Dreams, Reality and Realities, Purpose

Dreams, Reality and Realities, Purpose
Sunday Read from David Amerland searching for truth.
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Originally shared by David Amerland

Truth…

The structural theory of organic chemistry was uncovered thanks to a traffic jam in Clapham in 1855 (http://goo.gl/LDxfFF). It allowed August Kekule to understand the way organic compounds are formed and opened up a branch of chemistry that completely change dour world.

Dreams and dreaming it appears are not a uniquely human trait (http://goo.gl/FkIWJg). We now know that we dream to learn as well as unlearn (http://goo.gl/e9JHGC), relieve tension (https://goo.gl/9Z9cyb), find solutions to vexing problems (https://goo.gl/wHhm4W). Dreams, psychologists think are an extension of the waking mind, a creative process that calls into being extraordinary resources that are not constrained by the perceived boundaries of logic.

In the past dreams were considered to be messages. The dream phase was the medium through which the gods reached out to man and communicated with us (https://goo.gl/Pz7DYU). Sleep (and dreaming) may indeed allow the brain to work in ways that the ancient way of seeing it may not be that far off: https://goo.gl/hLeAzU.

Freud considered dreams to be the “royal road to the unconscious” and worked in his Interpretation of Dreams (https://goo.gl/NJgbLz) to create a commonly accepted means of decoding the symbolic language of dreams (http://goo.gl/9Zrvek). While many of Freud’s theories have come to be re-examined, his idea that the sleeping brain tries to communicate with us in dreams has never lost traction. For those of you who want to dive, even a little, in Freud’s work, that particular tome can be found here: http://goo.gl/AdvZJY.

Popular compilations of dream symbology (http://goo.gl/iv1E74) have been with us for a very long time (http://goo.gl/57kHzQ) so it’s no surprise that we also want to learn to control our dreams, harnessing their power and the brain’s ability to simply do things in that mental space. Lucid dreaming (https://goo.gl/o4woAz) has often been touted as a shortcut of sorts to self-realization (https://goo.gl/SQJF3g).

Lucid dreaming has given birth to a brand new science (https://goo.gl/ICh7Kl) where the power of the brain is examined in a different space.

Mindfulness practitioners (https://goo.gl/NIoWhK) see the work being done in this space as a natural extension of our understanding of what is mind, a next-step in our ability to harness what’s hidden between our ears: https://goo.gl/p03FfV. In Buddhist psychology this is seen as a next stage on our path to inner peace, contentment and, maybe, enlightenment: http://goo.gl/nhCecy.

The point to all this (and there is a deeper point) is that when we start to look at what is mind we see parallels linking us, higher complex beings with the humblest of insects. Our dreaming mind, shares the same dream landscape and, arguably, functions, with those of forager bees.

Without wanting to get too poetic (http://goo.gl/bjvhYe) on the subject, a dreamscape is the place where mind finds existence across all of life. Some of my favorite poets like William Blake (http://goo.gl/9G5FSI) and Arthur Hugh Clough (https://goo.gl/HWW4ZH) whose poem, The Shadow (http://goo.gl/3wNOpx) features in The Shade (https://goo.gl/V6kFFl) a fantasy novel whose concepts I frequently have on my mind.

We are bound by consciousness. Our lives, whether we acknowledge it or not, are expressions of a greater, force of computational awareness that permeates all of the universe. Matter, inanimate and ever-present, self-organizes and becomes aware everywhere (http://goo.gl/r7ozQY). There are few places without life, apparently: http://goo.gl/kjhCf2 and therefore there a few places in the universe without mind. In that sense our existence has a higher purpose (https://goo.gl/qVo4SX) and we have a deeper role to play than we might think (https://goo.gl/KxIpWc).

A sense of purpose is what drives us. It’s what makes us wake up in the morning and go through the process of expanding a greater amount of energy than what is necessary just to keep us alive. Purpose makes us do things, think things, dream things. We should be aware of this broader context of who we are and what we do each time we start to think small, petty, self-constraining thoughts.

I hope you chose right and have, this weekend, coffee aplenty, donuts, croissants, cookies and chocolate cake to draw energy from and time to enjoy it all. Have an awesome Sunday, wherever you are.