Every day I am constantly barraged by emotions. They do not range from good to bad, they are more complex than so. I remember, years ago, when I actually thought something had happened to the *world* when I suffered from an emotional lapse. My first memory of emotional turbulance goes back to my early teens when I ran home from a birthday party, crying, because of the overwhelming realization that the world was empty and shallow. "How innocent" I´d later on think! With age I would realize that it was *me* that had changed, not the world. It wouldn´t keep me from sensing fear, though, when facing an emotional low. I was never sure if I would get out of it again. But from there I would also make progress until today I can sometimes successfully *control* my shifting moods, and when I can´t I can either *accept* them, or even direct them - so that they become *functional*. 

I definitely am much more aware of my moods than ever before. I can see how they affect my whole being. The dryness of the skin, the muscles in the face, body posture, expressiveness in motion and voice, spontaneity, thought patterns, the focus of my gaze, the sureness of my body control, the things that catch my attention, all of this and more gives away and, perhaps, constitutes my emotional state . The whole aura of my being undergoes quite dramatic and complete change several times a day. And the funny thing is, every emotion , despite its depth and complexity, is familiar, like old friends that keep visiting me. "Ah!", I say to myself "Now I´m in this mood..., I´d better...(whatever)" But this familiarity is coupled with variety. I encounter countless other different ones, ten, fifteen, god knows how many, before ever encountering the same mood again. And when it happens, I know it. The familiarity is instant, even among the countless other rival moods. 

To me, emotions are bounded entities, and not one fluid gradually changing stream of energy. That´s how I experience it. I usually *notice* when my mood is changing. It does so quite clearly. It shifts! Something in my awareness contradicts itself, or goes beyond its boundaries (this is difficult to put into words), and so there is a quite dramatic shift. What immediately greets me is a new sense of functionality. No two separate moods are functional in the same way. I am suddenly capable of thinking differently, acting differently, and being aware of new things receiving all kinds of new signals from my body, a tingle here, a dullness there, a light feeling somewhere else... 

When I heard about Castaneda´s concept of the "assemblage point" it made immediate sense. I don´t take it literally, only as a metaphor. I don´t see an assemblage point, or converging lines, or vibrating energy or anything like that, I am just keenly aware of the effects of the shifts in awareness, even to the point of being able to effect a voluntary shift myself. I had already done some of that simply by trying to remember a desirable mood and focusing on its specific traits (the way I focus, move, think, what I do and what I expect, and how the body feels) and WILL myself into the mood by ´visualization´ (for lack of better term). Thus I have been able to prolong a desired state beyond all expectation, until the situation demanded a shift from that state again (after having happily neglected some of my duties, for example). 

These days I´m studying emotions, both internally and academically (with some illuminating psychology experiments) trying to link it with the concepts of Castaneda (especially the AP). I do this in the hope of being more of a master to my emotions than a slave. I just "watch" them as I would a prey, without condemning them. I observe and pass no judgement, just observe and understand. As they come and go I try to learn their functionality and use them instead of fighting against them. This is what I ideally do, but of course I get easily trapped. I would find it revealing to find what you guys think of such "indulging". Isn´t it just plain indulging? Emotions are made of thoughts, so I may just be feeding my internal dialogue? What is the link, anyway, between emotional shifts of mood and the shift of the AP? Moods, being made of preconceptions about the world, do affect our awareness tremendously, just like the different APs, right? 

You might ask: "Why study an emotion, a mood? Doesn´t it destroy the essence of life? Isn´t it like trying to analyze a joke, or the taste of an apple instead of just enjoying it as it is?" This was my main hurdle for a while, because it goes against one of the basic teachings of any philosophy: "Engage yourself by *doing* instead of alienating yourself through analysis." Well, I just realized today (and that´s why I´m posting all this now and not before) that emotions are not like apples. If you do like the taste of an apple, good for you, please enjoy it. If the taste is bad, just throw it away. You don´t have to be concerned with *how* it tastes bad or good. Just eat it or don´t. Emotions are different. If you don´t like an emotion you can´t just throw it away and take another one. How good life would be, if we could, wouldn´t it? :) Just throw away all emotions away for the rubbish they are and find some inner silence in pure awareness. But you can´t. At least not like that. You have to understand the emotion thoroughly first. You have to understand what the emotion is telling you, for it serves a purpose, whereas the functionality of an apple´s taste is only its badness or goodness.