Thread: Is dreaming a product of the brain or are we in in an alternate reality?

Originally Posted by Chimpertainment

Withered: It just seems you dont leave any room for a reality outside of our own. I dont think reality is subject to the observer. I think observed reality is subject to the observer and I think there is reality outside observers.

What makes you think that? I'm not disagreeing, just curious why you've chosen that perspective.

Originally Posted by Sageous

That's because there is reality outside observers.

I'm sorry, WitheredMan, I understand your point, but in the end reality is way bigger than the meager emanations or observations of human -- or any other -- consciousnesses. To assume that the entire universe can only exist because we want it to do so, and it will disappear as soon as we stop paying attention, is to attach far more power and significance to sentience. Like that room, the universe was here before we noticed it, and will be after we're gone ... Reality is not our fault.

As I said, it's not really a debatable point and I can only shrug in response to your apparent certitude that it is false. I cannot prove it true just as well as you cannot prove it false, unless you've thought of some tricky way I'm not aware of. You are structuring your worldview on different intuitions than I, but ultimately still on intuition. I maintain two separate frames of mind on the issue. As a sort of backdrop I believe/suspect what I have said to be true -- and to be clear, I do not mean to suggest that human sentience is the pinnacle of consciousness; the idea was that ultimate consciousness is, by nature, far beyond the limited slice experienced through human existence and most probably far beyond our limited capacity for comprehension -- but within the context of this world I also accept the models and theories created to describe it, for their obvious application while here. Similar to how when I play Left 4 Dead 2, my conscious awareness becomes framed by the limitations and rules of the game world and my framework for handling that world, but I still maintain a lucid awareness of that world's transient nature and my existence outside of it. To me, since ultimately either stance can be doubted equally, I pick which one I find more convenient/enriching/interesting to believe, but in some sense hold both views at once, if that makes sense.

Originally Posted by TheGritz

I've always found it interesting that time in dreams flows so naturally. You can jump around forward and back in time, skipping dull parts and lingering on the good ones. It's been guessed often that time is the fourth dimension (like x,y,z axes) and that the reason we can only go forward in time is because we are experiencing the effects of time while stuck in the 3rd dimension with our limited perception. I've always thought (or secretly hoped at least) that perhaps when you dream you are somehow breaking free of the 3rd dimension and that is why you can zip through and manipulate time in dreams. Is my idea true? Probably not, but it's a fun idea anyways

That sounds cool! I had an idea in the lucid daydreaming thread that we could use it for time travel. I want to test that by going to Woodstock in 1969. If it works, I'll be at Woodstock. If not, I'll see a farm.

Originally Posted by ThisWitheredMan

As I said, it's not really a debatable point and I can only shrug in response to your apparent certitude that it is false. I cannot prove it true just as well as you cannot prove it false, unless you've thought of some tricky way I'm not aware of. You are structuring your worldview on different intuitions than I, but ultimately still on intuition. I maintain two separate frames of mind on the issue. As a sort of backdrop I believe/suspect what I have said to be true -- and to be clear, I do not mean to suggest that human sentience is the pinnacle of consciousness; the idea was that ultimate consciousness is, by nature, far beyond the limited slice experienced through human existence and most probably far beyond our limited capacity for comprehension -- but within the context of this world I also accept the models and theories created to describe it, for their obvious application while here. Similar to how when I play Left 4 Dead 2, my conscious awareness becomes framed by the limitations and rules of the game world and my framework for handling that world, but I still maintain a lucid awareness of that world's transient nature and my existence outside of it. To me, since ultimately either stance can be doubted equally, I pick which one I find more convenient/enriching/interesting to believe, but in some sense hold both views at once, if that makes sense.

Well said, and fair enough. And, at the risk of sounding like an old man: you're giving me flashbacks, man!

I hope that you are more successful in developing this worldview and keeping it spiritually close than I was 30 years ago, because if you ultimately are correct, the implications (and resultant cool experiential shit) are incredible!

The nice things about extrareality beliefs that can only be analyzed from a post-death perspective, is that if they're false, you never find out because you cease to exist before you get a chance to be disappointed

I may well abandon it when if at some point it no longer serves me, or my intuition begins to tell me something else! At the very least it is something that is going to make it into some amount of stories I write and, as you so perfectly phrased it, result in some pretty cool shit to play around with (and hopefully to read)

I'm going to have to take a rain check on the psychedelics post, I'll reply tomorrow when I've got more time. I'm very curious to hear your perspective on my perspective, for lack of a better phrase, since you're making it sound like your perspective once WAS my perspective to some extent, and because what you've described sounds so very different from how I would describe it.

