I tried to write about only my Dreaming experiences with Rama, but found it difficult because of the many related subjects that Dreaming encompasses. I decided to write it as an abbreviated autobiography of my experiences with Rama over the 10 years I was associated with him. Since 95% of those experiences were through the art of Dreaming, I felt it still would give useful information to Dreamers and potential Dreamers.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Dreaming, I will try to explain it in the simplest terms possible. Dreaming is a way to control the dreams you have while sleeping. Dreaming is the ability to direct the path your dreams follow, without having your dreams compose the course as in the way we typically dream. I consider the term Astral Travel and Dreaming to be the same.

I learned Dreaming from reading the book "Journey to Ixtlan" by Carlos Castenada in 1974. By mid-1975 I had my first success with Dreaming. Dreaming was one of three paths Carlos’s mentor Don Juan had giving him to follow the Warrior’s Path. I decided that I would attempt to learn Dreaming after I read the book. It was worth a shot, after all I could do this in my spare time. What else was I to do but dream!

I followed the techniques that Don Juan had described. The first was to locate your hands while dreaming. After all, if you have a Dreaming body it must have hands! (not entirely true). Before I could get to this point however, I had to actually wake up while in a dream without waking up in the bed I slept in. This type of waking up is to regain our normal conscience state while still being in a dream. Once this happens, you can direct a course of action of your choice. This is what separates the Dreamer from the dream. I tried to do this first step for over a year with no success. I had observed in that time that most of my dreams were similar to actions of my daily life. This made it very difficult to figure out what was a dream and what was real (actually both are). I even went as far as periodically looking at my hands during normal awareness as to build a habit of this that would carry on during my dreams. It didn’t work.

After another 6 months, success! I had the first realization of being in a dream when the conditions in the dream world around me was not normal. In the dream, I was trying to escape a rising ocean while standing at the base of the cliffs at Blacks Beach (located near Rama’s place on La Jolla farms Road). As I continued to climb, the ocean kept rising. When I was at a height of over a hundred feet above the beach, the water was still climbing. At this moment I thought "This is not real" and a dark shadowy figure to my left spoke and told me "I was Dreaming". Of course I looked at my hands and the only course of action I wanted to take was to leave the situation and go somewhere else. And I did. I also lost control of the remaining dreams of that evening. My fist success was very short and aided by the shadowy mentor "Antrome" (an enlightened being from Atlantis), my further experiences in Dreaming were done entirely on my own. I wouldn’t hear of Antrome again until I meet Rama 5 years later.

The next step in Dreaming after locating your hands in your dream, was to look at your surroundings. But don’t look too long however. Dreams are very fluid, they change from moment to moment. If you stare at any one subject too long, it will transform to something else and the entire dream background will change as well. The way to do this is to look at your hands briefly and then look at an object in the surrounding dream. Keep repeating this process until all objects are recorded into your memory. Remember, staring at your hands for a long time will also have this fluid effect. Though these dream backgrounds are amazing to look at, don’t get caught staring at them. You’ll be thrown into another dream and most likely will not have the control you did in the current one.

The third step is to set a course of action to follow during Dreaming. This is best done in your normal state of awareness prior to Dreaming. It can also be done while in a conscience state during the dream. Before I continue with the third step, I should warn you that each of us has an internal element that is trying to prevent us from achieving our goal in Dreaming. In my early experiences in trying to find my hands in dreams, my hands might appear to have fingers which grew several inches longer or my hands would appear to have been slashed by a hundred razor blades. All this was to frighten me to stop what I was doing. All that was necessary to end this was to Will it to end. This was done by simply saying aloud during the dream "This is not really happening, Stop it!". My hands returned to normal. When following the third step in Dreaming, you will encounter Allies who will try to distract you from your goal. You can find out more about Allies by reading Carlos Castenada’s books. Simply put, they are inorganic beings which live on our universe and on earth which are easily visible during dreams. They live off of the energy we have while in dreams. The Allies choose the direction of our dreams unless we step in as Dreamer’s and change that. The Allies need highly emotional energy which is obtained from dreams we are in awe of or in nightmares the Allies have generated for creating fear in us.

