Could Physical Reality really be a Dream?

reply to post by YouAreDreaming


when i was a bit younger, (and tripping bawls ) i had a similar thought. and so have others... my favorite being mr. hicks-“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Heres Tom with the Weather.”

Thanks OP ... very interesting, and for me, quite timely.

I've been very puzzled the past 16 years by something my brother said the moment before he passed away. This came up again during a recent conversation. I was wondering if there is any connection to his final words (and that of others) and your insightful Thread.

The very last thing he said was, "Wow, it's so simple!"

I've heard of others saying this just before they passed. And also, a few years ago, I saw a rerun of a popular TV talk show where an actor had said that his 26 year-old son, who died of cancer, also said, "It's so simple", just before he took his last breath and passed.

I believe (although I can't be 100% certain, but it's now my belief) that what they meant when they said, "It's so simple" was that they saw that 'life is a big dream', and when we die, we wake up from the dream and this is what they were seeing ... which kind of goes along with your Thread and some of the replies.

Any thoughts? JANA

tinyDAWK
reply to post by YouAreDreaming

 

when i was a bit younger, (and tripping bawls

) i had a similar thought. and so have others... my favorite being mr. hicks-“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Heres Tom with the Weather.”

edit on 2-10-2013 by tinyDAWK because: (no reason given)

He is one of the greats!

Jana12
Thanks OP ... very interesting, and for me, quite timely.

I've been very puzzled the past 16 years by something my brother said the moment before he passed away. This came up again during a recent conversation. I was wondering if there is any connection to his final words (and that of others) and your insightful Thread.

The very last thing he said was, "Wow, it's so simple!"

I've heard of others saying this just before they passed. And also, a few years ago, I saw a rerun of a popular TV talk show where an actor had said that his 26 year-old son, who died of cancer, also said, "It's so simple", just before he took his last breath and passed.

I believe (although I can't be 100% certain, but it's now my belief) that what they meant when they said, "It's so simple" was that they saw that 'life is a big dream', and when we die, we wake up from the dream and this is what they were seeing ... which kind of goes along with your Thread and some of the replies.

Any thoughts? JANA

He's right. And he does survive death, we all do when we wake up from the dream that lasts a lifetime.

YouAreDreaming

Sly1one
reply to post by YouAreDreaming

 

If reality is a dream...I better start honing my lucid dreaming skills...who knows maybe one day I'll be able to fly like I do when I'm in a lucid dream state.

I think dreams are a great metaphor for life in some ways...I'm not sure they are the same thing though. I mean you kinda have to have a non-dreaming state of consciousness from which to even understand the concept of a dream in the first place...no?

edit on 2-10-2013 by Sly1one because: (no reason given)

Unless the larger consciousness system changes the rule-set I don't think we will be able to fly here like we do in other dreams. The fact we have all these different sub-dreams which allow for pretty much anything we can imagine seems to beg the answer as to why this big dream has so many constraints otherwise it would loose it's context and it's genre so to speak would be blurred with other genre's of reality.

Like movies or video games, I believe reality such as this Earth system and human life is a very well-defined idea. If we switch into other reality frames the genre changes, the content changes but one fact always remains the same, they are all ideas organized into experiences for us, the dreamer/observer.

Reality is a massive astronomical system; and we are reality.

in a dream you walk and run,, and even drive cars, but hardly ever swim. You also do things you don't awake which is fly. Because you can? Plus there is no physical pain, if you crash.You meet people go to parties and even make love. The dreamscapes are thought forms, but im not sure they were a projection of myself. as are the cars. A car in this reality is also a thought form, its been thought about a lot, its been placed on paper with all its component parts. Then when driven it becomes the sum of its parts and becomes a singularity ie. car.
In this world some of the same thought processes seem to be the same as in dreamland, if I close my eyes and go on a trip, and open my eyes and ears when I get there for a brief moment it would have the same qualities as a dreamscape. I sometimes get this feeling when getting off a long international flight, when disembarking has a dreamlike quality. But the main thing that blows it is actually having an operational body, not the senses but the weight of a body. So the only difference in the sleep /awake state is caused by body. In a true OOBE the sleep paralysis totally negates the body for a short period at least, so that full awareness can be used in the dreamscape. Thus the sense of actually being there. Most OOBE's lack this level of purity, because running a body takes more awareness than we realise,. but I suggest most NDE's don't. So Yes its a form of Dream, but a hard one. But it takes (I don't know whether you can call it spiritual awareness) mabey just awareness of the facts as we can in our limited experience try to define them.

