Excerpt chapter 2
“As the sorcerer plays his flute and dances around in a setting of white clouds, he watches me curiously. I hand Vidar the grayish green oval-shaped gemstone with the black figure. He observes the stone closely.
“Good find,” he says. I carefully chose the stone from a box containing all sorts of gems in a small shop in the center of Haarlem where they sell books, incense and jewelry. The bent figure is also known as the dancing sorcerer, a male being with physical characteristics of several animals: with eyes of a wolf, antlers of a moose, a horse’s tail and bear claws. Vidar holds the stone at arm’s length between his thumb and index finger and says “it’s jade.”
He tells me it is a medicine stone, which means that the stone has healing properties and can be used at shamanic healing rituals. For the time being its role is that of the prey and I am the hunter who must try to find it in my dreaming. During the past week, I have been studying the stone from every angle, but there is so much to be discovered that I cannot see the woods for the trees. I ask Vidar, holding the stone in his left hand, what would be the best procedure to learn all the stone’s characteristics by heart.
With the index finger, he caresses the figure and the contour of the stone. “First you study the sorcerer’s outline and draw the lines in your mind until you are able to visualize them. When you succeed, you follow the same procedure with the white spots and the stone’s shape. Carry the stone with you at all times and make a habit of studying it on every occasion, even when you are standing in line at the cashier’s desk,” he smiles. “You have to know every spot, dent or drawing from the inside and from the outside. Practice as long as it takes to get it in your mind and aim to find the stone in your dreaming within the next ten days. Then you start counting the days.”
“And what if I don’t find it within that time?”
“Then you start all over again, until you get it right,” he replies, and gives me the necessary instructions before falling asleep. “Look at the stone in detail and place it somewhere near, close your eyes and visualize the stone on the inside of your inner eye, between your eyebrows. It is important to become conscious of the moment right before you fall asleep. At that specific moment you visualize the stone immediately inside your inner eye.” My mind resists. Waking up before falling asleep seems impossible. He must have read my mind, because he says; “It’s actually enough to have the intention to be conscious before falling asleep. Attempt it.” I decide not to worry anymore. I will just do it. “Aim to wake up consciously every morning and visualize the stone with your inner eye,” he continues as he slowly brings the stone closer. “Pick up the stone and move it closer from an arm’s length to the tip of your nose as if the stone is coming toward you. Do not forget to repeat to yourself that you will find the stone,” he concludes.
He carefully places the stone in front of me on the table as if it is fragile, pushes his chair backward and gets up to boil water for tea. I place the sorcerer in the palm of my hand, he gives me a defiant look as if he is about to make a getaway and obviously expects me to chase after him. He is one in a million and I will do anything to find him.”

Braceau, Alysa (Dreamshield). The Sorcerer’s Dream: Dreaming and Spiritual Adventure in a New Millennium. Booklocker.com, Inc. (April 12, 2010). 294 pp. ISBN-13: 978-1609101565.

Michael Harner also says: “It has been a path followed because people…wanted to help (others) through healing and alleviating their suffering. In following that path, gifts were then given them that were totally unexpected…This then changes them, and they are never the same again; they are indeed enlightened. But that was not the intention; it was just a result.”

Shamanism is and isn’t a path of transformation and enlightenment. Shaman, Christina Pratt,explores this interesting state of affairs. Shamanic trance states are task oriented. They are not focused on gaining enlightenment. However, an ongoing working relationship with Spirit is one of the most efficient and effective paths of transformation, waking up, and growing up for shamans and for lay people. (source: why shamanism now)

In sorcery we speak about moving the assemblage point in order to shift your perception on the road to heal yourself (and others). It’s the assemblage point of totality which people of knowledge shift in order to reach totality. The assemblage point is the place where all lines of intent come together, it is the ultimate place of perception. Call it a concentrated sense of perception. And it is usually, but not necessarily located at the height of the shoulder blades. My dreaming teacher, the shaman Vidar, explained in the next excerpt from my book The Sorcerer’s Dream more about the difference between enlightenment and reaching the totality.

Excerpt
I want to know if totality is comparable to enlightenment, the state that yogis and semi-saints – let me say – admirably strive to reach. Vidar says you are born in a state of enlightenment: reaching totality goes much further than that. Enlightenment is only the beginning. It is better to speak of realization because enlightenment is the realization that you are an eternal entity, or the perception of the eternal entity you are.” He says there are various teaching methods to reach enlightenment, all with the same goal: inactivating your material body, and he uses the sweat lodge as an example.