For the third step of Dreaming I chose to do things that I could not do under normal circumstances. Such as walking from the beach into the ocean until I was several feet under water, then I would take deep breaths. One of my favorite things to do was to jump off of cliffs at Torry Pines onto the beach below. After all, If you're Dreaming you can’t die! (not necessarily true). If you ever had a dream in which you were falling, you wake up in bed before you hit. I decided I wouldn’t wake up and ride it out. The sensation of free falling during a dream is much like I would imagine it if I were to skydive. The wind whistling past your ears at 16 feet per second squared. When I was the equivalent of two body lengths from the ground the brakes came on. By the time I was stopped I had to climb out of a funnel shaped crater I created when I landed. The feeling of that experience and all Dreaming experiences remain with us for the rest of our lives and a great feeling of power and accomplishment is present the following day. Another thing I noticed in Dreaming is that time is different. May days of Dreaming experiences and knowledge can be gained in only one evening of Dreaming.

By 1978 I was well accomplished as a Dreamer. I continued to do Dreaming virtually every evening and eventually found I had lost direction. I had no variation in my dreams. I was a solitary Dreamer and experienced worlds limited by my own Intent and those of the Allies who occupied those worlds. I felt that I could experience no more challenges. Then in late 1980 an intruder came into my Dreaming world. The intruder’s name was Dr. Fredrick Lenz also know as "Atmananda"

I was still very interested in Carlos Castenada’s books. I always wanted to learn more about Don Juan’s mysterious world. In the summer of 1975 I attended a class at San Diego Mesa College on "The Teachings of Don Juan". I attended the first class only because I felt it had no promise for me. Most of the students were relating their drug experiences and the teacher appeared to have little direction in what course the class would take. He even suggested the class final be a peyote trip to the desert. I guess I could of contributed my experiences with the datura plants, but I chose not to. Then in late 1980 a local paper was advertising free seminars by Dr. Fredrick Lenz, half of which were on Carlos Castenada’s books. He was speaking at San Diego State College and at the University of California in San Diego. I attended all his seminars at both campuses. I was very impressed by his discussions which lasted about one and a half hours. The first part was about the advertised subject followed by a 20 minute meditation and a question & answer sessions afterwards. I could tell that Atmananda was an enlightened being. In fact I used his seminars to gain additional power for Dreaming as I did by visiting local power places. Atmananada was a traveling power place! Though at his seminars I could only see flickering lights and sometimes a superimposed face over his, I was not truly Seeing as described in Castenada’s books. My Dreaming and my life was about to change drastically when I asked my newly wed wife Sabrina to attend one of Atmananda’s seminars.

Sabrina and I attended one of Atmananda’s seminars and after the meditation portion was over the question & answer section began. My wife was the first to raise her hand and describe what she Saw. She described Atmananda as floating in the sky with purple clouds moving swiftly past him and later as a luminous being of light. Of course my immediate reaction was to look at her and think, "You gotta be nuts". I was probably more jealous that she could See in one meeting with Atmananda and I still haven’t been able to after all those years of trying. Seeing is the ability to see the energy of a person or object other then simply looking at it. Again, you can find out more on Seeing by reading Castenada’s books. Between that seminar and the following one, Sabrina retained her ability to See as well as to travel into the past and the future. She also spoke of another teacher who she claimed I was an incarnation of, this was Antrome. Antrome became a guide to her even though his presence was still hidden from me. Now I knew for sure that Atmananda’s power was real. My wife had new abilities and a second teacher came into our lives.

I decided that during the next seminar that I would attempt to do Astral Projection while Atmananda meditated. There would be a lot of power in the room and I had a possibility of succeeding if I tried. Astral Projection is when a Dreamer causes himself to totally wake up in a new location. This means that the physical body starts Dreaming in one location but wakes up in a new location. This is great for saving airfare cost or shortening that prison term! I started the procedure by meditating with my eyes open (as Atmananda suggested). I was watching him sitting in the yoga position on a large table in the front of the hall. I was in the far back row with my wife. I proceeded as if I were daydreaming. I wanted to see what the class looked like from Atmananda's position, so I walked around the table a couple of times and looked back into the audience where I was sitting. I then was back in my seat thinking "Damm, it didn’t work". After the question and answer session, Atmananda asked anyone if they had noticed that a visitor had made a short appearance during the meditation. No one responded, so Atmananda described the visitor. He described the visitor as an old indian who lived in this area (Torry Pines) his name was "Donienan". He described him as walking around the table a couple of times and looking into the audience and leaving! I’m sure my jaw was hanging down with amazement. As we left the seminar, Sabrina noticed that the indian was following us. She observed this through Seeing. The indian spirit showed up at all the seminars after that, but we still didn’t know who he was. My wife was very scared of him. His identity would soon be known.

