As a philosopher and mystic, it’s sometime difficult to find common grounds in discussing mystical ideas. Dreams and dreaming seem to be a thread that everyone is willing to pull to see what unfurls when the tapestry is unwoven.
Most have dreamt and can share weird experiences that occur in that state of slumber. Needless to say, Freud made it a bit awkward to openly discuss those personal experiences without divulging your “innermost sexual desires.” Freud aside, dreams are a glimpse into another reality that has real world ramifications on your waking world. Dreaming is huge.
Consider this:
From age 5 to age 55 years = 50 years.
50 years x 365 days= 18,250 days.
18,250 days x 8 hrs. sleep= 146,000 sleeping hours.
146,000 sleeping hours 24 hours (day) = 6,083 days.
6,083 days / 365 days (year)= ALMOST 17 YEARS SPENT IN SLEEP BY AGE 55!
How many dreams is that? And where time doesn’t seem to apply, what would be the potential of comprehending the shear magnitude of all that dreaming “experience?”
Most would agree that 17 years is a significant amount of life experience to stop and consider for a moment? You’ve probably heard that your brain processes “reality” the same way it experiences dreams and imagination. It can’t tell the difference, but somehow, you can? (the paradox of reality)
In all that time of unawareness, have you considered how profound your dreams have been on your conscious development. ENORMOUS! I can still remember some of my most profound dreams from decades past. There were some cases that I “woke up” and forgot where I was and panicked in my attempt to reconcile my dream with the waking world. Those dreams impacted choices and effected where and what I am doing today.
You might believe you don’t dream; empirical science says otherwise. You just don’t remember–and that’s perfectly normal. Even people that remember their dreams, can discover they’re missing out on a bunch of consciousness when they begin to focus on recording and journaling their dreams.
Honestly, I’m not attempting to go down that philosophical road; which is really fun, but rather to look at the process of dreaming to glimpse a new reality and definition of who you are. Hang in there, this is mind warping.
Let me try to convey the following in some cohesive manner:
- Objective vs Subjective Experience or “Truth” vs “Belief,”
- Three parts of how a dream happens by way of the Body, Mind/Soul & Spirit,
- Dreams have the same weight as “Reality,”
- And, by understanding how dreams are created, you can understand how you are created. “As above, so Below.”
Dreams are fascinating to me but probably not in the way you think. So keep reading and see what you believe to be true.
Objective vs Subjective Consciousness or Truth vs Belief
Dreams are mystical experiences! Yah, and you don’t believe in mysticism. Right? Understanding that mysticism is the philosophy of understanding subjective experiences. But, unless you are a mystic, and/or in some psychological modality, you probably haven’t even heard of Objective vs Subjective reality. Agreeably, this is a can of worms to open.
Let’s just agree, without dumping out all the worms, that Objective Senses are how we integrate with this Physical Universe. The human body has specialized sense organs that pick up vibrational frequencies and convert them into something your brain can process. This is commonly referred to as the Five Objective Senses of Sight, Hearing, Taste, Smell, and Touch. There are probably many more ways we integrate with reality, buts lets focus on these for this analogy.
Yep, reality is just vibrations. And your “reality” is just your brain’s interpretation of those vibrations. Disagree? How would you express your life in terms other than the experiences you have gained through your five objective senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch). Objective “reality” is only an agreed upon consensus of what is “real.” For some, that is science. And what can be defined by science is, in “reality,” “truth?” For a mystic though, objective reality is only a gradient in the countless colors of consciousness.
Subjective reality on the other hand is a “belief” or what we have accepted (or chosen) to define as real. Each of us experiences the physical universe in a very personal manner. So, what is the difference between “truth” and “belief”? Becomes very confusing and I’m not even going to get into what is “free will,” because that is dependent on how you interpret reality.
Let me give an example. Autumn is a gorgeous experience of color. Aspen yellows contrasting the crimson hues of reds and oranges from oaks and maples. All of which complement the various hues of evergreens. But my Dad, never experienced that awe. He was color blind. His reality was different in that one of his sense organs didn’t function in the agreed upon way we perceive “reality.” The genetics of his color blindness were passed onto my sister’s male boys. One of my nephews drew my attention one day when he couldn’t tell which watermelon was a ripe green color? I’m a horticulturist and that’s a big deal for me. But wait . . ., is a watermelon green? Or, is that a “truth” from a trichromat seeing human? For my Dad and nephews, watermelon greenness was a “belief” that they accepted from those of us that could see more colors. In a society of dichromates, watermelon color would be an altogether different experience.