“In the sweat lodge you close your eyes and use your spiritual eyes to see. Your daily self did not perceive the light flashes you observed there. People only realize afterward that they left their material body and were in a completely different place. Realization means the movement of the Self outside the material body.”

* * *

“As a child, you are busy preparing yourself for totality.” Vidar explains that as a child he reached totality after the second session. “Accompanied by an eagle I was busy preparing medicine, when, with his wing, the eagle suddenly pointed at a star. ‘That’s you,’ he said. I saw the star light, a clearly defined light three times stronger than the sun and dove into it. I experienced a whirling movement,” he claps his hands together and turns the tips of his fingers a quarter turn toward himself, “and saw the innumerable billion of fine lines coming out of totality and piercing through every atom. My assemblage point shifted automatically. I looked up and saw the second reality. I had enough strength and energy to do it.”

Vidar announces I need to prepare myself for a solid, attendant entity, which automatically transforms into an ally, an earth-entity who is helpful in shifting the assemblage point. An ally as well as the entity belongs to the second reality. I see your ally waiting,” Vidar says pleasantly staring out in front of him. “He is purple.”

He clarifies: “As soon as you’ve taken sufficient traditional steps, then you have enough energy to shift your assemblage point yourself and reach and become totality. However, it is not your daily self who is doing that. The knowledge of the spirit makes the super-intelligent decision to do it. When you have the right connection with the lines of intent, you can shift the assemblage point, or better yet – you move your assemblage point with your intent from the will power of totality. Then you discover the realities are created from within the creation point by a dream sense. When that happens, you leave all ideas of religion. You discover there are supernatural beings that also create and there is a divine spark in all existence. People know this instinctively, giving it shape through religion. Compare it to eastern wisdom; they have had a glance of totality because they say: “You are God yourself.”

About the Sorcerer’s Dream
The Sorcerer’s Dream, A true story of initiation into the Native American sorcerer’s tradition by Alysa Braceau, Dreamshield. The author gives us a glimpse into the very real world of lucid dreaming and astral projection. Her direct experiences with a modern day mystic, Running Deer, takes the work of Castaneda one step further. In The Sorcerer’s Dream, she reveals unique steps to mastering lucid dreaming and traveling to the unknown.

Latest review
“Dreamshield has an engaging narrative style and tells stories that are engrossing. There is a lack of literature on female sorcerers and this book makes an admirable effort to fill this lacuna. When, at the end, she attains “totality,” the reader will share her exaltation.” ~ Stanley Krippner, Ph.D. Alan Watts Profess of Psychology, Saybrook University.

The Sorcerer’s Dream is available at Booklocker, Amazon, and everywhere they sell books.

About the author
Alysa Braceau, Dreamshield, lives in the Netherlands (Europe), she is mother of a 7-year old daughter. She studied social legal studies and the passed ten years she is a (freelance) journalist and publisher. Besides that she has a healing practice and gives workshops about the Art of Dreaming.

Related Topics:
DreamsShamanism

The medicine wheel has many meanings in shamanistic traditions and one of them is being a signpost in the dreaming reality. Together with your power animals, it leads you towards totality.
To clarify: in dreaming you learn to travel with your dream- or energy body from this reality to the boundless second reality to discover that you are the creator of your own reality. Shaman Vidar taught me about this medicine wheel ritual and you read more about this in the next excerpt from my book The Sorcerer’s Dream.

