Due to Carlos Castaneda's desire to follow the spiritual practice of the Warrior's Path, which entails erasing one's personal history, the details of his biography are unclear. As far as Castaneda's early years are concerned, it can only be stated that he was born outside of the United States sometime between 1925 and 1935. He enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the 1960s, where he received a Ph.D. in anthropology on the basis of his books.

Castaneda's entire life path was devoted to studying the teachings of a certain Juan Matus or don Juan Cachora. It is more than likely that his persona is a composite-image of an Indian Shaman, a sorcerer, and an heir of the culture of the ancient "Toltecs".

Castaneda wrote a dozen books; however, the book The Art of Dreaming (1993) has the most to do with the phase state. It contains several effective techniques for entering the phase through dream consciousness. His subject matter is soaked in a large amount of mysticism and virtually devoid of any pragmatism.

Despite the fact that the main orientation of Castaneda's work did not touch upon the phase state, he nevertheless became one of the founding fathers of this field, as his general popularity reached massive proportions worldwide.

Carlos Castaneda passed away in 1998.