So, imagine you lived in a world where the main consensus of reality was defined by people that could only see two colors instead of three. How would you define your reality to them? Their “truths” about watermelons are not yours. Would you hide and pretend to fit in? What would that even mean? How would you ever encounter another that could see and experience your reality? If you persisted in your reality, how would they treat you? Would you seem miraculous in that you could judge a watermelons ripeness with some superhuman perception?
How many other metaphors of “truth vs belief” are out there that you haven’t even considered because you believe everyone experiences everything the same as you?
Because each of experiences life through the lens of our objective experiences, each of us has a unique subjective understanding of this physical world.
My dad saw rainbows, but I never had the presence of mind to ask him while he was still alive what he actually saw. So, each time you see a rainbow, stop and think for a minute how each of experiences that miracle.
Three parts of how a dream happens.
A dream happens in a particular way. Humans are a blending of three distinct aspects; Physical Body, Mind/Soul, and Spirit. You’ve heard about this at church, but have you ever deeply considered its meaning. In order to dream, you must possess and somehow be aware of these aspects, because you can’t experience a dream without each one of them in their distinctness.
PHYSICAL BODY – the evolved organism that is composed of matter; one of its many organs being the BRAIN; the interface with the Physical Universe or Objective Consciousness.
MIND or SOUL – the total combined memory of your life experiences and learnings or Subjective Consciousness.
SPIRIT – the eternal spark of consciousness; reasoning; “I AM-ness” or the Subconsciousness.
The above is very simplified description of the three parts of our Being that are required for dreaming which play a critical part the formation of dreams.
Beginning with our body. We need to have a tangible body to even have an objective experience in the Physical Universe. This begins by agreeing to agree that we are real?
Our physical bodies are incredible. Contemplating the extraordinary complexity of our organism and the abilities it has to receive and record the vibrations of “reality” alone is immense. It is truly a cosmic experience comprehending what is occurring in our brain every single moment to create this illusion of realness. And the brain itself, beyond words! Humans are the only organism on this planet that have the power to reason. Even that is debatable when considering some people.
Have you ever thought about REASON and what that means in defining your conscious experience in this physical universe? I think only astronauts have enough inclusive perspective to know how rare and precious this world is in comparison to the vastness of space around it and how integrated we are into our planet’s organism. We are a precious product of evolution!
So . . . having a physical body and evolved brain is the first requirement in order to even have a dream. That leads into requirement number two: Mind/Soul.
Setting aside the miracle of the human brain, it is even more breathtaking to glimpse what is occurring inside that lump of meat inside our heads. Even before you gain consciousness of your own existence, all the neural chemical reactions that are being produced by your sensing organs are being recorded and merging to become something intelligent. Sentience is born from all the experiential inputs you accumulate during your life. Every moment your consciousness expands. It doesn’t end until that “spark of life” that animated your being leaves its “clay tabernacle.”
The total combined memories of physical existence of learning spin a complex web of interactions that become YOU. The Mind or Soul is actually considered the same thing, the reality of “YOU” having experiences while inhabiting your physical body. When you die, so does all the neural pathways and neurons that developed into your identity. But what happens to the electrical impulses that organized themself into a cohesive pattern?
Think of it this way. The physical brain are the neurons themselves that make up synaptic connections. The spiritual brain is the energy that travels through that matrix of your brain.
The caduceus is the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology and consequently by Hermes Trismegistus in Greco-Egyptian mythology and is a common symbol used in medical professions. The staff is entwined by two serpents surmounted by wings. The two serpents symbolic of Spiritual and Temporal Creations; Body and Spirit merging to create the Mind/Soul. In Alchemy, Mercury represents Soul. The Human brain has the two qualities of physical neural cells and neural energy that combine to create a conscious being. Death is theorized as only being the separation of the two; the difference of before and after is the lifetime of experiences that organized the electrical energy within the brain.
Consciousness has many levels of awareness in how you relate to your Soul’s character or identity which is the combined distinct development your personal earthly/mortal experiences. Emotions are a product of the brain organ interpreting physical stimulations in combination with physical experiences. Each emotion for each individual is distinct and have their subtle difference. This occurs simply because each individual’s trip through “realty” is different than anyone else’s. That journey influences how the physical game of reality is conducted. I often wonder what it would have been like for individuals on the opposing side of a world war. Why would they fight and die for something so different from what I believe?