Excerpt
Tonight we will set up my medicine wheel. The medicine wheel towards the totality to be exact. I await in expectation.
With slow movements Vidar takes five pebbles from somewhere between the junk and the papers. He places four in an imaginary circle and puts the fifth one right in the middle. “The medicine wheel is a guide in the dream reality,” he starts to explain. “Every stone signifies one of the four wind directions, the stone in the middle is the centre from where you travel. Accompanied by the drum you will momentarily travel to the four wind directions and in each one of them you will identify the dwelling places of knowledge.” I worry because I know my sense of direction has it’s short comings for such a trip. “With wind directions I mean the spiritual wind directions,” he exemplifies. “By identifying these wind directions and the dwelling places, they will prevent you from having a spontaneous experience and being unaware of your whereabouts.” He adds that the medicine wheel is the fastest way to reach the totality. “Look at it this way, the spiritual wind directions are represented by entities and together with your animal totems, whom you will meet at a later stage, they are the roadmap leading you into totality.” I ask what significance is attached to these wind directions, in the sense that it might represent a certain development or phase in ones life for example. He would rather wave away any possible meaning. “Originally there is no significance to it,” he says, “it prevents you from fixating it. The medicine wheel is an individual process and its significance depends on the specific information you obtain elsewhere.” Finally he says, “wherever you travel you retrieve your history and accumulate enormous reserves of spiritual energy.” Vidar gets up and gathers five big pebbles from the floor in front of the cabinet and places them in a circle in front of the deerskin. “We commence in the north,” he says and invites me to take place on the deerskin, facing the street. Then he picks up his drum next to the deerskin and explains: “The repetitive rhythm and fast beat of the drum will guide you during your journey. The overtones of the drum influence the wave patterns of the brain, meaning it sets off an increased state of perception, perceiving with your spiritual senses, your inner eye if you will.” He gives further instructions. “Look intensively in every wind direction to determine what you see and absorb every little detail.”
I try to place myself in a comfortable crossed-legged position and tell him I am ready. As the rhythm intensifies I fly away on the deerskin towards the northern wind direction, high above green mountains, interrupted by rough rock formations. From the highest point there is a crystal clear stream which flows down the sloping hills. “Search for your dwelling place,” I hear Vidar say. My feeling tells me I have no time to lose. Far beneath me I discover a sandy path effortlessly making its way among the hills. I descend as soon as possible and quickly take a sharp turn to the right, into another path which leads towards a splendid bare piece of sandy soil with a little lake. Here and there long strong blades of grass arise from the ground. To my left, at the foot of the lake, steep rock formations rise up to the blue sky. A frail looking woman with long black hair comes towards me. It looks like she is floating. Her cream colored skin and grey eyes are in beautiful contrast with her long black hair all the way to her waist. She signals for me to follow her as she runs in the direction of the rocks. Then she climbs up the cliff and I climb after her, pulling myself up into the opening of the cave, just as she does.
Once we’re in the cave she invites me to sit opposite her, I take a good look around, I hear Vidar telling me to return to the centre of the wheel to travel to the next wind direction. I say good-bye to the woman and return to the slowing of the rhythm of the drum.

The Sorcerer’s Dream, A true story of initiation into the Native American sorcerer’s tradition by Alysa Braceau, Dreamshield. The author gives us a glimpse into the very real world of lucid dreaming and astral projection. Her direct experiences with a modern day mystic, Running Deer, takes the work of Castaneda one step further. In The Sorcerer’s Dream, she reveals unique steps to mastering lucid dreaming and traveling to the unknown.

Latest review
“Dreamshield has an engaging narrative style and tells stories that are engrossing. There is a lack of literature on female sorcerers and this book makes an admirable effort to fill this lacuna. When, at the end, she attains “totality,” the reader will share her exaltation.” ~ Stanley Krippner, Ph.D. Alan Watts Profess of Psychology, Saybrook University.

The Sorcerer’s Dream is available at Booklocker, Amazon, and everywhere they sell books.

About Alysa Braceau
Alysa Braceau, Dreamshield, lives in the Netherlands (Europe), she is mother of a 7-year old daughter. She studied social legal studies and the passed ten years she is a (freelance) journalist and publisher. Besides that she has a healing practice and gives workshops about the Art of Dreaming.