One evening I had heard that a total eclipse of the moon would be visible that night and the conditions for viewing it were right. So I sat my lawn chair out in front of the house and brought a six pack of beer to keep me busy while I watched this one and one half hour eclipse. My wife came out to see if I was all right several times. The final time she observed me was at the time of the total eclipse. She Saw that the indian Donienan and I were the same. Not only was Donienan an incarnation of me in a previous life but he was my dominate personality. Now the two invisible playmates I had as a child were the two visible spirits I learned about through Atmananda’s path crossing mine. These two spirits were dueling enlightened beings from my past who chose opposing paths. Antrome who’s path is positive like Atmananda’s and Donienan’s who’s path is negative. I have theorized that I am here in the same environment that Donienan lived in to re-correct my destiny by following the positive path. I believe that this is what Karma is all about.

I also attended many of Atmananda’s private seminars at the home he stayed at on La Jolla Farms Road across from UCSD. At this point I was ready to speak to Atmananda about joining his group. But my wife issued a warning at Antrome’s request not to. I new that Atmanada could read minds because I would ask only one question during his seminars by thought only and he would answer it to my satisfaction. As Donienan as my chief personality I was always feeling deep down that Atmananda was interfering with my territory in Dreaming and with what is now classified as new age music. Atmananda would always play Tangerine Dream, Walter Carlos and Tomita music during the meditations. The people would ask "What is this great music?", and I’d be thinking, "where have you been. I developed a collection of 6,000 pieces of this style of recorded music before this Guru even showed up". I took a lot of pride in my collection at the time. Atmanada knew this and tried to get me to speak up or to contact his students about "his collection". Though this doesn’t seem that convincing to most people, it almost worked on me. However, I remembered Antrome’s words "Atmananda is an enlightened teacher but he makes it too easy on this students, your course is different". Soon afterwards my wife was asked to become a student. She decided to do so. She also became friends with "Sharon" and "Anne". The three of them had lived in many past lives together. All three of them were off and on students with Atmananda, this was because Sharon was also an enlightened teacher and lead her own group. She too was an incarnate of an enlightened Atlantian. I will refer to this group as "The Trio of Dreamers".

Now my Dreaming was changing. I was now Dreaming in groups, our should I say with other Dreamers. When people Dream together, it’s like going to a new place for the first time. If you don’t remember all you saw, your Dreaming companion can probably fill you in on what you missed. Being married to a Dreamer helped in this way. My Dreaming was proceeding in a new direction with Atmananda at my side but I needed to get some parts of my everyday life in order to do Dreaming effectively. My wife was advised by Atmananda that I needed to have Donienan temporarily removed from me because his influence was too great. Atmanada agreed to keep him jailed up for a while, while my own personality emerged. I first noticed no difference in the way I thought or acted. Atmananda said this was due to being Donienan for so many years that I forgot what it was to be myself. After a while I did notice that I was less violent and more easy going. I had a lot more faith in people and trusted them to a point that I shouldn’t. I became very much a new age personality, I meditated a lot and tried many ways to improve my awareness. I had several unusual experiences in Dreaming. Once I sleep-walked into the living room from our bedroom and sat in a yoga position on the sofa. I was in a state of Dreaming while meditating! Antrome warned me that this was dangerous to do and I never did it again. On another occasion I woke up my wife by speaking loudly in a foreign language. It scared her and Antrome spoke to her telling her that I was speaking of hunting techniques to a fellow Toltec indian. Again, another one of my past lives which did not gain enlightenment. I continued to have many experiences with fellow Dreamers. One more that comes to mind is when Atmananda who was now known as Rama journeyed to Cowels mountain along with the "Trio of Dreamers" though all were there in the physical. I joined them as a Dreamer along with another Dreamer a musician named Daevid Allen. We stood at the summit and an Ally was standing in the sky pulling apart a portion of the sky as if it were a curtain. Behind this curtain was another world. The ally told me that if I entered the world I would have all I ever desired. The only drawback was that I could not return to this world. My intent was to place one foot into the new world and observe it for as long as I could and step back out. But as I was about to do so my wife tried to stop the Ally from enticing me into that place. The Ally hurled her to the ground and caused her a lot of minor wounds and pain. If Rama didn’t help her I fear she might of died. She returned to our house the following morning all bruised up. She tended to suffer a lot as a result of Dreams. On another occasion we were going to visit Donienan’s cave in Torry Pines the following day. That night she traveled the route I described to her while Dreaming. She said she had the sensation that the ground was hot and burning her feet. She ended her journey. The next morning she had blisters on the heels of both feet. Some people have after-effects from Dreaming. It can be as dangerous as everyday life. Nearly two years have passed since Rama removed Donienan from me. He was to have returned earlier but I asked that he be kept away longer because I was not strong enough to resist him on my own. I had no idea of what it would be like when he returned but I new it would be unforgettable.