Originally Posted by ThisWitheredMan

I would presume that the drug use is there to enable access TO content, not to enable creation of new content. I don't necessarily know where insights come from, I wouldn't imagine anyone CREATES them, I would imagine that the pool of knowledge is complete and immemorial to humanity. It seems we just access wisdom, not create it. Perhaps that's just my own experience of it, however, since I imagine it's quite possible that where I simply intuit answers or ideas, others might somehow be actively constructing them? When I write a story, for example, I don't really do all that much active THINKING, I just ask, "What can happen next? What needs to happen next?" and ideas/possibilities are thrown at me that I weigh against each other. But in some sense I am not the originator of the ideas because they appear already formed in my head as a response to the question.

WitheredMan,

I understand that one useful thing about drug experience is it shows something of the narrow and somewhat arbitrary nature of one's accustomed way of looking at the world. You see it one way for the first part of your life, then you see it another way for a few minutes or hours, and it breaks the spell. Though it doesn't show you all the different types of boxes you are in, it shows you that there are boxes. Then you can generalize from that and look for other types. I don't disagree about the value of this. I would argue though that there are other ways to get that lesson that are less damaging to the brain. More on that later in another post.

The meditation you do, by your testimony, tells you nothing about where the thoughts come from, they just seem to come out of nowhere. If you want to know more about that subject, or other subjects around and beyond that, it seems from what you've said you have to do something else. That pretty much summarizes my original point.

As I experience and understand it, it is much, much easier to access an idea if someone else has done it previously. They have found a form for the knowledge that is intelligible to other similar minds. It falls into your mind as if from nowhere because it is already in their mind, and their mind is in yours. If they hadn't discovered it, the knowledge would still be there, but you wouldn't be able to separate it from the mass of other related knowledge, and similar ways of understanding the same thing. It would be like trying to listen to every station on the radio at once, times a billion.

Even for things that other people do already understand, much is not intelligible without a lot of other thought and context such as can generally only be obtained from other effort. Certainly there are simple and profound things which can be recognized just by being still and letting it appear in your mind. But there is much else that requires a less restive form of active thinking. To know that for certain for yourself you may have do a lot of that though. Otherwise a person can point out examples, but when you look at those examples you won't see what they see, you'll just see whatever shadow of it can easily pop into your mind without the supporting experience and understanding. An aspect of this is analogous to how a person needs some level of fitness and training before being able to do gymnastics. If you sit around and eat cheetos and watch reality TV for the first part of your life, then try to do a vault, you just can't. Similarly with many thoughts. Even if they're simple at some level, they can't just drop into your mind because your mind is not able to accommodate them. I may have been in my mid 20's before I could do better than just select between thoughts that other people had come up with, and it took years of effort just to get to that point.

These first two points apply to all meditation, not just to drug assisted meditation. A third difficulty, distinct from the other two, is the one that Sageous pointed out. LSD strengthens your awareness of certain kinds of things, eclipsing other kinds of things. Even where those other things are of the simple kind that can just drop right into your mind, they can't do that if they're not understandable by the part of your mind that is heightened by the drug.

As far as what I do, I don't know where to start with that. I read this book (http://thewordfoundation.com/PDF/T%26D_14th_ver01.pdf) several times. Its at least half bullshit, but it exercises the mind in a way that most other things don't, thinking about subjects like identity, feeling, motive, consciousness, thought, eternity. I also read this (Be as you are – The teachings of sri Ramana Maharishi), which helped me learn how to move my standpoint of identity around and become aware of other people's minds, and able to think about subjects that are less of a sensate nature. Youtube videos by Gangaji will do exactly the same thing if you like videos. Most of this still falls within the realm of simple truths that fall into your mind, though the first book is somewhat less like that. Graduate level study in math helped me also, though I can't recommend that for everyone since it takes a lot of time for something that's not very useful in other regards.

Possibly the most useful exotic experience I've had is knowing something of the bliss that would be possible if a person were always able to bring an insight into focus without hardening it into a judgment. This was by grace somehow, I didn't do it myself, and it lasted an hour or two. Its like I was temporarily freed from some of the effects of millenia of having done otherwise. In that moment I was aware of the unity of feeling throughout a complexity of thought. I know it doesn't sound like much when I say it.

I could share a lot of other thoughts and experiences. But I'm still trying to wrap this up, since I'll be almost completely out of time in a few days, for more than ten years probably. I guess the main point here is that there seem to be thoughts and experiences which aren't facilitated by heightening or otherwise altering aspects of how the mind works, and I said a few things about what I see about why that is.