Excerpt:
“Are you ready?” he asks as he picks up his drum. I seat myself in a lotus position on the deerskin and Vidar hands me a green cushion to sit on. I look forward to meeting my totems.
Vidar kneels beside me, “Just like the last time, first, direct yourself to the north to see what animal is coming toward you. It is even possible that several totems come toward you from one direction – just wait and see. They introduce themselves to you by turning around and they make a show of it,” he grins. “Then look the totem right in the eye and he will transform into his spirit form.”
I ask him what he means by ‘spirit form.’ “This is so you can see their spirit and perceive it as a creature of light. The spirit touches you gently at the centre of your chest. Try to perceive this assemblage point: a concentration of light from where fine lines radiate into the cosmos. Then you change the totem with your intention back into its fundamental form.” Vidar calls this an exercise in seeing, “it trains your perception. Shamans learn this technique to perceive the energetic field of humans and animals to heal disturbances in the energy field.” Vidar explains that the spirits of totems enlighten your potential. For example, “Except for being your guide to totality, the totems represent a certain cosmic knowledge which gives insight into your gifts and which you can perceive in your energy field even after the ritual.”
He takes a piece of paper, starts to sketch and says, “This is my favorite shape.” The outline of an oval appears. “The human field of energy has an oval shape,” and he adds five dots in the oval from where he draws stripes that extend outside the shape. “Your gifts are concentrations of energy, small cosmic assemblage points connected with all that is living. When you live according to your gifts then you will be very fortunate.”
I hope to live that day. I just quit my job to start an uncertain freelance-existence. It is a dream come true because I have always had the desire for as much freedom as possible in my work, but I am beginning to wonder whether it will truly make me happy.
With rhythmical movements Vidar starts beating the drum, slow at first and then increasingly faster. It relaxes me and takes me to an exotic beach surrounded by jungle and a fox trudges from the jungle to the beach. He has difficulty walking but that does not stop him from turning a devoted round of acquaintance. As we agreed, I briefly look deep into his eyes and to my confusion, he transforms into Sleeping Beauty. The wind gives me a subtle push in the back and does not allow me to dwell on the surprising transformation.
After catching a quick glimpse of a tangle of clotted light threads at the height of Sleeping Beauty’s chest, I welcome two red-blue parrots observing the matter from a branch and believing it to be high time to make their acquaintance. According to the script, they make a fitting pirouette and show their red and blue feathered jacket. Suddenly a black vulture appears in my field of vision. Looking rigid and hurried as though he arrived just in time for the ceremony, he flies directly toward me and he spins around dutifully.
The rhythm of the drum continues to beat at a slower speed, which prompts me to travel to the east where an eagle meets me with the patience of someone who has been confidently waiting eternally for this moment. Vidar reminds me to look the eagle in the eye and then I see a vague masculine figure of white light. The drums lead me further to the south where a hedgehog waddles toward me. I am rather disappointed when I look into his soft dark brown eyes and he transforms into a shapeless masculine figure as well. Precisely as with the other spirits, I concentrate on the assemblage point and see an energy ball of white light near the chest from where fine lines of energy stretch outward.
From the west, I see a tiger running toward me at high speed. He stops in his tracks leaving deep marks in the sand. Then he rolls around exhaustively in the sand just before my feet. As a proficient circus tiger, he swirls around and as I look into his eyes, he transforms into an elf.
“It’s a nice portrait of your gifts,” says Vidar as he starts to explain the images.
“The fox and the vulture possess the knowledge of healing.”
I tell him I noticed the fox limping.
“I think he must be crippled, that’s a powerful medicine. It means he has witnessed a great deal, has been wounded but has turned this life experience into something positive.”
“It’s remarkable that the fox and the tiger change into fairytale figures,” I tell him aloud.
“Animals are surrounded by mythology and are linked to the realm of fantasy. It’s possible that the human shape is the most recognizable to you.” He pauses an instant, gives me a satisfied look and says, “Sleeping Beauty represents your inner beauty.”
Suddenly, I feel very uncomfortable. Help! His words cut through my armor of indifference. I quickly lower my head and look at my notes to hide my bright red cheeks. When most of the red has vanished, I clear my throat and try to regain my composure and ask about the cosmic knowledge of the parrot.
“The parrot is a master in dividing the two realities; they are your helpers to the second reality and guide you to the unknown.” He looks down with a smile on his face.
“What about the eagle?” I ask.
Vidar asks me to describe the eagle. Inconspicuously I wipe a few drops of sweat off my forehead and try to remember. “He had brown white spots and a white breast.”
“Aha, you found the spotted eagle.” Vidar recognizes him immediately as the symbol of his tribe. “It’s also my totem of the eastern wind direction,” he says. That is probably no coincidence.
Vidar announces that I will serve my apprenticeship with the eagle. “He helps you in dreaming, teaches you about healing plants and guides you to assemble sufficient medicine (strength) to undertake splitting reality. You need to be physically strong and healthy for this undertaking.”
My teacher says the eagle is the companion of cosmic energy. “He will bring you in touch with the source of light to teach you there is a second reality. If you call the eagle and ask for it, he will charge your field of energy for dreaming, because on an earthly level you don’t have enough energy.”
I race to the tiger, according to my teacher he is blessed with chameleonic abilities, including an invisible power, and he is a master in qi. He explains, “That’s another translation for energy flow, it’s a power that Indians master.”
“What about the hedgehog?”
“Inviolable.” He adds somberly, “Although they can be stupid too,” and sighing, “If you see how often they get run over…”
Filled with admiration Vidar ascertains, “You have seen only beautiful images. This means you’re a positive person.” I would love to identify myself with the compliment, if only he knew how often I see obstacles in my way. On the other hand, I try to justify, I usually see the positive side of any situation. Even when I ought to know better.