Emotional Awareness or defining emotions is the recognition of mental activities corresponding with life experiences. Emotions are individualistic and not completely shared with others simply because they were built on differing experiential happenings. It is our categorizing and differentiating the combination of thoughts and biophysical reactions that construct an emotional response. And because they are not shared in some instances as congruent with everyone else’s definitions in an agreeable way, emotions are considered a Subjective Reality. Even though they are created by a physical mechanism by way of the brain, emotions merge into a distinctness that becomes a “personality” or Soul. And emotional awareness is only the beginning of empathy which requires to learn and accept the reality of others in the objective world.
Okay now for the big one. How do you know you are you? After a mass of physical elemental building blocks develop into a living organism, something animated it so it can operate outside and independent of another organism. We usually consider this as birth. Would it be a good moment to also encourage some time spent is contemplation about your relationship with our planet Earth. I mean, a baby leaves the womb and separates with its mother to become alive. Could you leave this planet and be separated from it and live (without a space ship)? Have you even actually even been born or are you just another operation of mass cellular division operating within a much larger organism waiting for your birth into another existence?
Back to reality, or maybe not? Seriously. I don’t think anyone considers how mysterious death actually is until you have touched a cold dead human that you loved. Their body is still there, but everything stopped working. The body becomes cold due to cease of all operations. How can parts of a dead body be removed and placed in another living body and kept functioning? So why did this specific collection of organs cease to be animated? How did the Life-Force that gave it animation leave? Why did it leave? Somehow, their “essence” or consciousness has gone. What has happened to all that life experience? Is life just a waste and meaningless string of causal linear events that leads to a purposeless termination? Why would consciousness desire that end? It is the existential questions that opens up the true meaning of life. And it is the contemplation of Spirit that holds that possibility.
Human knowledge still cannot define Spirit. But it also cannot deny that something is there and causing an organism to live. And life is defined only in context to death. This is where DREAMS become so important!
Spirit is outside of physical reality. It is consciousness without a body. It is not the functioning byproduct of the brain. Spirit exists even without the body and soul. But the Physical Body in combination with the Mind/Soul cannot exist without the Spirit. Dude! is that not mystical in and of itself? The animating factor of life is undefinable-mystical. Even science runs into this dilemma.
Spirit is your awareness. “I think therefore I AM.”
When in an unconscious state (specifically sleep, not the general definition of humans walking around hurting each other and everything else), Spirit uses the mind/soul to communicate through experiential symbolism. It takes what an individual has experienced and mixes everything up and represents it as something new. It can only use what you have experienced and learned. But it can utilize that information by creating another experience that occurs only within your Mind; imagination. It is your personal experiences that help define the new ones because they were born of the original concepts. So, please don’t interpret someone else’s dream and don’t go looking for others to tell you what your dreams mean. Other interpretations will only lead to confusion. Study your dreams in relation to your reality. The true dream master listens with rapt attention and a silent tongue.
Dreams have the same weight as “Reality”
Spirit builds alternate worlds within the mind where cause and effect have the exact same weight as the waking world but buffers the accountability within the physical universe of matter, time and space. Just as Mind/Soul develops consciousness in the waking world, Soul/Mind expands consciousness in the same manner in the dreaming worlds. Nature operates in the most efficient way; nothing is wasted. Even the physical body and brain evolved to have the ability to prevent the body from moving while asleep. That’s pretty incredible that evolution included an on/off switch to physical movement while you dream! So, consider that if you’ve lived more than 56 years, you have 17-some-odd-years of causality that you haven’t acknowledged that might be set before you at the “pearly gates of heaven.” Oh shit!! And how much more would there be to this lifetime if you had paid attention to all those experiences?
Dreams help you recognize who you truly are and what that means. The Human Trifecta of Body, Mind/Soul and Spirit can be most experienced by contemplating dreaming. And maybe by knowing who and what you are can put you in a better place to answer that all illusive question of “what is the purpose of this “real” experience? Am I restricting my reality by believing that truth exists and dreams aren’t real?
Through the symbolism of the Alchemical combination of the Sulfur and Salt (Spirt and Body) that Mercury (Soul) is produced. The Alchemical Philosopher’s Stone.
Alchemical Symbolism
The black crow watching its purified soul emerge from the dark waters is the classic alchemical symbology used in undergoing this operation. This internal “water which does not wet the hands” takes the form of dreams, voices, visions and strange feelings which reveal a less ordered and less rational world existing simultaneously with our everyday life.
Few have the courage to let go of codependent belief structures that give purpose to reality. What could facing the possibilities of a world without “beliefs” accomplish? Maybe the ability to do what most humans cannot simply due to the box they so desperately try to live within. You choose which “green” watermelon to eat.