I was doing well as far as self control. I generally drank too much but I stopped for two months prior to attending a concert with a friend. We were going to see The Tubes (without Fee Waybill) at a local venue walking distance from my house. My Friend Mike G. and I left for the show. I recorded the concert as usual with a portable Sony Walkman. We drank several beers and enjoyed the show. After the show, we stopped to get a quart of beer for the walk home. We almost made it. A group of three men approached us in our path, the biggest one grabbed both of us by our collars. One in each arm! "I’m gonna fight one of yeu, well which one?". My friend and I said nothing. The fist came straight in my face. I don’t like to fight and I prefer to avoid it, but that pissed me off. I threw my drink and my coat into the gutter and we brawled out in the street only 100 feet from were I lived. The other two men took care of my friend so he couldn’t assist. He did however play an important part. He spoke the words that caused Donienan to return. I was exhausted and standing for a moment. I was changing my thoughts to something else temporarily (a warrior strategy I learned from Castenada’s books) . My friend said he was coming at me with a broken bottle! My thoughts at that moment were "Now I’m Gonna Die". This was the moment Donienan returned. Most of what followed I had no immediate memory of for a couple of days. What I remembered with the aid of my friend’s memory of the battle was, I kicked the bottle out of his hand and the force also knocked him backwards. I then went to my jacket and grabbed the all metal Walkman out of the pocket. I used it as a hammer until my opponent was no longer moving. His two friends said "He had enough" and insisted I fight no longer. My friend and I left arm-in-arm as did the group of three. The conditions needed to be correct for Donienan’s return. A large part of myself was missing and had now returned. Donienan was no longer a personal enemy but a friend. I thank Rama for the time off, it helped me become strong. It can be difficult growing up with a past life who is stronger then the current incarnation. Rama allowed me to catch up.

My continuing journeys with Rama in Dreaming were with groups of about 8 Dreamers. The members varied but consisted of a core which included the Trio of Dreamers and myself. There were other steady visitor’s including reverend Chris Butler "Jagat Guru" from Oahu and Carlos Castenada the author. The journeys were mostly traveling across terrain which appeared normal except upon close examination in was totally different. I would drive them nuts. Remember, one of the first rules in Dreaming is not to look at anything to long: Especially if what you’re looking at is an Ally! Rama was amazed that I had this knack of locating all the Allies in the area. He said I was wasting my time because the only Ally worth getting is a powerful one. He was right so I ignored them. After about 17 Allies I gave up counting. It’s the important ones I look forward to now. The Allies can be a great aid in Dreaming. Not only can you be transported to places that would be harder to get to through normal Dreaming ,but they can be transformed by the Dreamer into objects which are useful in Dreaming. On one occasion I was in the mist of a battle with an Ally to gain his power and I heard my 3 year old son crying in his room. I asked the Ally to wait a moment during the battle while I attended my son and it agreed. I returned within two minutes, hit the pillow face down and the battle continued. Rama said he had never seen anyone make an Ally wait before. The battle with the Allies is discussed in Castenada’s books. My experiences were not much different. I have lost more battles then I have won. If you’re lucky you won’t wake up with a physical injury. Most Dreamer’s don’t want to bother with them, after all it’s not a requirement. I just enjoy the challenge and the additional power they provide.