The Sorcerer’s Dream, A true story of initiation into the Native American sorcerer’s tradition by Alysa Braceau, Dreamshield. The author gives us a glimpse into the very real world of lucid dreaming and astral projection. Her direct experiences with a modern day mystic, Running Deer, takes the work of Castaneda one step further. In The Sorcerer’s Dream, she reveals unique steps to mastering lucid dreaming and traveling to the unknown.

Latest review
“Dreamshield has an engaging narrative style and tells stories that are engrossing. There is a lack of literature on female sorcerers and this book makes an admirable effort to fill this lacuna. When, at the end, she attains “totality,” the reader will share her exaltation.” ~ Stanley Krippner, Ph.D. Alan Watts Profess of Psychology, Saybrook University.
The Sorcerer’s Dream is available at Booklocker, Amazon, and everywhere they sell books.
About Alysa Braceau

The Author
Alysa Braceau, Dreamshield, lives in the Netherlands (Europe), she is mother of a 7-year old daughter. She studied social legal studies and the passed ten years she is a (freelance) journalist and publisher. Besides that she has a healing practice and gives workshops about the Art of Dreaming.

In my book the Sorcerer’s Dream I reveal unique steps for lucid dreaming, knowledge that shaman Vidar passed during my initiation into the sorcerer’s world. In the next lucid dreaming paragraph I give you an impression of the first steps on How to Lucid Dream.
Do you want to give it a try?

Excerpt chapter 2
As the sorcerer plays his flute and dances around in a setting of white clouds, he watches me curiously. I hand Vidar the grayish green oval-shaped gemstone with the black figure. He observes the stone closely.
“Good find,” he says. I carefully chose the stone from a box containing all sorts of gems in a small shop in the center of Haarlem where they sell books, incense and jewelry. The bent figure is also known as the dancing sorcerer, a male being with physical characteristics of several animals: with eyes of a wolf, antlers of a moose, a horse’s tail and bear claws. Vidar holds the stone at arm’s length between his thumb and index finger and says “it’s jade.”
He tells me it is a medicine stone, which means that the stone has healing properties and can be used at shamanic healing rituals. For the time being its role is that of the prey and I am the hunter who must try to find it in my dreaming. During the past week, I have been studying the stone from every angle, but there is so much to be discovered that I cannot see the woods for the trees. I ask Vidar, holding the stone in his left hand, what would be the best procedure to learn all the stone’s characteristics by heart.
With the index finger, he caresses the figure and the contour of the stone. “First you study the sorcerer’s outline and draw the lines in your mind until you are able to visualize them. When you succeed, you follow the same procedure with the white spots and the stone’s shape. Carry the stone with you at all times and make a habit of studying it on every occasion, even when you are standing in line at the cashier’s desk,” he smiles. “You have to know every spot, dent or drawing from the inside and from the outside. Practice as long as it takes to get it in your mind and aim to find the stone in your dreaming within the next ten days. Then you start counting the days.”
“And what if I don’t find it within that time?”
“Then you start all over again, until you get it right,” he replies, and gives me the necessary instructions before falling asleep. “Look at the stone in detail and place it somewhere near, close your eyes and visualize the stone on the inside of your inner eye, between your eyebrows. It is important to become conscious of the moment right before you fall asleep. At that specific moment you visualize the stone immediately inside your inner eye.” My mind resists. Waking up before falling asleep seems impossible. He must have read my mind, because he says; “It’s actually enough to have the intention to be conscious before falling asleep. Attempt it.” I decide not to worry anymore. I will just do it. “Aim to wake up consciously every morning and visualize the stone with your inner eye,” he continues as he slowly brings the stone closer. “Pick up the stone and move it closer from an arm’s length to the tip of your nose as if the stone is coming toward you. Do not forget to repeat to yourself that you will find the stone,” he concludes.
He carefully places the stone in front of me on the table as if it is fragile, pushes his chair backward and gets up to boil water for tea. I place the sorcerer in the palm of my hand, he gives me a defiant look as if he is about to make a getaway and obviously expects me to chase after him. He is one in a million and I will do anything to find him.

About the Sorcerer’s Dream
The Sorcerer’s Dream, A true story of initiation into the Native American sorcerer’s tradition by Alysa Braceau, Dreamshield. The author gives us a glimpse into the very real world of lucid dreaming and astral projection. Her direct experiences with a modern day mystic, Running Deer, takes the work of Castaneda one step further. In The Sorcerer’s Dream, she reveals unique steps to mastering lucid dreaming and traveling to the unknown.

