The Dance of Reality: A Psychomagical Autobiography

by Alejandro Jodorowsky

  Once I became used to not being afraid, to turning threats into useful messages and monsters into allies, I was able to embark on further quests. Finding myself in unknown places I would rise up in the air in order to see that I was dreaming, then explore those places in search of spiritual treasures. Sometimes I met with obstacles such as a large wall, an insurmountable mountain, or a stormy sea. I had to give up a few times, but then I achieved the power of passing through matter. No obstacle could stop me then. For example, I jumped into the raging sea, ready to drown. I sank, but soon, down in the water, I found a tunnel that led me to the beach. I traveled through the inside of a mountain to its top; once there, I threw myself into the air, fell down, crashed on the ground, and immediately found myself standing looking at the broken body of someone who was not me. I realized that for the brain, death does not exist. Every time I killed myself or an enemy killed me, there was an immediate reincarnation.

  Once I had conquered matter I began to encounter mysterious, threatening, mocking characters that I did not dare to approach, like gods who held secrets that I was unworthy of knowing. I said, “Just as I challenged the nightmares, I must also confront the sublime beings, speak to them without being disturbed by their mockery, establish contact with them, learn those secrets that I think are forbidden to me. But in order to achieve that, I must first convince myself that I am strong, that I rule this dimension, that I am the master, that I am a magician.” When I woke up within a dream I asked for things. For example, I want a thousand lions parading on the street. My desire was not realized immediately. A short time passed, then I saw the lions parading. “I want to go to Africa and see elephants.” I went to Africa and saw elephants, and from there moved to the North Pole, among polar bears and penguins. Other times there were circus shows, operas, visits to cities full of baroque skyscrapers. I visited enormous battles from olden times and museums where I saw hundreds of paintings and sculptures. Once I acquired this power of transformation I was tempted to create erotic experiences. I created sensual women, half human and half beast, organized orgies, became a woman to let myself be possessed, grew a colossal phallus, visited an oriental harem, gave lashes with a whip, tied up schoolgirls . . . But when I surrendered to pleasure, the dream inevitably absorbed me and turned into a nightmare. Once desire seized hold of me, it made me lose the lucidity, and events escaped my control. I would forget that I was dreaming. The same was true for wealth. Once I became entrapped by a fascination with money, my dream ceased to be lucid. Every time I tried to satisfy my passions, I forgot that I was dreaming. Finally, I realized that in life, just as in dreams, it is necessary to distance oneself and control identification in order to stay lucid. I discovered that in addition to my sexual and monetary fascinations I was drawn like a magnet by the desire to acquire fame, be applauded, dominate the multitudes. I banished these temptations from my dreams.

  I returned to working on my levitation and realized that every time I rose up in the air I became proud and vain: I was performing a feat that others could not achieve; I was worthy of admiration. I overcame this problem. I transformed it into something normal, useful, that was of service to me not only for traveling the world but also for leaving it. I began by ascending. I felt enormous terror. It was the same feeling I had experienced in my first lucid dream, in which I did not dare to leave the cinema in which I was shut. I felt that a vital link tied me to planet Earth. I woke up with my heart hammering. Many times during the day I imagined my body floating up through the stratosphere into the depths of the cosmos. At night, dreaming, I achieved what I had desired. I overcame the fear of death, the sensation of weight and of drowning, and I began to travel between the stars with the speed of a comet.

  It was an unforgettable experience to move through that calm vastness, where the great masses of planets and the incandescent stars move in an orderly dance, knowing that I was invulnerable, discarnate, a pure and conscious form. It is difficult to explain in words: the cosmos somehow enclosed me, like an oyster with its pearl, as if I were a precious thing; it cared for me as if I were a flame that must not go out; I represented the consciousness that matter had taken millions of years to create. The cosmos was my mother, singing a lullaby to make me grow. The words that I could utter were not mine, but were the voices of those stars. The feeling of floating in infinite space, surrounded by their complete love, made me awaken filled with happiness.

