The World is As You Dream It:
     Shamanic Teachings from the Amazon and Andes

by John Perkins (Rochester, VT: Destiny Books © 1994). The use of dream in this shamanic context is also worldview. A person can have several worldviews and may change them at any time. When you change your dream you change the world.

The World is As You Dream It: Shamanic Teachings from the Amazon and Andes by John Perkins is part of a series of ethnographic autobiographies about the author's studies with the shamans of the Amazon and Andes. See the Resources section below.

The use of "dream" in the context of the book means worldview and, a person can have several worldviews. As Perkins says, "If the world is as we dream it, then every reality is a matter of perception. "[Therefore] if we want to change, we must alter our perceptions" (12). This changing of one's worldview is what changes the world, just as the exercises for Abundance this month discuss. Our dreams have a way of coming into reality – whether they are daydreams, or dreams of wasting time, even night dreams that we are taught are only worth analyzing, but are in fact so much more.

This book is organized as a progression of stories that relate the author’s travels and expeditions to the Amazon to visit the Shuar indigenous people, experiences with taking ayahuasca, and subsequent realizations. The book opens the reader's mind to the inner wisdom of indigenous traditions. The Shuar people use ayahuasca to open their minds to the inner wisdom of the living world. This is something that can be done without the psychotropic drug, but the drug helps to loosen limiting beliefs as well as it has healing properties. Keep in mind that ayahuasca is done in sacred ceremony; it's not about escaping reality, but rather traveling into the sacred oneness of all things.

As the Shuar people tell the author and those who travel with him, it's time for westerners to dream a new world into being — a world that is Earth-honoring. Perkins agrees that westerners have been telling the world how to change and how to live according to its values and traditions. It's time we learned from others these very same things. It's time to dream an Earth-honoring world rather than continue dreaming the materialistic one. It's time we learn how to preserve, how to live in harmony and balance and in so doing, begin to do these very same things. The good news is that "It [this dream] can be accomplished in one generation. All you have to do is plant a different seed and teach your children to dream a new dream"(19).

Imagine a new dream honoring the earth and unity of all things, where the earth is sacred. The Shuar believe that humans must protect what is sacred; therefore humans must protect the earth. "Individual dreams affect the courses of our lives; collective dreams determine the future of civilizations" (xiii). What are you dreaming?

Next Month: Mindfulness and Money: The Buddhist Path of Abundance by Kulananda & Dominic Houlder (New York: Broadway Books © 2002)

Resources & Other Books by This Month's Author:

—— Carpenter, Lucas. "Psychotropic Shamanism in the Andes and Amazon of Ecuador"In Shaman's Drum Number 68, 2005: Pp 37-43.

—— Perkins, John. The Stress Free Habit: Powerful Techniques for Health and Longevity from the Andes, Yucatan, and Far East. (Healing Arts Press © 1989).

—— The World is As You Dream It: Shamanic Teachings from the Amazon and Andes. (Rochester, VT: Destiny Books © 1994)

—— Restoring At-Risk Communities: Doing it Together, Doing it Right. (Baker Books © 1995)

—— Shapeshifting: Shamanic Techniques for Global and Personal Transformation. (Destiny Books © 1997)

—— Psychonavigation: Techniques for Travel Beyond Time. (Inner Traditions International © 1999)

—— Spirit of the Shuar: Wisdom from the Last Unconquered People of the Amazon. (Destiny Books © 2001)

—— Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (Berrett-Koehler Publishers © 2004)