Are Dreams an Extension of Physical Reality?

[SwedishFish]

First of all, I don't think we should discuss "the existence of reality". That is a rather meaningless discussion that can lead nowhere, because we can probably agree that there are a lot of realities (at the very least your reality, my reality and everybody else's reality).

Planstodream probably tries to argue that there is one single playing field where we are able to communicate with each other, and that is the physical world. Dreams are indeed real to the dreamer, but only exist inside the brain of the dreamer, according to this view.

I believe that there may exist other playing fields than the physical world that somehow are connected to the physical world in ways that we don't really understand yet. The reason for our poor understanding is partly due to the fact that our perception is currently so tied to and influenced by the physical world that it feels like it is *the* reality. We now that the brain is remarkable in this sense. That's why movies, video games etc work so well with us. In just a couple of minutes we can be absorbed and actually believe that we are in another reality (that is: the movie or the game).

Just imagine how totally reprogrammed your brain would have been if you spent 3 years, constantly playing a video game. And that is exactly what happens when you are born. You spend several years just to learn and accept your new reality: the physical world. You gradually gain consciousness (in the physical world) and you are able to spend more and more time in the awake state. When you are about 5-10 years old you are so accustomed to the physical world that you tend to think of it as the only reality. You could say that you have (at least temporarily) lost most of the connections to the other realities, just like you have when you are absorbed in the movie or video game. Your dreams are like quickly looking away from the video game and seeing what is also out there, but immediately returning to the game because your mind is so focused on it. The outside world doesn't make sense, because you only catch short glimpses of it, and "the physical you" has forgotten most about it.

And yes, this is just my own theory, which probably has a lot of flaws. But it is not more unlikely than the existence of a physical world, and you and me in it having this conversion right now in the un-physical reality called internet inside a physical universe that is perhaps infinite in both space and time.

I would go so far as to say that due to probability and statistics it is more likely that this physical world is not "real" (as in: "the only reality"), than that it is. If I had a phone call and someone told me that I had won the lottery where I had an infinitely small (and I mean infinitely like 1 divided by 0) chance of winning, I would start questioning if it was real. And now you all tell me that you have also won the same lottery... Hmmm... it sounds "unreal" to me...

[DCJack]

Well said Swedishfish.

Another analogy would be the question of how to explain "beauty" to a dog. It would be very difficult. The dog has a completely different frame of reference to his world. The dog has the same physical senses that we have but its perception to concepts like beauty are rather limited.

This would also be true of a human who had no sight or hearing. That person would have a similar brain capacity as us but a more limited experience due to the absence of those senses. We have the senses that we have and they tell us a story about the world that we can perceive. Many people become attached to the story that they have grown up with and fear deviations from it.

An interesting question is why some people are discovering more highly evolved modes of experience while others remain in more traditional modes and often even fear the newer modes. This is easy to see in the fear that religious fundamentalists have with accepting the theory of evolution. The fundamentalists seem to feel that their sense of safety is only maintained through strict adherence to words in a book that they believe has magical properties. I know many of these people who would regard lucid dreaming as "work of the devil", even though dreams figure in the experiences of their revered ancestors.

Even those with scientific backgrounds often fear the appearance of more evolved awarenesses due to their attachment to their sense of a personal self which they identify as ego. Ego is a false structure, useful for survival, but limiting when it denies advanced realities that threaten its claim on the reality that it believes it can control.

The way humans live today is remarkably unlike the way humans lived only 150 years ago. We are evolving in our capacities at a rapid rate and those who are becoming proficient in LD are in the vanguard of evolved awareness.

[planstodream]

[planstodream]

[planstodream]

Edit: I should note this: DCJack, in my response on Sunday the 21st, I identified three specific criticisms of your claims. Any one of the three would be enough to prove it wrong. You did not respond to a single one of them. Until you do, I will take this as evidence that you have no response, and thus there is no good reason to accept your claims.
/End Edit

[SwedishFish]

First of all: I do not believe that the physical world does not exist - I just believe that it is not the *only* reality that exists.

[SwedishFish]

Ah, good, Planstodream. So you are already convinced...