  I do not pretend to claim that this initiatory process of lucid dreaming can take place in a short amount of time. In my case, these dreams did not depend on my will; they presented themselves to me amidst the multitude of ordinary dreams as genuine gifts. Sometimes I spent a whole year without having these sorts of experiences. Nor did they happen in the order in which I have described them; sometimes I investigated one type of dream reality, sometimes another, to then return and continue with the first. No rational order exists in the world of dreams, and cause and effect are abolished. Sometimes an effect appears first, and this effect is followed by its cause. Suddenly, everything exists simultaneously, and time acquires a single dimension that is not necessarily the present as reason conceives it. There is no world, but simultaneity of dimensions. What reason calls life here has another meaning there. I determined, as I wandered awake among my dreams, to enter the dimension of the dead.

  After crossing a furious ocean in a small boat, I landed on the island where the door to the realm of the dead is to be found. There were lines of applicants, eager to enter. A gloomy doorman palpated them and decided who did or did not deserve to cross the final threshold. Those he refused were devastated at having to continue living. The doorman touched me and declared me dead. As soon as I passed through the door, I found myself in a landscape of green hills. The dead people—relatives, friends, celebrities—did not approach me, but looked at me kindly, as if expecting me to do something that would show them my good intentions. I threw empty envelopes in the air, which came down filled with treats and precious objects. It was a gift to the deceased . . . I woke up very happy, saying to myself, “Now I know that in my next lucid dream, I can converse with them. They have accepted me.”

  I can affirm to all who have not had these experiences that in some region of the brain, if it really is the abode of the spirit, a dimension exists where the dead people we have loved—as well as those we are concerned with but did not know, and for that reason cannot love—are alive, continue to develop, and take immense pleasure in communicating with us. One might respond that this survival is pure illusion and that only I exist in my psychic world. This is true, and yet not true. On the one hand human brains can be interconnected, and on the other hand they can be connected to the universe, which in turn may be connected to other universes. My memory is not only my own; it also forms part of the cosmic memory. And somewhere in that memory, the dead continue to live.

  I dreamed of Bernadette Landru, the mother of my son Brontis: she loved me; I never loved her. She went with the newborn to Africa, and from there when he was six years old she sent him to me. I took care of him from then on. Her love for me turned into hate; she followed her own path. Her great intelligence led her into politics, to the most extreme communism. She was a leader. In 1983 the plane departing from Spain that was meant to take her to a revolutionary congress in Colombia, along with other distinguished Marxist intellectuals such as Jorge Ibargüengoitia, Manuel Scorza, and others, exploded during takeoff. Even today, I believe it was not an accident but a crime perpetrated by the CIA. I lamented that she perished so violently without having had the opportunity to engage in a confrontation, which for the sake of Brontis might have led us to a friendly reconciliation. Thanks to a lucid dream, I was able to meet with her in the dimension of the dead. It was in a small village similar to those in the north of France. We sat on a bench in a public square and began to talk. For the first time, I saw her calm, amiable, and full of friendship. We finally clarified that loving someone passionately does not make it obligatory for that person
to reciprocate. We also clarified that although Brontis had had an absent, irresponsible father for the first six years of his life, I had settled that debt by taking care of him for the rest of his childhood and adolescence. Finally, we embraced as friends. She said to me, “Politically, I always considered you useless because you lived in your mental island, separate from the misery of the world. Now that you have decided that only art is worthwhile for healing others, I can help you. Politics is my specialty. Consult with me whenever you want.” Today, before taking a position on world events that seem serious to me, I consult with Bernadette.

  In that same dimension I find myself in the company of Teresa, my paternal grandmother, whom I never had the opportunity to know due to family quarrels. She is a small woman, thickset, with a wide forehead. In the dream I know that in reality we do not know each other, that we have not been together even once. I ask her, “How is it possible that you, my grandmother, never held me in your arms?” I realize this is an immoderate thing to say and rectify it with, “Rather, how is it, Grandmother, that I, your grandson, never gave you a kiss?” I suggest that I kiss her now and she accepts. We hug and kiss. I wake up with a clear memory of the dream, happy to have recovered this family archetype.

