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Chapter 1 delves further into the idea of the Dream and explains the domestication of humans. Ruiz states that every human is dreaming all the time, whether awake or asleep, and that it is our collective dreams that form the dream of the planet, or society. This dream is comprised of everything society is made of, including religion, law, culture, and social constructs such as government and schools. According to Ruiz, this dream “hooks” our attention and teaches us the rules of its reality through family, friends, and school. We do not choose this reality, but we agree to believe in it as we grow up and undergo what Ruiz calls the domestication of humans. In this process, we are taught our beliefs through a system of punishment and reward, much as a pet might be trained to obey commands. We develop a fear of punishment (rejection) and we develop a desire for reward (attention). We learn to please people in order to get this reward, ignoring our natural instincts and who we really are in order to receive this reward.

In time, this system is so effective that we learn to domesticate ourselves, following our belief system as a Book of Law, as Ruiz calls it. This helps us feel safe and stable. Because of how strong these beliefs are, they are hard to break, and our inner Victim suffers at the hands of our inner Judge, who punishes us multiple times for a single mistake. However, this Book of Law is based on the lies we have learned from the illusory Dream around us; thus, both it and the Judge are wrong. The collective dream, which Ruiz calls hell, is ruled by fear, anger, and violence, and thus our personal dreams become the same. In order to combat this fear, we create an image of perfection and reject ourselves for not meeting it. This creates a cycle of rejection and self-abuse when we cannot truly be what we pretend to be. The only way to break this cycle, according to Ruiz, is to break the fear-based agreements we have made with ourselves and to take back our personal power, which is currently being drained by keeping harmful agreements made out of fear and not love.

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