Latest review
“Dreamshield has an engaging narrative style and tells stories that are engrossing. There is a lack of literature on female sorcerers and this book makes an admirable effort to fill this lacuna. When, at the end, she attains “totality,” the reader will share her exaltation.” ~ Stanley Krippner, Ph.D. Alan Watts Profess of Psychology, Saybrook University.

Bio
Alysa Braceau, Dreamshield lives in the Netherlands (Europe), she is mother of a 7-year old daughter. She studied social legal studies and the passed ten years she is a (freelance) journalist and publisher. Besides that she has a healing practice and gives workshops about the Art of Dreaming.
Alysa Braceau is author of The Sorcerer’s Dream. The theme of the passed years have been the sorcerers tradition and mastering lucid dreaming. She carefully recorded her personal experiences which has finally led to this first book.

A short pitch on where to buy The Sorcerer’s Dream
The Sorcerer’s dream, an initiation into the sorcerer’s world and mastering lucid dreaming. Buy it at:

http://www.booklocker.com/books/4654.html

The book can be ordered on Amazon – http://www.amazon.com/Sorcerers-Dream-Dreamshield-Alysa-Braceau/dp/1609101561 and everywhere they sell books

Website: http://www.dreamshield.nl
Blog: http://dreamshield.wordpress.com

During my initiation one of the steps was to take magic mushrooms (Psilocybin) in a dreaming ceremony. The mushroom is the outward appearance of the entity Mateeë.
My dreaming teacher Running Deer aka Vidar told me somewhere in the beginning of my apprenticeship that I am a candidate for Mateeë, he announced himself in my dreaming. He would guide me to the unknown; he teaches how to shift your assemblage point. The characteristics of the entity are cosmic love, humor and beauty, he teaches you that this reality is not the only one.

“The encounter with Mateeë will give you intellectual freedom,” Vidar once said “and that’s the opposite of the intellectual arrogance of mankind who claims the door is over there.”

However, you have to be ready to meet the entity, to be guided into the unknown. It can be very dangerous if you don’t have someone to teach and to guide you because you are challenged and confronted with your fears.
Traveling into the boundless unknown, I was confronted with my fears. The experience taught me I had to get rid of my fears and heal myself from my traumas in order to live my life in harmony and freedom.

In this article I share a part of my experience taking Magic Mushrooms in the second (out of three) dreaming ceremony. In my book I explain more about the identity and role of holy mushrooms in the traditional dreaming ceremonies.