It’s been about 5 years now that I’ve been Dreaming with Rama and the Trio of Dreamer’s. One of the occasional visitors intrigued me. Not only because he was a famous musician but because he was a better Dreamer than me, and perceived the Dreaming world in the same fashion that I did. This was the Dreamer Todd Rundgren. Todd likes to hang out in a Dream world which looks like something out of J. R. Tolkin’s "The Hobbit" and to enter it you need to step through this full size antique mirror (Alice?). Todd would try to make me go through the mirror. He’d jump through in both directions like "No Sweat". I finally made an attempt by passing my arm through this mirror. My arm changed in appearance as it passed the plane of the mirror. It became more cartoon like. This world alters the appearance of the Dreaming body. Eventually I got the courage to enter. Did you know that an Ally can be turned into a Dragon? They’re fun to fly and what an appropriate world to fly in! I met many other Dreamers there. On one occasion I decided that I wasn’t going to leave. The Trio of Dreamers couldn’t persuade me to leave and Rama also showed up. Between them all they told me that if I stayed beyond a certain time my physical body would die. They convinced me that my son would have no father if I stayed. I decided to leave.

I soon left Todd’s Dream world and took a Dreamer with me who wanted the challenge of the Allies. Rama still made occasional appearances in the world I was traveling but I seldom visited him. That was until I needed him. Sharon from the Trio of Dreamer’s had created the real cool flying saucer out of the Allies she had acquired. I tried to do the same with my new Dreaming companion but couldn’t find an Ally that was strong enough to finish it. It now sits in some astral warehouse. I did however get to fly Sharon’s. This occurred because I was getting fed up with the way the Trio of Dreamer’s had been abusing me. Forcing me to do things I didn’t want to with the joint use of their Dreaming powers. I decided that I was going to see Rama and have him put a stop to it. I hijacked Sharon’s saucer. She boarded behind me and sat in the back till I arrived. Rama was on an alien planet with a circular high-rise like the Capitol Records building in L.A. but taller or even "The Jetsons" in architecture. The lower 100 feet was open and only supported by 4 structural supports. I landed the ship below the building and found Rama within. After that, no problems.

Rama’s power has the ability to bring out the good and evil within people. It was that way with me and for my wife. In the end she didn’t have the strength to overcome her dominate personality. She was booted from the group for being too violent. She told me once that she punched Carlos Castenada in the mouth while at Rama’s house in Malibu. One of the last things Rama had told her to say to me was "That I have Mastered Dreaming, but I have been ignoring "Stalking" (another of the Warrior’s three paths)". Stalking as used here doesn’t mean the criminal activity but the ability to get the most out of an impossible situation. It’s dealing with Petty Tyrants" (see Castenada’s books). In early 1990 I lost my job, I got a divorce and my car died all within 3 weeks. My training as a Stalker was about to begin.

In these years of Dreaming I observed that the Dreaming body has a personality which differs from us slightly. Its core is our own personality and the habits we practice in our daily lives is the stability of our Dreaming personality. But what makes it different is that it is more knowledgeable because the memory is greater. The Dreaming body experiences time at a greater rate than we do in our normal state of awareness. Therefore it’s knowledge is greater. Memory is the key! I’ve learned that memory is stored in various levels of conscienceness. The realizations a person experiences on a hallucinogen but forgets the following day, the Dream I just can’t remember or the past life memory. All these memories are stored permanently in another state of conscienceness. Meditation and Dreaming will expand your conscienceness and your memory including the past you forgot will return. Don’t worry if you can’t remember your Dreams when you awaken in the morning. In every Dream clues are being made. Clues you will notice that following day. These clues are to help you remember this Dream you forgot. I remember most of my Dreaming when I awake, and enjoy seeing the clues that day which were there to remind me in case I forgot. There is knowledge in all philosophies and religions. They are all worth exploring. Since most of these writers are in a high state of conscienceness when they wrote their pieces, the reader should also be in a similar state to understand it properly. Be persistent, it will pay off. After all, Dreaming can be done in your spare time, what else are you going to do dream or Dream?

Carlos always had poetry in his books. I’m not a big fan of poetry but I do like Rock music lyrics. The following verses are taken from a song by The Soft Machine from 1967. It refers to our Mask (our normal awareness) and the fact we are Sleeping (unaware of the chaotic universe the Mask protects us from). The song is called "Why are we Sleeping?":

It begins with a blessing
But ends with a curse
Making life easy
But making it worse
My mask is my master
The trumpeter weeps
But his voice is so weak
As he speaks from his sleep
Why Why Why are we sleeping?

Once I awakened my eyes filled with tears
I had been sleeping for thousands of years
Dreaming a life full of problems an sadness
Endlessly turning in spirals of madness
Where the wind goes
That’s where it all goes
It follows the song
Like it’s a dream…singing…
Why Why Why are we sleeping?
By Kevin Ayers

Rama, I wish you well.
Michael C.