Originally Posted by Chimpertainment

I don’t mean to sound cold, or cruel, or vicious…but I am, so that’s the way it comes out.

I think the lack of compassion here says something. Yes its just 'a joke'. But the attitude implied by the joke is real.

I would gladly give up my life, and everything I have gained in my philosophical pursuits, if it meant that my former LSD user friends and acquaintances could have their minds back. If they could learn that lesson and preserve it for the next generation, or for a next life.

I'm not a very nice person by most measures, but I can still find it in myself to care about people in that way, including people I don't even like. I don't think its a coincidence that Hicks seems unable to do that.

He's a good example of a guy who seems witty or even insightful if you share his 'love'. But clear your mind of that and he's a mean spirited moron. Compared to most other comedy, his stuff is about as inspired as 'Christian rock' is compared to other music. Not an entirely different mindset actually, just a different god.

I hope you don't take this badly, I only mean it in relation to this particular topic, not as an attack on your person or your posts in general.

Originally Posted by ThisWitheredMan

you never find out because you cease to exist

Cease to exist? I hope not, I think we still exist in some way after death. I just don't know if it's heaven, reincarnation, or something else.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

I think the lack of compassion here says something. Yes its just 'a joke'. But the attitude implied by the joke is real.

I would gladly give up my life, and everything I have gained in my philosophical pursuits, if it meant that my former LSD user friends and acquaintances could have their minds back. If they could learn that lesson and preserve it for the next generation, or for a next life.

I'm not a very nice person by most measures, but I can still find it in myself to care about people in that way, including people I don't even like. I don't think its a coincidence that Hicks seems unable to do that.

He's a good example of a guy who seems witty or even insightful if you share his 'love'. But clear your mind of that and he's a mean spirited moron. Compared to most other comedy, his stuff is about as inspired as 'Christian rock' is compared to other music. Not an entirely different mindset actually, just a different god.

I hope you don't take this badly, I only mean it in relation to this particular topic, not as an attack on your person or your posts in general.

i dont take it badly, its just a joke.

imo, we are all cold, cruel, vicious, warm, kind, and compassionate. Its a waste of time pretending we shouldnt expose dark qualities simply because of their nature. And that is what art is for. As the greeks said: to exorcise the demons. When we express these things, it has a way of bringing them to the surface so we can deal with them. Otherwise, we just ignore their existence.

Sageous: I think Robert Waggoner is getting a bad rap on this one. Here is a quote from his book...


"Once the lucid dreamer directs questions or intentions to the awareness behind dreaming, he or she creates an opening from which to engage the subliminal or inner Self. Initially, this may require both a conceptual belief in and an emotional trust of the abstraction behind the dream. The responsive, invisible awareness behind the dream reciprocates in such a profound way as to differentiate itself from dream figures. Its response reveals a creativity, deep knowledge, and mastery that suggest the lucid dreamer has encountered a consciously aware, much larger aspect of Self. Jung hinter at this distinct possibility when he mused on the characteristics of the unconscious and suggested its creativity and spontaneity pointed to its likely existence as an inner, psychic system. Speculating further, he suggested that if it was a system, then it might possess consciousness:

'We have no knowledge of how this unconscious functions, but since it is conjectured to be a psychic system it may possibly have everything that consciousness has, including perception, apperception, memory, imagination, will, affectivity, feeling, reflection, judgment, etc., all in subliminal form.'

Jung goes on to suggest the implications of what this might mean:

'If the unconscious can contain everything that is known to be a function ogf consciousness, then we are faced with the possibility that it too, like consciousness, possesses a subject, a sort of ego...[which] brings out the real point of my argument: the fact, namely, that a second psychic system coexisting with consciousness-no matter what qualities we suspect it of possessing-is of absolutely revolutionary significance in that it could radically alter our view of the world'

Lucid dreamers, in their individually unique conscious explorations of the unconscious, often discover (independently of each other) that the responsively aware unconscious has many of these same qualities hypothesized by Jung..."

Personally, I have had such experiences when I was younger but I hope to re-explore those deep waters of my unconscious.
And I think it can be clearly seen that Waggoner is referring completely to unconscious functions of the Self and not a separate entity. He does a very good job of clarifying and qualifying his material to ensure it doesn't fall into mysticism (not that that is a bad thing).

Regarding the question of what thinking techniques different people use to get information.....

I think knowledge is like food in the sense that everyone needs more, but too much or too much of the wrong kind isn't healthy. I think this impacts our ability to get knowledge. Some stuff we have to tie ourselves in knots to learn more about, because its really not very suitable for where we're at. Other stuff comes a lot more naturally. I think becoming more ware of motive and making moral adjustments helps as much as anything. Usually the most important things are already pushing into our awareness in the form of destiny, which is why 'simply paying attention' usually makes sense. For some of my more bizarre experiences such as instantaneous telekinesis, that's all I was doing.

