Dreams and other Altered States of Consciousness
An Upgrade to Higher Awareness
Image credit: Karolina Daria Flora
An
underlined assumption in our society is that everyday waking consciousness is
the truest expression of how things are out there in “objective” reality. We assume it to be
more valid than say dream states or other forms of Altered States of
Consciousness (ASC) such as visions, trance, hypnosis, meditative states or
hallucinations brought on by substances such as ayahuasca.
But
what if this assumption is wrong? What if the realms we visit in an ASC such as
dreams, are in fact just as valid, real and important (or perhaps more so)
than everyday waking consciousness?
Evidence
from perception science as well as quantum physics suggest this may in fact be
the case. Furthermore, a deeper look into the ASC phenomenon itself reveals it
may be more valuable than many of us appreciate today with dramatic
implications for humanity on an individual and collective level.
The Science Behind Our Experience
The
brain does a lot of work behind the scenes to create a coherent, stable and
predictable experience.
The following are two examples from perception that demonstrate this: Colour
vision and the blind spot test.
Colour is Created by the Brain
As
Sir Isaac Newton famously said:
“… the rays to speak properly are not
coloured. In them there is nothing else than a certain power an disposition to
stir up a sensation of this or that colour”
-Sir Isaac Newton (1730)
Colour
perception happens through a reaction between light of varying wavelengths that
enter the eye and photoreceptor cells in the eye known as cones. Information
about the wavelength of light is then sent via an electrical signal to the
brain, which is perceived as colour. What this process reveals is that colour
perception (and in fact all perception) tells us some information about the
nature of the world out there, but there is no separating this out of the
subjective experience. Put another way, there is nothing inherently “red” about
an apple, apples appear red to us because of the nature of our visual system.
Another
visual system could very well tell us different things about the objective
world around us. In fact, the visual spectrum of light only describes the light
visible to humans, not that it is impossible to perceive light of other
wavelengths, for instance the honeybee can perceive ultra violet light.
Filling in What Should be There
Another
perception myth is that information out there comes in and is interpreted in a
clean unbiased fashion.
There are many examples of how this is not
the case, but the blind spot experiment is a quick way to access how the brain
fills in gaps continually without you even knowing it.
There
is a blind spot in the middle of the eye in the center of your field of vision.
This is because there is a total lack of photoreceptor cells where the optic
nerve connects to the retina. How do we never notice this? Try the following
demonstration:
Close
your left eye and look at the square with your right eye. Move closer to
your computer. As you do so there should be a point where the red circle
disappears and is replaced by a blue one. Keep looking at the red square with your right eye, if
you look at the blue square the red circle with reappear.
You
can see here that your brain cleverly accounts for the blind spot not by merely
extending the immediate surrounding (i.e. you don’t just see a white spot for
instance), but actually
accounts for the whole picture and interprets what is most likely
missing. This is one example of what is known in psychology
as top
down processing.
What
I hope these examples illustrate is that although we assume our waking
experience reflects the world out there, the line is less clear-cut.
Now
take a look around you, the coherent integrated and seamless view before you is
actually a product of your brain, which took a rough sketch of sensory input
and built this scene for you. This begs the question, could it be that
the seemingly stable and predictable experience of everyday waking consciousness
has merely fooled us into believing this is how things truly are?
The Nature of Everyday Waking Consciousness
The
tricks our brain plays during a normal ordinary conscious state lead us to make
conclusions about the nature of reality that are erroneous, such as how “solid”
a solid object is. We now know that everything is made up of tiny vibrating
particles that are mostly empty space. But this is not what we see when we look
at solid objects, why would this be? Possibly because it is not generally
useful for survival purposes.
Waking
consciousness is good for getting around, like crossing the street. In fact, it
evolved for this purpose. This does not necessarily imply
it is the truest reflection of how things are.
Quantum Physics and the ASC Phenomenon
There
is a great deal of similarity between the nature of reality at the quantum
level
and the reality one encounters in an ASC. For instance, the world at the
quantum level is made up of potential. Take the famous double slit experiment:
Here
we can see at a fundamental level, matter behaves in a less defined fashion
until met with something that aims to define it, in this case the measuring
apparatus. This leads to one of the hardest implications to grasp about the
potential nature of reality: That it may be more a sea of
potential waiting to be interpreted then stable and predictable mass and
structure.
Interestingly,
the ASC phenomenon exhibits many similarities to an interaction with a sea of
potential. Consider dreams:
In order to
create a dream, the mind accomplishes a powerful feat. It scans an individual’s
past experiences, incorporates potential experiences (such as fears or hopes)
and even integrates fantastical and imaginary ones as well (such as flying),
tying these all into a narrative we recall as a dream.
In
a sense the mind uses potential to create the dream experience, much like the
act of perception may be interacting with quantum potential to create the
experience of matter, as shown in the experiment when “watching” the electron
revealed it to behaved as a particle.
If
at a fundamental level reality is potential, the notion an ASC is more “real”
than everyday waking consciousness may in fact be a closer to the truth. In fact, perhaps ASC experiences allow us to perceive and interact with
this potential more than ordinary consciousness permits.
The Importance of ASC
As
stated earlier, ordinary waking consciousness serves a function, mainly to get by
and survive. What about the ASC phenomenon, what is its purpose?
One
thing to realize is that the ability to experience an ASC is absolutely
universal to all of us since our species appeared on this planet.
Interested individuals can read more about this in Graham Hancock’s Supernatural.
What
many who research this phenomenon find is that there an undeniable element of
self reflection with the purpose of eliciting learning, or the realization of
something, whether it be about the self, society, the purpose of life, etc.
As
dream researcher and advocate Montague Ullman stated:
“There is a magical mirror in this place we
find ourselves while dreaming. It is a mirror capable of reflecting a
profoundly honest picture of who we are rather than who we would like to think
we are or who we would like others to think we are…. The view reflected back …
is a view without pretense. It is the truth, as close as we can get to whatever
we mean by subjective truth. In a sense it is a privileged portrait of
intrinsic value to a dreamer in search of a more honest self-concept.”
-
Montague
Ullman (1993)
Perhaps
there is an optional upgrade to our consciousness available through ASC.
Although we can get by with the regular model (our everyday consciousness), for
those of us who seek something deeper, something richer out of life, there is
the ASC. Here we are able to access a higher level of awareness, beyond
surviving to thriving.
Implications of ASC Individually and Collectively
The
unpredictable nature of the ASC experience coupled with our poor understanding of their function
has led to their fundamental devaluing in our society. This can be compared to
more so-called “primitive” cultures where a great deal of importance and
significance is often placed on these states.
It
may be time to ask ourselves, have we lost something important?
Perhaps
ATC including dreams, meditative states, etc. are the lesson, the classroom so
to speak, and waking reality is the exam. By missing the message by
denying our self the chance to encounter them, we may be showing up to an exam
unprepared.
Sources
For more information about (your) consciousness see http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/consciousness
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