reply to post by YouAreDreaming


Sure. It could be a computer simulation too. look up "simulation argurment". interesting ideas.

Let somebody beat you in the face with a broom stick. You will no longer believe this crap afterwards.

The mind projected. The mind that creates reality, the brain is a tool used by the soul to cate a projection of reality...so the body is a vessel for the soul, just a multi tool to explore .

reply to post by Warstiner


Yes third grade was hard for me, Drink

Favorite quote since being very young:
"Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man."

There is other science experiments from chemistry to neurophysiology repeatable and old some around since the 70s that lends to the possibility of a situational matrix type of environment. While possible or impossible it doesnt change that we are where we are now, the experience weather artificial or real is still our experience to me shaping the reality that we live in.

anonentity
in a dream you walk and run,, and even drive cars, but hardly ever swim. You also do things you don't awake which is fly. Because you can? Plus there is no physical pain, if you crash.You meet people go to parties and even make love. The dreamscapes are thought forms, but im not sure they were a projection of myself. as are the cars. A car in this reality is also a thought form, its been thought about a lot, its been placed on paper with all its component parts. Then when driven it becomes the sum of its parts and becomes a singularity ie. car.

Tom Campbell has a very good term in which he describes dreams and physical reality as "reality frames" that allow us to have experiences. Based on the rule-set for the reality frame we are focused in, we behave and make decisions based on those constraints.

anonentity
In this world some of the same thought processes seem to be the same as in dreamland, if I close my eyes and go on a trip, and open my eyes and ears when I get there for a brief moment it would have the same qualities as a dreamscape. I sometimes get this feeling when getting off a long international flight, when disembarking has a dreamlike quality. But the main thing that blows it is actually having an operational body, not the senses but the weight of a body. So the only difference in the sleep /awake state is caused by body. In a true OOBE the sleep paralysis totally negates the body for a short period at least, so that full awareness can be used in the dreamscape. Thus the sense of actually being there. Most OOBE's lack this level of purity, because running a body takes more awareness than we realise,. but I suggest most NDE's don't. So Yes its a form of Dream, but a hard one. But it takes (I don't know whether you can call it spiritual awareness) mabey just awareness of the facts as we can in our limited experience try to define them.

edit on 3-10-2013 by anonentity because: (no reason given)

It's a very complicated psychological journey we are on; and there is a lot of belief that we must overcome and unknowns we must turn into knowns.

notyourtypicalfalsefront
reply to post by YouAreDreaming

 

Sure. It could be a computer simulation too. look up "simulation argurment". interesting ideas.

Very familiar with it, but what is producing the simulation is awareness at a cosmic scale. Tom Campbell calls it the big computer.

yamammasamonkey
Let somebody beat you in the face with a broom stick. You will no longer believe this crap afterwards.

I've broken bones, burned myself and had all manners of illness but that itself doesn't dismiss that this physical reality isn't still a higher-fidelity, higher-resolution dream than our mini-ones. It just means it's far more defined and consistent while we are focused in it.

Once the stage collapses ie we die, the dreamy aspects of it will be revealed if we cannot reveal it to ourselves while alive. Goes full circle.

The dream world is the quantum realm. Precognitive dreams don't foretell the future, they create them. The quantum realm exists first, and only collapses into into particle reality once it is observed. In dreams, when you focus your attention on an archetype, it too collapses and manifests some of it's varied associations. It's the same thing.

Controlled Attention + archetypal structures = profit

BTW, the link in my signature links to an epic dream control thread which explains how dream control works in dreams and in waking reality.

