DJ's preferred method of sleeping-for-dreaming was sitting upright in an armchair.

Also, don't fall into the trap of thinking that you will be some distance from your sleeping body if and when it ever happens to you. You might be only a few centimetres away.. you know.. up close and personal.

Originally Posted by Arutad

That's not true.

Googled to get the dates of these works about LDing:

1867 (!) - Dreams and How to Guide Them, by Marquis d'Hervey de Saint-Denys
1913 - A Study of Dreams, by Frederick Van Eeden

LaBerge followed, building on these works. Whether Castaneda would write about LDing or not, LaBerge would be there.

Datura person? That is such cat crap. LaBerge obviously read Castaneda 10 years before his new age discourse EWOLD was published. (Another acronym for your collection). Castaneda was huge over this time.. selling millions of books, on the cover of Time magazine etc etc. Of course LaBerge was influenced by him, as was that other new age blimp called William Buhlmann, and hundreds of other writers.

Originally Posted by Arutad

Besides, I doubt that Castaneda's books have much value for LDing community. He never even mentioned lucidity, instead he kept writing wild stuff, like travelling to real places and beating physical people with his astral hands

If you've ever read the CC oeuvre, I'm a friggin chinaman. You misquote, wrongly attribute, and downright fabricate. He never even mentioned lucidity? Ha! You are so full of it.. you've obviously read sweet Fanny Adams.