  Thanks to these lucid dreams I can meet again with Denisse, my first wife, a delicate, intelligent woman, affected by madness. When I settled her in a home for the mentally ill in Canada, her home country, she began to build a table with twenty legs. She also watered a dry plant in a flowerpot by the window of her room. One day, a green leaf grew on the dry stalk. To Denisse it seemed that this plant, which had appeared dead, wanted to thank her for her care. “I finally understood what love is: being grateful to someone else for existing . . .” Along with her I also saw Enrique Lihn, who was still writing and giving lectures; Topor, who having passed through this mystery of death that had prevented him from appreciating life was now drawing images full of happiness; and my son Teo, on July 14, 2000, who would have been thirty, in the midst of his incomparable vital euphoria, having left this world at age twenty-four. In this dimension, he knew his grandmother, Sara Felicidad . . .

  When I threw my address book into the sea, I cut off my family tree at the roots. I never saw my mother again. One night, shortly after I turned fifty, she appeared in my dream. I first heard her voice, which I thought I had forgotten, singing lightly. “Come in, do not be afraid.” I realized that I was in a hospital. I opened the door and saw her, very tranquil, reclining in her bed. I sat by her, and we talked for a long time, trying to resolve our problems. She explained to me why she had been so locked up in herself, and I explained my silence for all those years. Finally, we hugged like we never had before. Then she stretched, closed her eyes, and murmured, “Now I can die in peace.” I woke up sad, convinced that this meeting was prophetic: my mother was dying. I immediately wrote a letter to my sister, whose address I had thanks to the poet Allen Ginsberg, whom I had chanced to meet in Paris (he had been expelled from Cuba for saying in a radio interview that he had dreamed of making love to Che Guevara), and mailed it to Peru, where Raquel lived with my mother. I wrote, “Raquel, I do not know if Sara Felicidad is still in a condition to read my letter. However, even if it seems that she cannot hear, read the words I write to her. Her soul will capture them.” The letter arrived two days after my mother’s death. I kept a copy of it:

  Cast of my Opéra Panique, ou l’éloge de la quotidienneté (Paris, 2001). From left to right, back row: Edwin Gerard, Jade Jodorowsky, Adan J., Brontis J., Valérie Crouzet, Marianne Costa, Kazán, Cristobal J., and Marie Riva; front row: Damián J., Rebeca J., Alma J., Alejandro J., Dante J., and Iris J. Photo: Alberto García Alix.

  Dear Sara Felicidad:

  I regret not being beside you in these difficult moments. If fate so wills, we will see each other once again before the great final voyage. We were born in tragic circumstances and remain marked for life. The pain we felt and the mistakes we made mostly originated from the world that other human beings created around us. It took me years to realize that the pain we had in this family that you tried to build was the result of our lack of roots, of our race that, having been so much persecuted, is foreign in all places. If there was anything negative between us, I have forgiven it. And if I committed the sin of ingratitude toward you, I beg you to forgive me. We did what we could in order to survive. But I want you to be assured: your essential being, your great strength, your unbreakable will, your fighting spirit, your royal pride, your sense of justice, your overflowing emotion, your appreciation for the written word, all these things have been a valuable legacy for me and have become part of my being, for which I am infinitely grateful. I remember from those days the importance you gave to the shape of the eyes, hands, and ears; how you hated canned food and artificial light; your love of flowers, your generosity in sharing food, your fundamental desire for order and cleanliness, your moral sense, your ability to work for hours and hours, your heart full of ideals. Yes, you suffered a great deal in this world, and I understand why. A few days ago, I had a dream about you. You were ill. But you looked calm. We talked as we have never done. We decided to stay in contact, you and I. I understood that you had received very little love during your time on Earth. I expressed my love as your son and blessed you that you might cease to suffer. You were exactly the mother I needed in order to set me on the path of spiritual development that was necessary for me. The truth is that without you, I would have gotten lost along the way. And now I want to tell you that I am by your side, that I am accompanying you, and that I know you will finally know the happiness that your name indicates. Trust in the will of the Mystery, surrender to its designs. Miracles exist. All this is a dream, and the awakening will be magnificent . . .