I figured this would be a good thread to post this in: One NASA Scientist’s Quest To Prove We’re All Trapped Inside A Video Game

Originally Posted by ThisWitheredMan

My point was that consciousness arises independently of the body, which you have disputed in your post, which is fine. My point is that this entire world and everything in it is completely illusory or deceptive, that the only truth is consciousness itself. This point is, admittedly, undebatable and perhaps a little contrived, but the general idea is that any observations made within this world are inherently deceptive and ultimately false or only approximately true or only applicable IN this world...
...In other words, all that we think we have discovered has been 'fed' to us by the process of searching for the answer, we have CREATED the answer. We do not discover particles or fields or the higgs boson, we create them because we have searched for and expected them. Prior to their discovery the universe just fudged the numbers, or more accurately, our higher conscious fudged the numbers to maintain the appearance of static laws. No matter how true something appears to be within this world, it is only true for this world, and thus ultimately not true from the inside->out perspective of consciousness...
...That is what I am suggesting, yes. According to the above theory, the room is a construct of ultimate consciousness created to be experienced by your limited conscious mind. It is 'loaded' into existence as needed and then 'unloaded' when not. Of course, I mean that more as a metaphor, it's possible that many things are kept 'in RAM', so to speak, despite not being immediately observed, but the point is basically that the room, this world, and all its rules only exist within the imagination of the ultimate mind.

A couple questions for you:

First, if consciousness arises independently of the body, and you apparently think that we cease existing at the point our bodies die, then what use is the body?

Secondly, if consciousness is the only truth and everything else is an illusion, are suggesting that consciousness is outside the parameters of experience?

"In other words, all that we think we have discovered has been 'fed' to us by the process of searching for the answer, we have CREATED the answer."

I think this is where you slip. We do not create our reality, however we do create what that reality means. No matter what discoveries we make, reality is not going to change for us. At the same time, our worldview is extremely susceptible to perspective. I can see where you draw your conclusions but I think the result is overly concrete.

"the room is a construct of ultimate consciousness created to be experienced by your limited conscious mind."

it was created to be experienced, or it is created by us experiencing it?

Originally Posted by ThisWitheredMan

I'm not sure what you mean. Reality is subject to the observer, but it also IS the observer, in an ultimate sense. The legs of a spider are subject to that spider's eyes and mind (don't know why I chose a spider, just use your imagination), but they are also OF the spider's totality. They are the same totality, so in that sense would be what you're saying?

It seems you are saying ultimate consciousness is the only true reality. Then how is that reality subject to humans? I think we are talking about two different things here. Reality is the observer yes, but you have also said all experience is an illusion. While we might be a part of that ultimate consciousness, that doesn't mean it is subject to us.

Originally Posted by ThisWitheredMan

The nice things about extrareality beliefs that can only be analyzed from a post-death perspective, is that if they're false, you never find out because you cease to exist before you get a chance to be disappointed

Why not? We are beings of consciousness and indeed considerable intelligence. How is it that we can be a part of this reality and yet not be able to experience said reality? If you are suggesting that this entire world is an illusion, then would not dreams be the ultimate tool to explore extra-reality?

What is pure consciousness in your mind? Is it electrical signals, dark matter/energy, wibbly wobbly timey whimey stuff?

Creativity, Language, Art, Music...These are productions of the consciousness within us. How are these actions loaded into our brains like the matrix?

In my estimation, you are attempting to create a division where none exists. The stuff of pure consciousness may in fact be the all encompassing nature of the universe. But I do not see that separating us from the truth or that pure consciousness.

For whatever its worth....

I think the creation of reality is constrained by rules of logic. Not the binary logic we use in math, but nevertheless a kind of self-consistency. That is an aspect of what makes it objective.

I think that if you change yourself, you definitely change reality, not just your interpretation of it. Changing the interpretation is a lot easier and faster, because though the mental models involved with interpretation are a part of reality, they're not as deep and inertial as other things like laws of physics. Fate changes too though, physics changes, and I think it must change collectively if enough people change their minds in the same way. That doesn't mean its arbitrary though, like I said, there is only a range of alternatives that will even work. A fantastically big range, but not as big as the set of inherently nonsensical alternatives.

I don't think it is necessary to die to know something about death. I think we are already far more dead than most people realize, but they don't have another state to easily compare it to. As with experiences when asleep, I think that many things that are possible when dead are also possible while waking and living, even if it is difficult.