Warstiner
The mind projected. The mind that creates reality, the brain is a tool used by the soul to cate a projection of reality...so the body is a vessel for the soul, just a multi tool to explore .

Quite amazing how profoundly evolved this entire process of existence and reality has come to be.

This article takes a very deep look at the possibility that we could all be existing in a dream that lasts a lifetime. Well, how would you know if this were true? How can we test it?

Maya is sealed tight and with duality it manifests all phenomena and experience we perceive. It is behind every layer, its behind every-thing and form. The 5 sense perceptions are oriented towards the physical body, they can't be oriented any other way.

The Cusp
The dream world is the quantum realm. Precognitive dreams don't foretell the future, they create them. The quantum realm exists first, and only collapses into into particle reality once it is observed. In dreams, when you focus your attention on an archetype, it too collapses and manifests some of it's varied associations. It's the same thing.

Controlled Attention + archetypal structures = profit

BTW, the link in my signature links to an epic dream control thread which explains how dream control works in dreams and in waking reality.

I agree, it's more than just quantum however. The quantum state represents information, and data but the way the data and is programmed comes from thought aka dreams. Love your thread on dreamviews btw I should post more there.

reply to post by YouAreDreaming


I'll give a direct answer.

First, is your bad choice of word: "dream". What do you mean by dream? Do you mean, insignificant and ephemeral, as a dream? Or are you merely trying to highlight the "mental" nature of existence, using the word "dream" to describe the illusory substance of it.

If you mean, "mental" "illusory", that would mean we would need to have a knowledge of the physical world which somehow dynamically relates to a mental world. If the difference between mental and physical is merely one of "gradation", and so similar to a vibratory rate, that would have us looking at reality in terms of an energy. This is essentially how the Kabbalah views things.

Yet, within physical reality, there is clear structure, order and patterns of behavior. What do we make of this, and how would it relate to the co-existent mental realm? For example, when I say "hello" to someone, certain specific regions in my brain life up on a fMRI. The orbitorontal cortext, the anterior cingulate cortex, the wernicke area, and many more brain areas contribute an aspect to the experience and action of saying hello. So the question would need to be framed like: "how does the mental experience of wanting to say hello, transition to become a specific flow of brain activity that works upon specific brain regions?".

The question is extraordinarily complex, and I am surely cutting corners and giving a really simplistic telling of what the overall problem might be. But from what I can see, we still have a long way to go before we ever get to the point of definitively testing whether mind exists ontologically.

Astrocyte
reply to post by YouAreDreaming

 

I'll give a direct answer.

First, is your bad choice of word: "dream". What do you mean by dream? Do you mean, insignificant and ephemeral, as a dream? Or are you merely trying to highlight the "mental" nature of existence, using the word "dream" to describe the illusory substance of it.

It may sound simplistic, as in if we say it's reality or we say it's dream that is a complete simplification of a language idiom for describing the state of things. Why I choose dream is obvious, we all dream and have a direct relationship with the experience of dreaming.

In dreams, we see how the dream can create extraordinarily real experiences that involve a large amount of information. They can be as real and vivid as our waking life; but when you are in a dreamstate the world that you exist in is a mind-generated rendering of thoughts. It's pure idealism.

Astrocyte
If you mean, "mental" "illusory", that would mean we would need to have a knowledge of the physical world which somehow dynamically relates to a mental world. If the difference between mental and physical is merely one of "gradation", and so similar to a vibratory rate, that would have us looking at reality in terms of an energy. This is essentially how the Kabbalah views things.

Time, energy, entropy and space can all be simulated from information. From frame A to frame B energy is simply the state of change in between pixels and time is the refresh rate of the reality-frames. If we are looking for the answer inside the simulation and not see what simulates it; we will only ever know what is within the constraints and boundaries of a simulation.

Dreams are in the very essence of the word, a simulation. How we render dream content; and render our perception of sensory reality all follow how information is processed, then calculations, predictions and finally a final rendering of that data into a view. The mind is natures reality rendering farm, and it uses thought to achieve this output. Both in dreams and perception.

