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The Toltec Art of Dreaming By Mark Edwards Dreaming is as real and practical as planting crops, having a family, constructing a home ... The ancient Toltecs were a culture of powerful warriors, astronomers, and sorcerers. When their culture came into conflict with the European and Spanish cultures that came to dominate the western hemisphere, the Toltec disciplines of astrology, medicinal herbs, shamanistic and dreaming/energetic practices had to go underground. These disciplines stayed hidden until around 1966 when author Carlos Castaneda, and later don Miguel Ruiz, revealed them in books and lectures. Many a bewildered anthropologist has conjectured as to how the Toltecs disappeared. The Toltecs left no trace of bones, no personal artifacts, no hint as to where they went. All that was left were the ruins of the Teotihuacan temples and ruins in Cancun and other areas in Mexico. Similar to the vanishing of the Anasazi in the American southwest, where did they go? How could they just disappear? Where are their bodies? How did they leave? The answer is—dreaming. The ancient Toltecs and Anasazi people were not stupid, primitive “injuns” living in archaic myths before “modern civilization.” No, they were supreme Jaguar warriors, highly skilled astronomers, and very advanced dreamer-shapeshifters. So much so that they could leave this world without a trace and go to another one. Sound unbelievable? Well read on, then you decide! Dreaming 101 In Western society, we’ve been trained by psychoanalysis and science to perceive our dreams as byproducts of electrical impulses shooting off in the synapses of our brains. Dreams, to psychoanalysis, are a form of wish fulfillment and subconscious functions of the ego, processing conflicting sexual and egoic desires through metaphoric imagery. Unfortunately, this explanation is tragically lacking in substance, application and scope. It is also a minority perception globally. Most indigenous cultures worldwide consider dreaming to encompass a whole lot more than brain functioning and wish fulfillment. For these cultures and for the Toltecs, their whole life is based around dreams and dreaming abilities. We spend one third of our life sleeping, roughly 178,000 hours. Obviously dreaming is a significant part of our living experience. What’s happening when we sleep? Where do we go when we dream? What is the nature and the messages of these dreams we have? Why do some dreams seem like real life events, with total clarity? In indigenous cultures, dreams are discussed and explored daily. Dreams are seen as being a sort of psychic antenna that gives them symbolic lessons and meanings to their life experiences, much like reading a Tarot deck. Dreams also foresee upcoming events and help navigate around trouble, and are used for healing, advice and “seeing.” Dreaming is as real and practical as planting crops, having a family, constructing a home, music, or anything else in their lives for the Toltecs and their descendants. To them, dreams are a real and vital area of experience, continuity, and spiritual connection that western cultures cannot even imagine. The real illusion, as they see it, is that we as human beings were meant to live within reason, logic and materialism. The Three Levels of Attention In Toltec lingo, there are what are described as The First, Second, and Third Attention. These terms can be found all through Carlos Castaneda’s works as well as those of don Miguel Ruiz and others. Let’s examine them more closely. 1. The First Attention: This is the social order, the world of reason, logic and linguistic explanations, “The Matrix,” as the popular movie defines it. The world of the known. 2.The Second Attention: The realm of dreaming, out of body experiences, “psychedelic” experiences, sorcery, magick, lucid dreaming, visions, spirits, etc. 3. The Third Attention: This is completely outside language, off the island of the self and the social order, and literally impossible to describe as it is enormous in mass and intensity. It is the totality of ourselves, it is eternity, if you will. These worlds of energetic possibilities are what both ancient and modern Toltec practitioners train to enter at will, with full consciousness. Specific training sequences and daily practices help us navigate successfully between these three areas of assemblage points (points of energetic awareness or energetic clusters or worlds). Medicine Dreaming The elders and Toltec shamans of Mexico, including their living descendants the Huichols, Aztecs, Mayans, use dreaming for practical daily challenges and healing. Medicine men (Naguals) consult dreams for health diagnosis, finding a marriage partner for someone, finding lost people and objects, plant identification, naming babies, etc. Visions, songs, and symbols acquired from dreaming are integrated all through the culture. They are drawn on their homes, rattles, drums, sacred objects, and their bodies. Humans are thus always interacting with the dreaming guides and spirits. Dream songs, when sung, reconnect Naguals to the spirit world. The dream radar is a consistent tool for all aspects of life, and reality. To the Toltecs, it is seen as having two sides; the Tonal (ordinary reality) and the Nagual (the unknown). These two sides need to be in balance with each other for a human to be healthy. Together, the Tonal and Nagual provide proper equilibrium. Even in our modern western society, art, poetry, and music come inspired to artists from the Second Attention. Billy Joel, the famous musician, said seventy percent of his music came from dreams. Physical reality as we know it, is filled with sounds and imagery from the dreamtime. Sorcery Dreaming Don Juan Matus, teacher of Carlos Castaneda and many others, defined a Toltec as “a modern practitioner of Toltec practices, not limited to gender and race. A man (or woman) who is a master of coyote shape shifting—a dreamwalker.” At this level of dreaming, there is total lucidity in the dreaming worlds. For a dreamwalker, being awake or dreaming while asleep is the same. The universe is set up like an onion, with multiple worlds overlapping within each other. A master dreamwalker can move freely from one layer in the onion to another, at will. Sometimes you see them, sometimes you don’t. This requires, of course, a lifetime of saving energy, living as a warrior and erasing one’s personal history. To gain fluidity in dreaming, it is also necessary to erase our self importance and ego. Erasing the dead weight of the ego leads to our energetic freedom. The Anasazi, Toltecs, and aboriginal people were and are master dreamers in a dreaming culture. If you visit the pyramids of Mexico today, you get an eerie feeling that you are never alone and are being watched. The eyes of the ancient dreamwalkers are still there, just at another layer of the onion. Remember the children’s song, “Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream; Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.” The Toltecs would agree. Mark Edwards has been a student of Victor Sanchez, don Miquel Ruiz, Robert Moss, James Van Praagh, and Lillian Celic. Through a 27 year ongoing relationship with indigenous “medicine elders” in America and Mexico, he provides a unique form of intuitive spiritual guidance and direction. He has appeared on various Chicago area television programs and has had numerous articles published locally and nationally. His book, Art of the Toltec Warrior/Sorcerer, will be available in 2007. Mark can be reached at 708-209-7470 or through his website, www.EdwardSees.com.
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