Generally, when someone kills something and eats it, for example, they experience that from one side. There's some empathy also, even some empathy in cruelty, but they don't experience it in the same way they would if they were the victim, or if their child were the victim. History, similarly, is written by the winners. I think that to become more aware of things like where thoughts come from, a person becomes more aware of both sides of things, many sides. Then there is inescapable suffering, because others, nature's losers, do suffer, and now they are not hidden. I think there is also a joy that comes from experiencing the unity, and the beauty of the connections, that becomes possible also. But appreciating this in a stable manner requires maturity, maybe more maturity than is possible for a person to have. I think this is part of what keeps us from knowing more about metaphysical things. We can't bear the pain that a deeper view makes us aware of, and we're not capable of sustaining the depth of perspective that shows the temporary and localized nature of the pain.

Originally Posted by ShadowofWind

We can't bear the pain that a deeper view makes us aware of, and we're not capable of sustaining the depth of perspective that shows the temporary and localized nature of the pain.

Some are forced to endure that pain in the course of life and learn that perspective in order to survive mentally. Others of course fold under the pressure and that usually doesn't end well.

I swear I'm not dodging this thread, just had a hectic week, going to try responding termerrow.

Just watched a documentary called 'Quantum Activist' with Amit Goswami. It basically explains in very clear terms how all of this works and directly answers the question of the OP.

Its mental impact also made me nauseous at certain points. My worldview is changing because of this film, no joke. Everyone should watch this...

I'll check it out later. Thanks for sharing this with us.

shadowofwind: Your post was interesting and I appreciate the links very much, I'll check out both of those books and the videos you mentioned.

Originally Posted by Chimpertainment

First, if consciousness arises independently of the body, and you apparently think that we cease existing at the point our bodies die, then what use is the body?

I don't think I ever said we cease existing at the point our bodies die, my point was that I *don't* think that, I don't think we can cease existing at all. As I suggested, I think our bodies are just vessels for our essence/soul/etc. to connect to this world, like avatars.

Secondly, if consciousness is the only truth and everything else is an illusion, are suggesting that consciousness is outside the parameters of experience?

I'm not sure I understand this question. It's not necessarily that everything is illusion, because it all exists within consciousness and is thus to some extent 'true' or real relative to itself, just that this world is not so concrete or permanent as it seems. What do you mean by 'outside the parameters of experience?

I think this is where you slip. We do not create our reality, however we do create what that reality means. No matter what discoveries we make, reality is not going to change for us. At the same time, our worldview is extremely susceptible to perspective. I can see where you draw your conclusions but I think the result is overly concrete.

I disagree completely. I'm quite confident that perception is a two-way street. I'm not sure how I can justify that to you in falsifiable terms, but I definitely believe that we create our reality, that what we believe or how we see things actually influences existence beyond just influencing our perception of it. I think reality is constantly changing for us, but because we exist within it we are changed too and thus can't track the changes as they happen.

it was created to be experienced, or it is created by us experiencing it?

Why would those be mutually exclusive? The first is the why, the second is the how. It is both. We are the experiencer and the experienced, we are the room and the observer. It was created by us experiencing it in order to be experienced, like a dream. For example, all of my non-lucid dreams are, strictly speaking, much more interesting than my lucid dreams in terms of content. That is to say, what's going on, the narrative or plot or theme of the dream is almost always significantly more complex and immersive (obviously) than when I am lucid. There are elaborate stories and plots and character interactions at times, and I think this is because when I am non-lucid, my dimmed consciousness allows my mind, or subconscious or whatever you want to call the 'director' of the dream, it allows that thing to make things up, to create and hold ideas independently of my conscious awareness, so that although the ideas exist in my totality, the part of me that is "me" or my awareness, has its direct access to those ideas and that knowledge blocked, in order that the world or story can be more interesting or engaging. In other words, if I knew everything there was to be known at all times, there would be no dramatic tension or mystery or anything of interest in the dream. In this way, I am both the experiencer and the experienced, split superficially but ultimately one.

It seems you are saying ultimate consciousness is the only true reality. Then how is that reality subject to humans? I think we are talking about two different things here. Reality is the observer yes, but you have also said all experience is an illusion. While we might be a part of that ultimate consciousness, that doesn't mean it is subject to us.

