The Dreaming Circus: Special Ops, LSD, and My Unlikely Path to Toltec Wisdom Paperback – August 9, 2022

The Dreaming Circus is an extraordinary book written by an extraordinary person who has lived an extraordinary life. A well written page turner, I stayed up until 03:30 to finish it in one evening. But, it’s more than a page turner. I thought about what I had read for a few days. Parts of it stayed in my mind and nagged at me. I read it again, this time taking a week or so, reading a chapter at a time, reflecting and considering the books spiritual and philosophical depth - and how those things applied to me personally. I completed the second reading a few days ago and am now going back to passages that especially resonated. This is a worthwhile, important book. Given that the author is a Special Forces combat veteran you might think the book would be filled with chest beating Rambo type exploits. No. None of that here. We do read of combat and related experiences and insights he gained from those experiences. From the first chapter you know you’re in for a ride: “I stepped out of time…” “In Vietnam every day is Halloween. Spirits are palpable. I had experiences there that clearly demonstrated that the clockwork model of the universe is inadequate.  …I knew there was more going on than Western Civilization believed possible.” “A paratroop jump or a firefight blows you into another plane of existence.” The author was retired for disabling wounds from his chosen profession of arms. He returned to a work a day world to which he could not adjust. He lost his belief in the purpose to which he had dedicated his life when the United States Government abandoned our allies in Vietnam to a Communist regime that took savage retribution on them. He struggled to regain his footing in the world he now lived in. He worked for years as a war correspondent, which took him to places where he felt he fit in, war zones. That, however, was not enough.Mr. Morris set out to find meaning in life and to find spiritual purpose. During many years of that pursuit we experience with him out of body experiences, transcendence, disappointment, love affairs, marriages, misunderstandings, divorces, anguish and joy.Given that the author recounts taking L.S.D. and out of body experiences you might think the book would be spaced out crystal gazing incoherence. It is not that at all. Jim Morris is a reflective, moral person with a profound spiritual sensibility. “I didn’t want it (LSD) to be just a party drug. I seriously wanted to explore consciousness.” He did so, with LSD, with other psychedelics and with no psychedelics, with deep meditation and study. As part of this search he deconstructed Carlos Castaneda’s books:“For me, Ixtlan is the key book in the series. In it, Castaneda says the purpose of power plants—peyote and jimson weed—was to wake the apprentice from the torpor of normal human thought. But the meat of the warrior’s way was a set of mental disciplines. I immediately saw the value of those disciplines.”Castaneda is only a step on the author’s road. Eventually, he validates the disciplines enunciated by Castaneda, and then goes far, far beyond that. He learns the art of lucid dreaming, he fire walks, and travels to Peru, and to an otherworldly experience on a pyramid in Mexico. He finds his way to spiritual practices with shamans and learns ancient skills formerly known only to shamans. His learning and persistence lead him to a truth about what we think of as reality, to his place in that reality, and to the inner peace he sought.The author has lived a full life, had more than a few laughs along the way, and embraced all the wonderfulness and horribleness of our world. The story of his life’s true love and her passing is beautifully written, evocative, and painful. The close of the book, especially the last paragraph is profound and resonant. Short excerpts:“We do not perceive the world directly. The universe hums, and our senses interpret the vibrations…You are a wave in a vast ocean, but the ocean is you…”I happened on this book while going through a dark period. My compass was broken and I was becalmed in unknown waters. I thought I had resolved my personal issues and driven out my demons years ago. But, recent deaths of loved ones and events in current life caused me to lose my center and allowed events I thought I had reconciled decades ago to resurface from the depths of what passes for my mind these days. It was like opening a box and having a snake leap out and sink his fangs in my throat. I struggled to deal with events from my past that had returned and were making me physically ill.I am a deep meditator. I trained with Taoist and Buddhist monks in China and with shamans in the US, Mexico and SE Asia. I wrote a book on Taoist applied meditation and taught classes on the topic for years. I thought I had long since integrated the traumas and joys of my life. But not so.The Dreaming Circus did not fully resolve my issues. But it sure helped. In addition to being a story of a life well lived, it is a description of a Way that the author found - not a training manual for the particular methods that led the him to peace, love, and insight. This book was, for me, inspirational - and a signpost that pointed towards a Way I had lost. I agree with Mr. Morris that there is no one Way. There are many Ways. The Dreaming Circus might well point you towards your Way.

