I have now officially reached the First Gate of The Dreaming, as described in, "The Art of Dreaming"

[DreamBliss]

This isn't lucidity as normally thought of and discussed here. It's a bit beyond that, but it's not beyond dreaming either, because it's about entering the Dreaming, a state I guess you could say is the next level above lucidity and lucid dreaming, at least as far as I can tell from what Carlos Castaneda says. Before I begin I must apologize. There are many posts and PMs here requiring my attention. But I am going though a sort of phase or stage right now and am not as active here as I was. I will return to my normal level of activity sometime next week. I have also not connected my portal to Thomson Square energetically yet. Once again I apologize, please bear with me. It's late, I should be in bed, but this is important. Yes there is some pride of accomplishment here. I set a goal and I reached it. It seems I so rarely reach any of the goals I consider to be important. I wish I had a teacher like Castaneda did, I can only have faith that, "When the student is ready the teacher will come." I know there are those who disagree with my desiring a teacher, and I respect their viewpoints. I do not wish to argue with anyone. I am open to all viewpoints, without attachment or aversion to any of them, even my own. I will not detail my dream. I firmly believe that dreams are personal and should not be shared as a general rule. This dream in particular has some extremely personal thoughts/feelings that I would not impose on anyone, and would not want to as I am a very private person. In essence I dropped into a late afternoon nap around 4:30 or 4:45 PM. I was very tired and slept very deeply. In my dream, with a level of detail I had previous only had in lucid dreams, but which now seems to be the norm for my normal dreams, I was sleeping. The surface I was sleeping on, what I took to be my bed, was very hard like a board with little or no padding. I was initially imagining, then dreaming as I fell asleep, that invisible hands picked me up. They were going to take me to some unfamiliar place called the, "Toy Factory." This connected, through what I call a transition, to an earlier dream. The place has been abandoned for years and I am a little concerned about the state of the beds there. I am taken into a room and towards a large, nice looking bed. I want to be in that bed. But my bearers, whoever they are, stop short. I wake up. Now you must understand something. I have a stigma in my left eye. This used to affect the quality of my dreams. Think 1080p blue-ray quality for real life with my glasses on, 480p without glasses, and something like SVHS video (the next step up from your normal video cassette player resolution) for my dreams. When I become lucid I jump from low res to high res. I see in my dreams as I see in real life with glasses, perhaps better. Well the last few months, obviously long enough for me to get used to it without drawing my attention to it, my dreams are running a a steady 720p - 1080p resolution. There is little jump to lucidity now. I see better in my dreams than in waking life, even with glasses on! This is important, because when I woke up in the dream as far as I was concerned I was awake in real life. That's how real the dream was, and I was not lucid, but I was not without lucidity either (hard to explain.) Basically the dream was not carrying me along anywhere, but I was also not exerting control. I got up, checked on the laptop and (what I took to be) hard drives hooked up to it. There was a 99% or something on a DOS looking screen and the hard drives or whatever they were were incredibly hot to my finger as I brought it close. I shut it down (I think) after turning off a heater and turning on a fan. I considered getting my AC to put in the window. I went to the window and looked out. Now it gets weird... It was a place I used to live, the same landscape as that place but a mossy, pacific northwest forest with a leaning or fallen tree. What's weird is my response. I responded as I would in real life. No startling, "I'm dreaming!" revelations. My response was a laid back "Wait a minute, perhaps I'm dreaming!" No change in detail, no revelations here, no sign of attaining or loosing lucidity. Everything just as it is in real life. I brought my hands up. I have been for the last few weeks training myself, instead of hitting my hands whenever I see my alarm clock or open my MP3 player case, been raising my hands and looking at them as I ask, "Am I dreaming, is this a dream?" This was just the same sort of automatic response to the similar question/thought. I raised my hands, they were mine, but the seemed to go through the window a little. This brings us to why I posted this, ignoring my other obligations. I looked out the window, again remember no jump in detail, no transition to lucidity, and I saw a vine move in from beyond the trees., It shot out towards me, attempting to attack me. The window, or as I look back my idea of the solidity of a window, blocked it. The vine followed me as I moved in front of it. I know it was dangerous, that it meant me harm, but there was no obvious malevolence coming from it, nothing identifiable as human or other, just a sort of cold, calculating, drive. That's all I intuited. I have not read far in Castaneda's book. Perhaps he has to deal with this. I have read far enough to know about the alien entities that don Juan mentions that some of the sorcerer's of old would track down. Entities that you had to be careful to be sure they did not notice you. My best guess is that this is one of these, or a form of one of these, or sent by one of these. I have never been attacked like this before in my dreams or my projection attempts. I do not think I am afraid, but I am concerned as to how to proceed. I am still as defenseless as a toddler who has just started stumbling around. I have no idea how to deal with this. Couldn't come at a worse time either, as I am fighting doubts about my faith and the Bible. I will ask God for His protection, should He be willing to grant it. I don't know about the white light stuff. I have the definite sense that this entity, or the entity using this, is far more real than faith in things like charms, spells, God, or religions beliefs. I do not mean to disparage anyone's personal beliefs. I'm only trying to express how I feel this entity is operating at a different level. Humans for the most part are undeveloped spiritually, easy prey for any entity out there more spiritually advanced. Think of a situation like a devote Catholic priest confronting the monster from Alien. Obviously prayer, spells, charms and white light won't work. So this post is to the more spiritually advanced members of this forum. How do I deal with this threat? My joy at reaching the First Gate of Dreaming is tempered by my concern at my unpreparedness for what lies beyond it. I feel as as naked and exposed as a defenseless girl surrounded by wolves in the deepest, darkest woods. Or I could use the analogy that I have been thrust into a world beyond my experience, as if someone plucked me out of this world and placed me into the world of The Lord of The Rings. There are things here I am simply not prepared for. But I am ready and willing to face them, whatever they are. Please post your advice, and accept my humblest thanks in return - - DreamBliss