What I am suggesting is that the only ultimate reality is aware consciousness. That at an ultimate level, the only thing there is is spirit or soul or awareness or consciousness, alone and infinite and pure. That everything that we know, every multiverse or dimension or fragment of reality that may or may not be, everything that can be or is, exists essentially as a vast dream of this one ultimate awareness. Humans, individually, are all this entity wearing different masks, as are animals and plants and to some extent even rocks and dirt and empty space. Every separate thing is in fact this one ultimate entity expressed in an infinity of ways. This is what I mean when I say reality is an illusion. It's real enough from its own perspective; to a Sim in SimCity, the meteors you just dropped on his neighborhood are quite real, but in an ultimate sense it is all illusory. The reality is subject to humans but the humans are also subject to the reality. I didn't mean to imply that we are somehow 'on top', because there is no on top, because there is only ONE thing, and one thing can't be above or below itself. In relative terms it could be that we are more complex or more aware than, say, a cat or a rock or empty space, and so we have greater sway over this illusory reality as 'higher expressions' (again, higher in terms of complexity/awareness, not hierarchy) of the ultimate awareness, but we're no more or less God than the rocks or the space.

Why not? We are beings of consciousness and indeed considerable intelligence. How is it that we can be a part of this reality and yet not be able to experience said reality? If you are suggesting that this entire world is an illusion, then would not dreams be the ultimate tool to explore extra-reality?

I don't know what you mean here, or in much of the rest of your post. I think we might be completely misunderstanding each other because it sounds like you're disagreeing with me but then saying the same thing I am saying. My point was that it's very possible that I am entirely wrong, that the world is very plain and simple and mundane and materialist, that all notion of spirit or spirituality is a farce created within the brain as a way for evolution to motivate us or whatever it may be. My point was that all the stuff I am saying, the premise of the inside->out analysis versus the outside->in, which again is, in the former, believing that the seat of existence is within, that everything without, all the laws and processes, are created from that inner place, versus the latter, believing that the seat of existence is without, and that everything within arises from the processes and laws of that concrete external world, my point was that both of those stances are fair stances to take and offer radically different perspectives, each with a reasonable dismissal of the opposing viewpoint, so that essentially it is impossible to know for sure which is which until we completely leave this world and step outside of the boundaries described by each theory. The Sim cannot know the ultimate nature of his reality with any certainty until he escapes the game world and looks upon it from another perspective. In our case escaping the game world doesn't necessarily mean dying, but would, I expect, require some fundamental changes to the reality we're collectively creating before we could apprehend these things without dying. Dreams MIGHT be the ultimate tool to explore extra-reality, or they might be an exploration of a substituent reality within your mind, or they might be a diversion or trick of the mind, an accident of evolution with no real meaning. We can't be sure, at least not currently, so which of the two you believe seems to be a matter of choice. Just like the choice between the inside->out vs. outside->in. Without current level of knowledge it seems we have to choose where we think reality's foundation lies.

What is pure consciousness in your mind? Is it electrical signals, dark matter/energy, wibbly wobbly timey whimey stuff?

One could only speculate. It could be one vast soul, like some kind of God entity, it could be energy, it could be The Force, it could be a simulation running in a supercomputer existing in some other place... who knows?

Creativity, Language, Art, Music...These are productions of the consciousness within us. How are these actions loaded into our brains like the matrix?

Please elaborate, not sure what you're asking.

In my estimation, you are attempting to create a division where none exists. The stuff of pure consciousness may in fact be the all encompassing nature of the universe. But I do not see that separating us from the truth or that pure consciousness.

See, this is where I get especially confused, because everything I'm trying to say is that we are NOT separate from that pure consciousness, I'm NOT creating a division, I'm saying exactly the opposite, that the divisions only exist from a relative perspective, that there is ultimately only the one thing.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

I don't think it is necessary to die to know something about death. I think we are already far more dead than most people realize, but they don't have another state to easily compare it to. As with experiences when asleep, I think that many things that are possible when dead are also possible while waking and living, even if it is difficult.

Perhaps the misunderstanding with Chimp is coming from the statement about not being able to be sure about the ultimate truth of extra-reality beliefs until we have died. My point was, as I hope I've clarified above, that all of the things we think we are experiencing as one thing or another, dreams and any sort of afterlife or WHATEVER, could very well be complex imaginary things going on within our heads. I actually do believe that it is very possible to apprehend much of this stuff while alive, but I haven't heard of anything that anyone has done that couldn't ALSO be explained, if you were so inclined, as deceptive functions of the brain, mere chemical signals limited to the space inside your skull and nothing else. I don't think that's what it is, and that's my point. I choose to believe that it is NOT that, because it makes things much more interesting to me, but if you choose to believe it IS that, you can find a very logical/rational basis for it, but the only way for each chooser to know for sure whether they were wrong or right is for their physical body to die, and for them to see firsthand if they still exist and such.