When I first heard Jim Morris mention his new book, “The Dreaming Circus”, I had to admit I thought my friend had crossed over. I had read his book “War Story” about his Viet Nam tour in 1963. It was just inspiring and very interesting. I had found myself in a similar place about a year before that. But the title “The Dreaming Circus” gave me cause to wonder. But putting wonder aside in its own place, as a Veteran, it was my obligation to have my friends “6.”I had just begun a rather lengthy book about the time he announced his title, and since my old team leader back in the day always instructed me that you never switch and go down a new trail until you have cleared the one you are on, I finished the story. I saw a couple of reviews about Jim’s book and they were serious reviews and very complimentary. So, about five nights ago I opened his story, and it sucked me in from the Introduction. It was nothing like what I had expected. Here was a picture of a young man’s life from before puberty; it was rife with projections as to his thoughts and feelings, it suggested his motivations, and established his interests from the get-go. I read about 20% of the book the first night. By night two I was listening to his explanations of his training for his personal goal for being a professional soldier. The military world expects a different product than the civilian world, and sometimes it isn’t gentle. It takes a mouthful of meat and chews it up then molds it into a model that is fitting for its chosen chore.When a young man goes off to war, he seldom is set down and told that he should forget about that person, that some another man will be born inside his mind and body that is going to be different in many ways. Sometimes that young man will have things happen that will be difficult to live with and function in a normal society. As many as there of those young men, there are paths out of that dark valley that he would want to climb from.Jim outlines some of those paths. As he walks those paths he grows and grounds and sees answers that sometimes might be hidden without study and focus, and direction. For five nights I listened to Jim speak of those paths, and watched him become a different kind of warrior, one that saw no foe strong enough to keep him from reaching the levels he strived for. It was inspiring to see him travel great distances, and work so hard to achieve those goals. For a man who had notches on his 6 gun, of being a professional soldier, A US Army Green Beret, an author, an editor for Soldier of Fortune Magazine, a playwright, and technical advisor and writer on a well-known movie, a father and husband and friend to many. I went into this book with a respect for Jim for one reason, and came out of those brave closing pages with a new respect from many different reasons.I encourage you to read “The Dreaming Circus.” You cannot go wrong, and you just might come out of it with a new outlook. You might see ways that you can rid yourself of some unwanted baggage. Who knows? But one thing for sure, you will see a side of Jim that makes you want to know him better. In my dream, I would like to see myself sitting on a Colorado mountain side with Jim, talking and just watching the beauty and seeing the world turn. It would be a pleasure Jim. Thank you.

A LOVE STORYJim Morris takes the reader into the darkness of military connected moral injury and then, slowly, and carefully, walks beside the reader as he reveals what has worked in his life, for him, and he believes can and will work for others.The most touching chapter of “Dreaming Circus” is Chapter 37 titled “Caregiving”. “I’d already been married four times. That was the most shameful fact about me.” Morris then describes his loving marriage with Myrna, who became terminally ill after their many years together. Anyone who has worked closely with the terminally ill, of which the Special Operations community-at-large has suffered above average numbers, especially over the course of the Global War on Terrorism, knows the deep-seated commitment and courage that is demanded in the role of caregiver.Jim Morris, in his early eighties now, has become the multi-generational poet laureate of not only the Special Forces community, but of those multi-generational wounded, injured, or ill warriors of the U.S. Special Operations community. His story is the story of so many of us who, as Medal of Honor recipient Franklin D. Miller wrote in his book “Reflections of a Warrior”…“We didn’t fit the mold. We just didn’t fit in. We were renegades used to operating independently, with few people pulling our strings. We disregarded the established rules and created our own courses of action, never questioning the morality of what we did to survive and complete the mission.”