Excerpt The Sorcerer’s Dream/ psychedelic experiences
“Sit up straight and look ahead of you,” Vidar says and makes himself comfortable on the couch as he starts drumming.
With single drumbeats he greets the ancestors of the four wind directions and starts hitting faster, the drumming adds a festive start to the evening. It completely absorbs me and I drift away in a relaxed state and connect myself to the subtly changing world around me.
I am flung back in time several centuries. It feels as though we are sitting near a crackling fire underneath the vast starry-sky. Our love is eternal.
The intervals between the drumbeats become longer. First one second, then two, then three seconds and after the last kettledrum Vidar places the drum next to the couch. Silently we watch the medicine hoops. Slowly things become lucid, crystal clear even, as if a heavy fog has lifted. I receive new insights, or are they an expansion of my swirling thoughts? The latest wisdom tells me without blinking why I have the necessary confrontations and why I have been searching all my life.
“You’re too big for this world,” a voice says, giving me wings. My impatience, my irritations, the recent feeling of flying up the walls are caused by living in a limited world. Vidar told me the other day and now I hear it from a different angle.
This encounter is different from the latter. It is in one word sen-sa-tio-nal, I feel mag-ni-fi-cent with long howls, marvelous, delightful. Just plain heaven. Like a bee rolling in honey. This is addictive, I conclude with a growing grin. The first time I blurted out everything that came to mind, but today I am relaxed, no one can touch me.
I get up and something catches my eye! My attention is drawn to a spot in front of me, beneath the red medicine hoop. Drops of ink burst into pieces on the floor. I gasp in amazement, bewilderment and magnificence – all at once. I wet my lips. It is fantastic to see. Vidar sees it too. Intrigued I look at the spectacle that is different after every drop. The drops burst into pieces and quickly run like small insect-like species forward to end up somewhere in nothingness, where the spectacle starts all over again. I could watch this for the rest of my life. I lean forward further and further, if I watch carefully, minute little worms crawl up from the floor, they are taken by a glue-ish transparent liquid gliding across the floor in a flowing movement. It is so amazing; I am little more than a junk, because I only want more.
“Oh, it’s so beautiful,” I rave with a hiccup and a laugh. Vidar looks and watches me like a happy father taking his child to the movies for the first time.
“I’m always in this mood and you are learning to do this on your own,” he says satisfied.
I am not waiting for his comments, they disturb me, I just want to enjoy myself carelessly. With great effort I force myself to look whether there is more going on around me. Rapidly I first look to the left and then to the right beneath the other medicine hoops. I look again. To my utter amazement,
I discover there is nothing happening around me and I yell, “It’s only happening here!” Embarrassed I start laughing at the same time.
“Correct,” Vidar says dry.
I laugh even harder. What does he know? With squinted eyes I look again to the left, and to the right and then in front of me beneath the red medicine hoop and wonder why it is only happening there. Only when I question it aloud, I realize it is nonsense. Effortlessly, Vidar shifts to my perspective, which I found out later when he says that at that particular moment I separated reality from my totality. He saw that I saw the space surrounding the red medicine hoop had been fixated. What a gift. I easily separated reality without having to do anything in return.
“Have you tried closing your eyes?” Vidar asks, trying to excite me for something new.
Irritated, I ignore his suggestion, and at the same time, I am annoyed with myself because I am unable to speak without that hiccupping giggle. Once more Mateeë is tickling me with a feather somewhere down in my chest.
“There’s enough to see here,” I grin dutifully.
Fascinated I balance in a lotus position on the tip of the couch. The insect-like-species lead by a current of glue. Where are they going? No show is a match for this spectacle. Do I dare leave this beautiful world and close my eyes? If only I could put it on hold.
Hesitating, I close my eyes. “Ooooh wow,” I sigh.
The beautiful three-dimensional image of a voluptuous dancer who is about to turn a pirouette, swirling her hands elegantly above her head is awe-some. She has a round face, a tight page-haircut and a short skirt wrapped around her muscular thighs. The image consists of fine horizontal and vertical lines against a dark purple background. Tiny orange diagonal squares shine through like the lights of a Chinese lantern. It reminds me of Fifties Art and the dancer looks as if she has just walked out of one of Chagall’s paintings. Like a camera on a moving tripod, I watch the image from every angle.
“Incredibly pretty. What beauty,” I keep saying.
“You’re looking at your own beauty,” Vidar says, as the love oozes from him like honey.

© Alysa Braceau, Dreamshield

The Sorcerer’s Dream, A true story of initiation into the Native American sorcerer’s tradition by Alysa Braceau, Dreamshield. The author gives us a glimpse into the very real world of lucid dreaming and astral projection. Her direct experiences with a modern day mystic, Running Deer, takes the work of Castaneda one step further. In The Sorcerer’s Dream, she reveals unique steps to mastering lucid dreaming and traveling to the unknown.

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“Dreamshield has an engaging narrative style and tells stories that are engrossing. There is a lack of literature on female sorcerers and this book makes an admirable effort to fill this lacuna. When, at the end, she attains “totality,” the reader will share her exaltation.” ~ Stanley Krippner, Ph.D. Alan Watts Profess of Psychology, Saybrook University.

About Alysa Braceau
Alysa Braceau, Dreamshield, lives in the Netherlands (Europe), she is mother of a 7-year old daughter. She studied social legal studies and the passed ten years she is a (freelance) journalist and publisher. Besides that she has a healing practice and gives workshops about the Art of Dreaming.

Website: http://www.dreamshield.weebly.com
Blog: http://dreamshield.wordpress.com

The Sorcerer’s Dream is available at Booklocker, Amazon, and everywhere they sell books.

During my initiation into the Native American Sorcerer’s world one of the steps was to take magic mushrooms (psilocybin mushroom) in a dreaming ceremony.
You have to be ready to meet the entity, the holy mushroom that guides you to the unknown. It can be very dangerous if you don’t have someone to teach and to guide you because you are challenged and confronted with your fears. To enter the second reality, the boundless reality you need not only to master your dreams, you also need to be inviolable. This means you must stay calm and independent in every given situation, untouched by your past. The second reality is a completely different reality. You need to be strong as iron, because your intellect cannot cope when confronted with the boundless unknown. You have to train yourself to always be the same, irrespective of any given situation.
In the next excerpts I describe my experiences after taking holy mushrooms in a dreaming ceremony which is presented to those who are following the teachings of Totality. The Art of Dreaming is one of the teachings of Totality I write about. My dreaming teacher Vidar explained there are four practices that guide the apprentice into the totality: the art of dreaming, stalking, hunting and the art of the warrior. He said: “Gradually you will learn to master all of them, but because you are a dreamer the art of dreaming is the most important one for you. On the way to the totality you will learn to master your dreaming, which means that ordinary dreams will come to a halt and will be replaced by the dreaming of the spirit. Ordinary dreams come to a stop, disappear because they are primitive, and take up too much energy. As you master your dreaming, you will have medicine dreams and visions that guide you into the totality.”
One of the features of this training is experiencing an intellectual death and to let go your fears to be able to travel into the unknown and to reach the totality of the Self and finally you will experience (not only discover) you are the creator of your own reality!