Astrocyte
Yet, within physical reality, there is clear structure, order and patterns of behavior. What do we make of this, and how would it relate to the co-existent mental realm? For example, when I say "hello" to someone, certain specific regions in my brain life up on a fMRI. The orbitorontal cortext, the anterior cingulate cortex, the wernicke area, and many more brain areas contribute an aspect to the experience and action of saying hello. So the question would need to be framed like: "how does the mental experience of wanting to say hello, transition to become a specific flow of brain activity that works upon specific brain regions?".

There really is no physical reality. It is simply rendered information. There is nothing physical about electrons and photons when they are interface patterns. And nothing physical about carbon atoms and buckyballs when they are interface patterns. All of the above demonstrate probability distributions as the information hasn't yet rendered into particles. Quantum Physics and the evidence in the research has proven time and time again that physical reality is only physical when the information collapses from probability into a coherent particle. And even after they are measured, we know they can return back to probability distributions as interference patterns, or wave-function.

We call it physical reality because when it's rendering all the collision detection, the physics engine rule-set is making it appear so; and in dreams this is also why we have a sense of physicality because at that time that we are observing the dream, how that information is rendering can appear very physical.

The human brain is an amazing computer. How it handles information and turns it into meaningful content for us the observer is a miracle. Our entire life we spend existing in a phaneron of the mental rendering of data; never knowing with any true certainty that the content that the brain is rendering is an accurate portrayal of objectivity or just some really close approximations of that objective data.

It's all subjective when it comes to the final product that the brain renders from sensory inputs. Where it becomes even more difficult is that your are looking at the brain for answers to a non-physical reality which dreams are derived from. We assume, and it's an assumption that the brain is generating the dream content.

We assume that we exist within the brain as an emerging property of the brain because it, the brain sends rendered data to the part of us which observes this data. We are tightly connected in this interface. However, what makes the mind/brain relationship very interesting is that the mind is a field of self-awareness and when the brain function is stopped, people have near-death experiences.

When the body is in sleep some people can have lucid dreams or out-of-body experiences. There is a way where you can start to see first-hand how the brain is simply an interface and the mind is entangled but not exclusively a part of that interface. The mind resides in non-physical reality and projects itself into the interface of the body for the purpose of having an experience in this 3rd dimensional reality system.

When we die, this obvious mind/brain relationship becomes apparent as we, the observer, the self, the dreamer, the mind will still exist and no longer receive rendered data from our physical interface. That's usually the big wake-up call for people who are locked in. It doesn't have to be; but for most that is the way it is. It's also why I encourage being conscious during sleep as a mandatory life goal because it will become important later on in helping a person see this dualistic nature between their mind and brain and the fact they exist beyond the physical system that they are currently entangled in.

Astrocyte
The question is extraordinarily complex, and I am surely cutting corners and giving a really simplistic telling of what the overall problem might be. But from what I can see, we still have a long way to go before we ever get to the point of definitively testing whether mind exists ontologically.

It is very complex. Not many people can see the forest through the trees. Many belief-systems state implicitly that all that exists is physical reality and that there is no life after death. We are all locked into this experience in one of complete immersion.

Where I differ, and this by no means makes me feel special or above anyone else is the fact I remember existing before this life. I have had over 4,000 lucid dreams and out-of-body experiences. My precognitive dreams have been extremely revealing of the relationship between thought and that this reality is an emerging phenomena of a grander Universal dream. So dreams in my point-of-view are creating reality; all reality. In any moment that we become aware that we exist in one. It's a fundamental part of the larger reality system.

When I say this reality could be a dream; I have been in altered-states where I have seen future events completely rendering out in dream content as thought. And have changed that content to see the changes happen here. My mind is all blown, and in a good way.

reply to post by YouAreDreaming

They can be as real and vivid as our waking life; but when you are in a dreamstate the world that you exist in is a mind-generated rendering of thoughts. It's pure idealism.

Ah, in which case, I disagree. As of right now, what makes most sense to me is a type of dualistic monism.

