Jodorowsky, Alejandro - Psychomagic - The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy

Finally, fourth example: For three days, I suffered strong pains in the stomach, probably an intestinal infection. I couldn’t sleep, and I did not want to take antibiotics. I went to bed and dreamed:

I lie in my bed, prey to the same pains I had while awake. The healer Pachita arrives. She lies on top of me and begins to suck the right side of my neck while saying, “I am going to heal you, little brother.” In a supreme effort, she slides my left hand between us and puts it on my stomach. Then she rises in the air without separating from me. We levitate a moment, horizontally, then we descend to the bed. She slowly fades. I wake up cured, without ever feeling any pain again.

It occurs to me to say that I have thus incorporated healing and that I have access to an inner doctor, a kind of Divinity. I remember that in Mexico, before dying, Pachita made a ring appear in the palm of her hand, and she put it on my left ring finger, then said, “I will come visit you in your dreams.”

As you can imagine, dreams like this are tremendously beneficial. They are truly repair dreams, in which the unconscious channels its power to effectively dress the wound.

If it is possible to use this knowledge acquired in the practice of lucid dreaming to unblock in the therapeutic dream, can you go further, to touch in the dream a dimension of knowledge?

Yes, and this other stage, I call the humble dream. One day, I stopped planning scenarios, preferring to attend a dream only as an observer. I let it roll, follow its own course, but because I wasn’t caught up by it, everything remaining lucid. I am spectator of my own dream, and I abstain from all intervention. In fact, I believe I have recently passed to another level even more subtle that I call the wise dream. At present, the protagonist of the dream I attend, as spectator is a sage. He pronounces speeches, which I take note of upon waking up, which are not original and may be extracts from some sacred text. But from the deepest place in my unconscious, these texts surge just as I observed lucidly during the dream.

Can you recount some from these “wise dreams”?

Yes, but not without reluctance . . .

Why? Are you now going to play modest?

It does not have to do with that! I simply fear not being believed. (Alejandro extracts from his library an immense notebook that resembles a golden book.) You see it is in this other notebook that I note my most positive dreams. I can open it and read you an example of a wise dream; but will our readers be ready to admit that a man is able to have such dreams? Maybe you should, first, give me your word of honor . . .

Why not? This could be kind of surreal: I declare on my honor that you have wisely dreamed . . .

Okay. I certify then on my honor to have actually had the following dream! Each is free to believe me or not.

These dreams are that extraordinary?

No, in fact, they are very simple. What is unusual is precisely the element that makes them sage dreams. Everything is in the interior climate of the dream. (Jodorowsky reads from his big notebook, translating simultaneously as all of his dreams are written in Spanish):

I find myself in the company of a master in martial arts who is teaching me. He tells me, “Let yourself fall into my arms without tensing up at all.” The thought comes to me, “Well, I am going to reach an absolute relaxation,” and I let myself fall without tensing up at all. The master receives me, then lays me on the studio floor and tries a capture. I am so relaxed that he does not succeed. He then says to his assistant, “Impossible to fight with him. He is as if dead, and against the dead, one can do nothing.”

You see? An example of a sage dream in which I achieved absolute relaxation. Another example:

I go out on the street in a tight suit that makes me appear extremely puny. So I tell myself, “It is good that people see me as weak, as I know me and I feel myself so strong on the inside.”

Or, more, this other dream:

I attend a class of a professor of philosophy who declares, “The secret is to be in thought.” And I respond, “If you have not accepted death, you have achieved nothing. Only the acceptance of death delivers us from the thought of death.”

Permit me to give you another reading of two sage dreams:

Gypsies brought me to their warehouse where they have amassed all sorts of furniture. They want to consult with me, and they show me a cardboard box and a big cutout that looks like the Ace in the Tarot of Marseille. With it, they think to devote themselves to alchemy and discover the universal solvent, the material capable of dissolving all other materials. I smile at them and ask them, “Do you know what the universal solvent is?” Seeing they have no response, I tell them, “It is the blood of Christ. One drop of the blood of Christ on your heart dissolves all other feelings. So only love lasts.”

A depressed child tells me, “I am insignificant. I have no value. God does not see me. He is occupied with more important things.” I respond, “You represent the surface of a sphere composed of infinite points. Imagine now the center of this sphere: it is a lone point, which is, at the same time, communicating with all the other points.”

I was expecting your dreams to be a bit more crazy, a proliferation of symbols of initiations, like in your films or comic strips. The dreams that you tell of here are a bit more sober, unusual for you.

Well, my comic books and my films correspond with the lucid dream.

As you have seen, these dreams are often very short. Their special character resides in their impact and in the sensation that I have of myself in them. In the dream, I am a sage, detached, happy, and this sensation persists for a time upon waking.

I would like for you to now give some examples of the “ humble” dreams.

Here is a typical dream in which I admire the value of others:

I find myself in the home of friends. I am in the company of an undistinguished woman who, however, has a very distinguished style. She can’t have been more than fifty-eight years old. I find her very perceptive, extremely kind, and understanding. After a moment, she asks me, “Do you know who I am?” I reply in the negative. “I am Christine,” she says. “It is I who cared for you when you were an infant.” I realize then that I’ve found myself in the presence of my first nanny. I then say to my friends, “Understand this! She is the first woman I ever loved!” Knowing that she is still living and has reached such a degree of evolution gives me great joy. Christine and I embrace, then she goes. My friends then say to me, in a very affirmative tone, “She is eighty years old and yet she seems so young!” I wake up with joy in my heart.

Another example:

I am surprised in the middle of the road by a student rebellion. The youths burn cars, and there are police officers everywhere. Someone shoots a machine gun, so I lie on the ground without feeling any fear. A policeman takes me in. I am interrogated: I remain calm. I have in my pockets heaps of antimilitary tracts as well as newspaper clippings of rather funny facts showing the police and military in their ridiculousness. I explain to them that I am a professor of the tarot, and they release me. I walk the streets. My suit is a wreck, and I have even lost my shoes. Instead of shoes, I slide the tips of my feet into an eyeglass case. I enter a café to ask directions. Among the clients, a plump-enough woman of the popular kind, who seems full of goodness, looks sadly at me as she takes me for a hobo. She murmurs, “Look what a state this poor man is in. Something must be done.” She takes me for a derelict. I find her to be so good, and I am so touched by her charity that I decide not to set her straight. I resolve to accept the role that she gives so as not to disappoint her, and I permit her to freely give course to these good feelings. I open my black leather suitcase and look for a little game of tarot that I can offer her. Among the tarots, there is a bottle of pills. They are vitamins, but the woman is persuaded that I transport drugs, and she experiences even greater pity. Without knowing anything about the tarot, she takes a card, that of the Magician. “Bad,” says she. “You should not carry this card. Look: the young man has a pill between his fingers.” She actually takes the yellow circle from between the Magician’s fingers. I tell her thank you for her good intentions, and I promise to no longer use drugs. I leave the café. At no point do I have the intention to make myself seem important; to the contrary: it is with joy that I am abased.