You have a fascinating philosophy, ThisWitheredMan... By chance, have you heard of or read "My Big TOE" by Thomas Campbell? It's an amazing read, but I regret that I've owned a copy for years and I've yet to get even halfway through... it's thousands of pages long and generally split into three separate books. From what I have read, though, he suggests a reality similar to your own philosophy: that is, everything ultimately derives from consciousness. He believes that this universal consciousness is subject to evolution and natural selection like anything else, but he defines the evolution of consciousness as learning and maturing. The way that Tom sees things is that an eternity ago, consciousness was undivided and didn't have the standard attributes of intelligence or self-awareness... but through random permutations and chance it started to divide itself. Anyways, to keep this short the idea is that consciousness purposely divides itself, and that the smaller parts lack the knowledge of the whole, simply because that is the best way to learn. You cannot learn without being thrust into an environment bigger than yourself. There needs to be a duality of "us" vs. "them", of "inside" vs. "outside". And of course there needs to be unknowns, things outside your control. As you said, the most interesting dreams tend to be the non-lucid ones.

That's probably enough rambling from me. It's a fascinating read though and I may need to get back to it at some point soon... I never got to the point where he supposedly explains it all scientifically (else it wouldn't be a very good Theory of Everything).

WhitheredMan:

A significant difference between a video game and the waking dream of the world, is that information about how the world works is encoded within it. A video game doesn't have anything like DNA for instance. The closest thing the video game has to DNA is in the software that encodes the thought of the designer, but that's not accessible from inside the game, unlike the situation with the world. In this sense the physical body is not a "vessel", it is known to be more than that. This isn't to say that the video game analogy fails completely, but I think this partial failure is what has been driving a lot of the discussion on this thread.

There are things about experience that can't currently be "explained" in terms of physical mechanisms by the way. Precognition and telepathy are two examples, notwithstanding that these are assumed not to exist by people who deny everything that they can't explain. There are also more common things that might not be explainable physically, with color being an example I have used before. A person can describe a lot about how the eye and the brain works, and then wave their hands and say they have explained color, but this would be like saying that you know how your computer works because you figured out how your keyboard sends signals to it.

If your belief about the nature of the physical body comes down to a matter of preference, then at some point discussion of evidence becomes futile, unless you decide that truth is always inherently more interesting than falsehood. Some people dispute that there is a meaningful distinction to be made between truth or falsehood, but that view is itself is a claim about truth, so there's no getting away from it. Not everything fits neatly into one simplistic category or another of course.

My non-lucid dreams are also a lot more interesting than my lucid ones, for the reasons you describe.

As I've probably suggested earlier, I think there's an important distinction to be made between the immediate, personal projections of meaning, and the more universal projection which is distinct from that but not entirely so. Otherwise we remain confused about what we do or do not have control over. I'm quite confused about this, but not so much so that I don't recognize it as an issue anyway. With that qualification, everything you said makes sense to me.

It is important to consider that we aren't even living in a materialistic world right now to begin with. Anything you can see, smell, touch or taste is the result of your brain interpreting the original source into electrical signals. I randomly found this video on YouTube and again my whole perception of life was changed (much like that epiphany I had).

What rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreally fucks with me is that, we apparently ARE dreaming right now. But, HOW in the hell does one wake up? Is it possible? If you were conditioned from birth to believe that it's all a dream would you be able to wake up? I don't need definite answers I'd just like to hear what you guys have to say.

Aren't the original sources of those those things you're interpreting real? I'm not trying to be difficult, but your premise of everything being a dream must mean that the "source" material is not, um, material either. Right?

As long as I'm here, I'll comment on your question with questions: If it's all a dream, that means we have no idea what waking up even means, so how would we do it (perhaps that's where transcendentalism comes from). Also, where would we be upon waking (could be a hint as to where religion and the afterlife come from)?

Also, I think you might have forgotten the link to that YouTube video, or hid it too well...

Originally Posted by Extremador

It is important to consider that we aren't even living in a materialistic world right now to begin with.

Row row row your boat....

Originally Posted by Extremador

Anything you can see, smell, touch or taste is the result of your brain interpreting the original source into electrical signals.

As Sageous already pointed out, and as I've also said so many times that other readers are probably sick of hearing it, the detailed consistency and inertia of the original source makes the waking dream fundamentally different from other dreams.

Originally Posted by Extremador

But, HOW in the hell does one wake up? Is it possible?

Its possible to dream differently, including becoming more aware of things that were not formerly recognized and projected into the dream. According to some people it is possible to stop dreaming entirely without ceasing to exist. I think this is a semantic issue though. Just because there are no pictures or sounds in a dream doesn't make it not a dream. Also, when we use the word 'dream' we're usually implying that the content is inherently illusory, but I don't think that follows. If you're misunderstanding your dream, if you're projecting information in a way that makes reality seem to be something that its not, then its an illusion. But if your dream is consistent and honest, and you're not confusing it with something else that it represents, then I don't see how it can be said to be illusory.

