Originally posted by TheCatalyst
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maybe all we do is dive deeper into our conscious and see what we want to see, because the planes we visit, are 99% made up of our imagination and our conscious thoughts; maybe we really aren't seperating our conscious from our physical, maybe we're just imagining. All we could possibly be doing maybe, just be going as I mentioned earlier diving deeper into our conscious and therefore our thoughts which in turn makes the planes we visit. I'm not trying to disprove the idea of OBE's and AP, but I'm just trying to play devil's advocate for a minute and it seems like a pretty interesting debate to me. Maybe the saying is true after all maybe "it's all a figment of our imagination."
Oh the irony that is reality...
Now, what is the difference between that which is in your subconscience and tha which you consider to be reality? What IS real anyway? How do you know this world isn't in your mind? Have you not created worlds in your dreams before, no matter how strange or incompatible with this one? Have you also noticed that we only realise that we were asleep, AFTER we wake up?
Perhaps EVERYTHING is simply a dream, a consciousness, an illusion, and is created for the sole purpose of providing lessons to different consciousness units (entities, beings.. have your pick). There is a difference between reality that we perceive, and what IS. This may get a little confusing, if one considers subjective realities, and that many illusions and lies may indeed be TRUE in certain individual subjective realities. In fact, the only time something can ever be FALSE, it seems (in my humble opinion), is if the definition is restricted to any specific reality, as it is then FALSE for only that specific reality. This makes sense if you consider the idea that ALL possibilities exist, and our "reality" is but ONE of those possibilities. Well at least our PERCEPTION of same.
Ah.. that funky word, perception again. How is your perception altered in your dreams? How is it different in what you think is REALITY (note, only after you wake up!). Imagine you're writing on ATS one day, and suddenly everything blacks out and you wake up and yawn. You'll then think you had a rather vivid dream, won't you? Have you ever had a dream where you'd wake up, and after you get up out of bed, you realise you're still in a dream? Then you wake up YET AGAIN, and you think "finally, that was weird".. and suddenly you wake up AGAIN, and maybe a few more times before you actually WAKE UP.
Each time that you wake up, you think you are now in reality, until that is, you wake up one more time. Therefore, my question would be, how many levels of 'awareness' would you think there might exist... that you can wake up from and access higher ones? What I mean is, your current level of awareness is sharper and clearer than most of your dreams, right? Well, with this consideration in mind, perhaps when one reaches a new level of awareness, one experiences what could be called an "awakening" process. Now, what do you think is the limit to how much you can be aware of all at once, before you can say.. THIS IS IT, I know everything!
The irony may persist, as just as you think you know EVERYTHING, you wake up again and see that what you knew previously was NOTHING compared to what REALLY constitutes reality. Just some thoughts...
Edit: Considering that... does the idea that ALL possibilities are manifested and TRUE on infinite dimentions (realities) make sense? For example, if you consider our perception of the passage of what we call "time", do you KNOW what will happen in the future? Now, you do at least realise that there are many possibilities in the future, many possible things that can HAPPEN based on choices that are done NOW, correct? Well then, perhaps ALL of those possibilities are manifested, as ALL the choices are really made, except that you're only AWARE of one possibility? The others remain in "potential", although only for YOU. Your "alternate self" may exist in one of those "potentials" and our CURRENT reality is only a "potential" for that alternate self. Doesn't sound like such a crazy idea at all... if you take time and think about it. The more I thought about this, the more it made sense. But to each his own...
[Edited on 19-3-2004 by lilblam]


. Maybe the saying is true after all maybe "it's all a figment of our imagination."