What are dreams? Why do we spend a third or more of our life dreaming? Why can’t we function without them?
Dreaming is essential to life. Like eating or breathing we simply must do it. However, we know very little of what dreaming is or why we do it. Physically we can probe the brain, such as neuron patterns and physical responses, but understanding our conscientiousness is out of the scientific grasp.
I read an interesting idea about dreaming: “How do we know the waking life is the aspect wen live for in life. Perhaps we live to dream.” What if we are awake to only eat and to find shelter. What if sleep is what we live for?
I considered this thought. Then, one night while on the cusp of sleep, I was struck with a thought – or rather a sensation: a 'pathway' coming from my mind to the universe. On this pathway were my waking experiences. All the things I was exposed to during the day existed in a world beyond me. It was like my dreams were feeding the universe.
How does something as intangible as dreams affect the physical realm? My argument is they are equally as real, or not real, as each other.
When we observe the world around us we see solidness. Our bodies appear solid - we can’t just walk through walls, we can hold a rock, a breeze goes around our bodies. However, the closer you examine our world the more it is an illusion. Atoms are 99.99+% empty space; therefore we are mostly empty space. “If you could take away the empty space then all the subatomic particles in all the six billion people on planet earth would pack into a volume only a little larger than a grain of rice.” One could say our physical reality is a dream – it is an idea of something that is not truly there.
So how can we be sure what we are living in is not a dream? If it is does that make the dreamer is God?
Martin Luther King Jr.'s most famous line is “I have a dream.” His dream attracted the power of millions of people to help it come true. It turns out MLK was a powerful dreamer. What about other people who altered the course of history such as Jesus, Muhammad, Siddhartha, Gandhi, and the countless others whose influence is still felt today, were they powerful dreamers? I, of course, think yes and I believe they pulled their dream into our shared reality.
Most people are weak dreamers. There are many reasons for this; bad sleep patterns, a cluttered mind, drinking before bed, and electronic interference from the environment are among some reasons. However, sleep and dreams can be improved. Lucid dreaming has always interested me, which is the art of controlling ones dreams. I believe meditation is a form of lucid dreaming and is a good way to strengthen ones mind (both conscious and unconscious) to improve dreaming. This is the first step – controlling ones dreams instead of being a passenger. It is important because what if a strong dreamer can create a new reality, the same way we may exist in Gods’ dream which she created.
Most people’s dreams are like bubbles – look at it too hard and it will pop. However, a strong dream will survive and sustain itself, much like a fission reaction.
It makes sense that a powerful dreamer like Jesus can pull his dream into reality. He already moves in the perfect flow of life, so what if he can also control his dreams absolutely (that is, his dreams are sustainable). The next step is to not just communicate, but to share the experience of the dream with other people. The dream is now a collective dream and the people’s power feeds it. This is how one manifests a dream into reality.
We all have unique dreams. We should all be creating new and sustainable realities all the time. The key is to strengthen the individual mind. Practice lucid dreaming. Play with different levels of conscious in an attempt to control oneself. Most importantly meditate.
Our universe is very much infinite – dreams creating dreams creating dreams.