Part of what is confusing is that the more objective reality that the waking dream reflects has dream-like characteristics also. Your thoughts do actually affect your fate, and vice versa, in a supernatural manner. Also it is possible to incorporate information into your 'sensate' dream that does not come to you through your conventional sensate channels. Such is my experience anyway, and a lot of other people's, apparently. How to make sense of this dichotomy between the 'mental model' dream and the 'objective reality' dream beyond it? I'm thinking now that the dichotomy is only relative, that the 'mental model' is a part of the objective reality, and that the "knowledge" that is a part of it isn't fundamentally different than any other knowledge, even though it is limited. In other words, when I'm conscious of an object in my mental simulation of an object, this isn't fundamentally different than what it would be to be conscious of the object directly, with the object itself being my mental model or thought. In my mental simulation, knowledge of the object is limited and distorted, and overlaid with other stuff that isn't even directly related, but other than that its essentially the same as knowing the object fully. The mental image of the object can be accurately thought of as a part of or an extension of the object, thought the concept of a discrete 'object' starts to fail a bit here.

I had a relevant insight this morning which I will attempt to write down here, mostly to clarify it in my own mind so I don't forget it.

The waking dream is generated according to a mental framework which interprets the sense information. By the nature of the framework, some information dominates the resulting patterns at the expense of other information. As an analogy for chess or go players, imagine that information of type 'A' is in the leftmost column on the board, and information 'B' is one column closer to the center. Generally speaking, pieces in column 'B' control the board more strongly than pieces in 'A'. The power in 'A' is neglected, so to speak. Focusing your attention more on 'A' doesn't fix the problem, because it is analogous to making more moves in column 'A'. The only solution is to fundamentally alter the mental framework, so that the information is no longer organized in that manner. This may be difficult or even impossible, for a particular person in a particular context. Just being aware of the limitation is probably a useful step though.

Here's an example application. Suppose you know people who are obsessed with appearances. What they wear, who they know, what kind of car they drive, what their date looks like, where they live. You think this is shallow and destructive, and want people to not be that way. So you go around grumpy about other people's shallowness, as if you can change them by force of will. Or maybe you have a teenage child who is obsessed with appearances, so you criticize them relentlessly for it. What you're missing is that the 'shallow' mindset is a reflection of the way they process information, and no amount of pushing on that will transform it into something better, it just deforms it further. If they listen to you it causes them to hate themselves for being shallow, which makes them care even more about appearances as they try to feel better about themselves. What would 'solve' the problem is a fundamental reorganization of the way they think, but this isn't something that either of you can force. If it happens it has to develop organically in relation to the person's existing internal and external reality.

As a sort of corollary to this, information of one type is often blended with other information of another type, and highlighting one unavoidably accentuates the other in a possibly undesirable way. As a crude and probably inadequate analogy, consider the two equations x+2y=4 and x+y=3. Suppose you want to increase the value of x, so you try doing that by increasing the '4'. The result is that y increases instead and x actually gets smaller. But if we rewrite the equations as 2x+y=5 and x+y=3, now if we increase the 5 the x gets bigger, as intended. The side effect of y getting smaller may be undesirable though, and avoiding that would require separating them completely, and writing x=2 and y=1. An application here is our earlier debate about drug use. LSD does something beneficial in relation to understanding the waking dream, while also doing something counterproductive and physiologically dangerous. When TheWitheredMan says to us anti-drug skeptics, OK, tell me what techniques you guys use instead, he's essentially asking how we think the problem can be reformulated, how to change the way we think about things so that the desired transformation becomes possible. Of course we can't completely answer that, because what we is personal and doesn't doesn't entirely work either, but experience seems to provide some idea.

I realize that my metaphor will be quite a stretch for some people, that even if they follow the logic it won't connect in a deep enough way to really do much. Like I said, partially I'm just getting this clearer in my own mind, so that I can take my next minor step, and I thought it might be of interest here also. The insight itself comes out of a collective thought atmosphere, so to speak, which is psychically fed by everyone else who has relevant perspectives. (I'm sure about this now, and experience it that way.) So thank you all for your help with this.

Originally Posted by Sageous

Also, I think you might have forgotten the link to that YouTube video, or hid it too well...

Wait can you not see that I embedded the video onto the page? If not, the link: Holographic Universe (Part 1 of 5 ) its all illusion. - YouTube