Excerpts:
“Aren’t you playing the drum tonight?” I blow out some air. I look forward to it, the last time the drums were a pleasant start of the session.
“We aren’t allowed to talk about that in this advanced session.” I look at him bewildered. “We are allowed to talk about all sorts of things, except what we are doing at the moment” and he points at a chamois leather jacket hanging over the back of the chair near the staircase. “Do you see that coat over there? I got it from a Mexican medicine man.” As if someone put a knife to my throat, I call out “Wow, that’s beautiful!” I am as interested as possible and give way to a burp, giving vent to my tendency to throw up.
I pull myself into an upright position and try to catch a glimpse of the beauty of the previous meeting. I watch the spot underneath the red medicine wheel. Just like last time, falling drops of ink start running rapidly along the ground like small insect-like species, this time they run after a withdrawing shadow of a rainbow. What a shame. Over and over again, they are too late.
———————
The sun has set behind the tall trees in the backyard. “Is it over?” I ask hopefully.
I try to explain the whole lot and rectify it and babble that the dream is life itself and I create everything myself and one can create his own nightmare with his own fear. There is no more time to think. I am overwhelmed by waves of fear. I think back on giving birth and compare the waves to the contractions I had in order to achieve complete dilation. Unconsciously I try to stop the contractions, but they keep coming whether I like it or not, they originate like obstacles, which I have to cross at any cost.
“You’re almost there,” I hear Vidar say from a distance. “To reach the second reality you need to release yourself of all your fears,” he says. Nevertheless, I feel as if I am taking them with me.

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‘My life has been scattered in hundred thousand pieces. My life, I have complained and nagged about it so many times, but I would die to return to it. From a distance I see myself lying motionless on my right side and finally realize I am dead. I have always been curious about how it would be and now I have come this far. Now I know your spirit just continues living. From a distance I watch my past life. I had a wonderful life, but I just did not see it and what was I worrying about? The worst thing is the fact that my daughter has a future without a mother. I feel guilty. What a way to say goodbye.
I have lost my physical body, but some way or other I have the sense that my torso has been turned and my legs are somewhere behind my head and I wonder how to get it back in shape. Slowly it dawns on me that I have left the world and ended up in the second reality.
My life passes by like a circus, only now I count my blessings.
Now there is nothing left but me and the extremely dull everlasting present. Only now I understand the meaning of the often heard expression ‘it doesn’t matter who you are or what you do as long as you are happy and you mean something to others.’ No matter how small. It seemed a sort of platitude and a cliché, but it is true. I look back on a life in which I was very busy, fretted about the tiniest details and lashed out at everything.’

About the Sorcerer’s Dream
The Sorcerer’s Dream, A true story of initiation into the Native American sorcerer’s tradition by Alysa Braceau, Dreamshield. The author gives us a glimpse into the very real world of lucid dreaming and astral projection. Her direct experiences with a modern day mystic, Running Deer, takes the work of Castaneda one step further. In The Sorcerer’s Dream, she reveals unique steps to mastering lucid dreaming and traveling to the unknown.

Bio
Alysa Braceau, Dreamshield lives in the Netherlands (Europe), she is mother of a 6-year old daughter. She studied social legal studies and the passed ten years she is a (freelance) journalist and publisher. Besides that she has a healing practice and gives workshops about the Art of Dreaming.
Alysa Braceau is author of The Sorcerer’s Dream. The theme of the passed years have been the sorcerers tradition and mastering conscious dreaming. She carefully recorded her personal experiences which has finally led to this first book.

The book can be ordered on Amazon – http://www.amazon.com/Sorcerers-Dream-Dreamshield-Alysa-Braceau/dp/1609101561 and everywhere they sell books

Website: http://www.dreamshield.nl
Blog: http://dreamshield.wordpress.com

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