  Your son forever.

  In the dimension of the dead, they live by the energy of memory. Those whom we are forgetting pass like faded silhouettes, almost transparent; they appear in more distant places each time. Those whom we remember appear clearly, close to us, they speak, there is a grateful joy in them. But in the dark there are silhouettes of ancestors who lived centuries ago. It is because we did not know them that they fade away. If we merely move toward the areas where they are, they will appear more clearly and will speak to us in languages that we may not know, always with great affection. Those not familiar with this experience may have noticed that relatives and friends consider it very important for us to prove to them that they are not forgotten by celebrating birthdays, sending postcards while on a trip, calling them on the telephone. We know that, to the extent that others remember us, we are alive. If they forget us, we feel that we die. It is exactly the same in the world of dreams. If the unconscious is collective and time is eternal, one can say that every being who has been born and died is engraved in this cosmic memory that every individual carries. I would dare to say that every dead person waits in the dream dimension for an infinite consciousness to finally remember him or her. At the end of time, when our spirit achieves its maximum development and spans the entirety of Time, no being, no matter how insignificant it may seem, will be forgotten.

  I also explored the dimension of the myths, where ancient gods live along with magical animals, heroes, saints, cosmic virgins, powerful archetypes. Before being accepted by them we must overcome a series of obstacles that are, in fact, initiatory trials. They present themselves in malignant form, attacking us, mocking us, or seeming insensitive, asleep, indifferent. Jung, in his autobiography, writes that he had a dream in which he found a sleeping Buddha in a cave, his inner god. He did not dare to wake him up. However, if we keep calm, if we do not run away, if we act with faith, if we are brave and dare to face them or awaken them, the monsters turn into angels, abysses become palaces, flames become caresses, the Buddha does not reduce us to ashes with his gaze when he opens his eyes. On the contrary, the Buddha communicates all the love in the world to us; we obtain allies who can be invoked in any sort of danger. Lucid dreaming teaches us that we are never alone
at any moment; that individual action is illusory. Thought, trapped in the net of rationality, tries to reject the treasures of the dream world. But it is constantly besieged by forces coming from the depths of the collective memory; in real life, the dethroned gods have become clowns, film stars, football legends, political heroes, mysterious multimillionaires. We want to make them into powerful allies, but they have no consistency: they disintegrate very quickly into oblivion. In the dream dimension we encounter real entities with ancient roots. I could often see the arcana of the Tarot there, embodied in persons, animals, objects, or heavenly bodies; the symbols are living entities that speak and convey their wisdom. At first, when I tried to contact the divine beings without being prepared for it, I had a dream:

  I had set up a round table in the living room of my house to dine with the gods and converse with them as equals. The first to arrive, despite his not being a deity, was Confucius, an imposing and enigmatic Chinese man, tranquil and immutable. As soon as we sat down, a young Hindu man with blue skin appeared wearing brilliant clothes and jewelry, elegant and powerful: he was Maitreya. Then, right in front of me sat Jesus Christ, a giant three meters high, so powerful that I began to get nervous. Another being emerged behind him: Moses, even taller, even stronger, with a severity that truly terrified me. I felt that behind the prophet, the incommensurable figure of Jehovah began to take shape. The room filled with such incomprehensible energy that I panicked. How did I, so weak and ignorant, dare to try to converse with these gods as equals? I tried to wake up. Confucius slowly disintegrated. As Moses and Jehovah dissolved into a grim shadow that started to fill the room, imprisoned in the dream world I begged Maitreya and Jesus for forgiveness. They smiled and amalgamated into one being, a gentleman in a leisure suit, like a wise grandfather. Smiling, he offered me a cup of tea. The dark liquid glowed. I awoke with my hair standing on end.