Clearly, physical reality follows it's own laws of functioning. Evolution exists as a physical process. The constraints imposed on living things by natural factors highlights how 'limited' individual minds inhibited by those factors are.

Take the brain. The example I used was designed to point out that - despite hemispheral mirroring - the front of the brain cannot process vision (the occipital lobe, in the back of the brain, does that), just like the cerebellum cannot process executive thinking. There are specific physical organs that enable aspects of our mental experience.

This is a challenge to your claim that "everything is mind". Or at the very least, it modifies what we mean when we say "mind". If the fixity and immutability of physical structure and function impose limits on the usually "free" mental experience - and since you use dreams as a literal description for ordinary reality, this points how bad that term is - then there is a problem.

Although there might in fact be a top-down relationship between the mental and physical - the mental imposing a "form" on the physical - the physical itself possesses its own explicit form with intrinsic properties: rigidity, entropy, etc.

It is practically inconceivable for us to think outside the box because we are IN THE BOX, constantly conditioned and limited by it; our stomachs hunger; our brains tire; our bodies feel weakened; we get the flu when we come in contact with the influenza virus; we get cancer if certain environmental factors (say, a slew of carcinogens) trigger a genetic reaction that causes cells to improperly copy themselves.

Life is this constant interplay between the lightness and freeness of mind and the heaviness and constriction of the physical - and they are forever at war with each other, or if you prefer a more romantic metaphor, forever embracing one another, like Yin and Yang.

Idealism is a....overly sanguine view of things.

And even after they are measured, we know they can return back to probability distributions as interference patterns, or wave-function.

Lets say all this quantum mechanics stuff is true. That, as the early physicists imagined, that what they were describing was not merely a conventionality to help us explain inexplicable phenomena, but a real thing, albeit, with a mystic twinge. If this is the case, were still faced with a universe that has exploded apart. Were still encumbered by movement of particular things, existing independently. Asteroids will still fly through space and planets in far off places may contain life.

The narrative you have weaved in this thread assumes that the world as we know it is about to "uncollapse" from the wave function - that everything will return to it's original chaotic homogeneity. All because human beings on one planet in one infinitesimally small portion of the universe changed their way of understanding things. In short, it's all theory, no substance.

However, what makes the mind/brain relationship very interesting is that the mind is a field of self-awareness and when the brain function is stopped, people have near-death experiences.

I'm somewhat backtracking by asking you this.

You use the word interface sort of loosely. When I say SPECIFIC BRAIN regions govern specific mental functions - invariably - you resort to mentioning interfaces. My point however is to highlight the "extra-territoriality" of this fact. The mental energy FITS and is limited by an already existing form. How does this modify your claim that all "is mind"?

It seems to be inevitable that a pigs brain could never support human experience. The body/physical imposes extreme limitations on the mental.

the fact they exist beyond the physical system that they are currently entangled in.

Do you mean "entangled" in the sense that Dean Radin uses it? Or is this something bad, and wrong, to be identified and at home in your physical body?

I study developmental psychology for a living, and I spend a good deal of time keeping up on the literature of neurobiology. While I agree in principle that the mental exists as an ontological property of reality, I disagree that the body is merely a "weight" that we have to overcome.

The acme of human experience i.e. emotional experience, is felt through the body. Even though the body is a limitation, it is also an anchor to a deeper energetic experience of self and others. If you aren't embodied - you can't really give the type of hardy laugh that the Dalai Lama often gives. That type of laugh comes with being in-tune with your bodies core energies. Not being identified with the body ala dissociation, results in a hypoemotional experience. You may be extremely "psychic" and have powers of perception that are beyond what normal people normally notice, but your aliveness is so much less.

When I say this reality could be a dream; I have been in altered-states where I have seen future events completely rendering out in dream content as thought. And have changed that content to see the changes happen here. My mind is all blown, and in a good way.

and there is no way, of course, that this could all be one massive cognitive illusion? Or, at the very least, some of what you've experienced may be a cognitive illusion?