The Dream of Reality

[Dean Mullen]

If consciousness essentially creates reality and observation forms reality into a defined state, then I was just wandering were is my body and thus myself when I am dreaming? I have realized that my body including my head cannot exist when I am asleep & dreaming because I am not observing it nor sensing it in anyway, this must mean that my body, brain & self does not exist when I am dreaming, yet if that is true, then what produces the dream?

 

The only possibility I can see is that all of reality is a dream and that the dream of reality and the dreams within reality which we have every night is produced from a higher level of reality beyond this world, and that would make sense of the thought "Consciousness creates reality" because in a dream, we create reality, yet we have no idea we are doing it for our sub-conscious is performing this act without us knowing, so whom knows maybe all of reality is in some sense a dream and that are sub-conscious creates it, yet it obviously has much more complex & defined properties, and that if you leave a cup on the table, turn your head away and then turn back it is still there yet in the dreams we have at night, it could mysteriously dissapear. it seems irrational but I do not see too much wrong with it honestly.

 

I also can see evidence we are all one consciousness separated in this dream with the illusion of space & time because of the unified field theory.

Edited February 5, 2011 by Dean Mullen

[steevey]

Your brain is just cycling through memories and other info. Not really anything special about dreams. When your dreaming, your probably sleeping in bed.

[IM Egdall]

Humans have been around for what, about 200,000 years. If consciousness creates reality, does this mean that the universe did not exist before there were humans? What about the 13.7 or so billion years that our universe has existed before humans arrived on Earth? And what if human beings go extinct? Does the entire universe then cease to exist? I don't buy this consciousness creates reality stuff.

 

Oh, and the unified field theory was an attempt by Einstein to unite Maxwell's electromagnetism theory and general relativity. He failed to do this.

[michel123456]

On one side of the balance, reality, on the other side, dreams. Reality is somehow explainable, events happening in reality follow laws, mathematical, physical, cause & effect, etc. On the other side, the world of dreams is irrational, laws don't exist or are contradicted, bizarre cause strange effects, effects are produced without cause.

 

1. I really don't know why we should prefer something that is completely irrational (dreams) in order to explain something rational (reality).

 

2. When you dream, you still exist. Otherwise, as you asked, "what produces the dream?". Dreams have been studied. When you are asleep, you don't dream all the time. If you're interested, as a beginning there is a long wikipedia article.

 

3. In most case I can discern whether I am dreaming or not: when awake, it is not so difficult but when asleep there is some issue.

When I am in a very strange situation, I usually says "it is a dream" and open my eyes. It happens when I want to run and my feet don't move, or when I want to push something and my arms are frozen. Or when I fly, or when I go back into the past, at school or at the army, or encountering some relative that has passed away a long time ago. In some way I have learned to insert rationality in my dreams and can escape at will. It does not work all the time though.

[TonyMcC]

3. In most case I can discern whether I am dreaming or not: when awake, it is not so difficult but when asleep there is some issue.

When I am in a very strange situation, I usually says "it is a dream" and open my eyes.

When I am asleep and dream I never know I am dreaming. For example if I am afraid in my dream and snap awake I remain afraid until I have worked out "it was only a dream".

Edited February 5, 2011 by TonyMcC

[Marat]

If external reality ceased to exist while you were dreaming, then the roof falling in on you while you were dreaming would not kill you, but of course it does.

 

Up until the last gasp of that problem around the time of Wittgenstein, some philosophers used to make heavy weather of the fact that since what we experience is only the interaction between our mind and stimuli from the outside world, our reality is in fact just this interaction, but not objective reality, which is defined as the stimuli in themselves, if they could be 'known' by a mind which would not change them by its very act of perceiving and understanding them.

 

The apparent puzzle is solved by realizing that the 'reality' we share with each other, to which our language and science refer, and which is the only reality that matters is the world which is the vector-product of the typical way our perceptions influence the stimuli that act on them, not the 'world-in-itself' of physical stimuli which underlie that interaction.

[steevey]

On one side of the balance, reality, on the other side, dreams. Reality is somehow explainable, events happening in reality follow laws, mathematical, physical, cause & effect, etc. On the other side, the world of dreams is irrational, laws don't exist or are contradicted, bizarre cause strange effects, effects are produced without cause.

 

1. I really don't know why we should prefer something that is completely irrational (dreams) in order to explain something rational (reality).

 

2. When you dream, you still exist. Otherwise, as you asked, "what produces the dream?". Dreams have been studied. When you are asleep, you don't dream all the time. If you're interested, as a beginning there is a long wikipedia article.

 

3. In most case I can discern whether I am dreaming or not: when awake, it is not so difficult but when asleep there is some issue.

When I am in a very strange situation, I usually says "it is a dream" and open my eyes. It happens when I want to run and my feet don't move, or when I want to push something and my arms are frozen. Or when I fly, or when I go back into the past, at school or at the army, or encountering some relative that has passed away a long time ago. In some way I have learned to insert rationality in my dreams and can escape at will. It does not work all the time though.

 

Dreaming is completely rational because your cycling through information specific to you and using the imaginative capabilities to form images you can understand.

 

If external reality ceased to exist while you were dreaming,

 

 

There's no external or internal anything, there's just this one thing thats the universe where all visible things are made up of this stuff called matter. All the atoms that are in your brain allowing you to dream were once apart of other things, such as living things, the ground, a meteorite, and even stars.

Edited February 5, 2011 by steevey

[Dean Mullen]

Humans have been around for what, about 200,000 years. If consciousness creates reality, does this mean that the universe did not exist before there were humans? What about the 13.7 or so billion years that our universe has existed before humans arrived on Earth? And what if human beings go extinct? Does the entire universe then cease to exist? I don't buy this consciousness creates reality stuff.

 

Oh, and the unified field theory was an attempt by Einstein to unite Maxwell's electromagnetism theory and general relativity. He failed to do this.

 

 

I said consciousness not humans, and consciousness on earth has been around for about 3 billion years but the first consciousness was around for up to 10 billion years lets say on alien planets, I cannot tell you if it was 10 billion but it was probably more than 3 billion years, and quantum physics highly suggests that consciousnes creates reality, the double split experiment clearly reflects the concept that the act of observation creates one possibility from an infinite realm of possibilites for the particular object one observes and that the wave function that states reality does not exist as such is destroyed, in other words consciousness creates reality, just check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4Z8CqAiYI8 this link, its a bbc horizon about that topic and shows how the evidence is growing towards consciousness creates reality as a fact amazingly.

 

On one side of the balance, reality, on the other side, dreams. Reality is somehow explainable, events happening in reality follow laws, mathematical, physical, cause & effect, etc. On the other side, the world of dreams is irrational, laws don't exist or are contradicted, bizarre cause strange effects, effects are produced without cause.

 

1. I really don't know why we should prefer something that is completely irrational (dreams) in order to explain something rational (reality).

 

2. When you dream, you still exist. Otherwise, as you asked, "what produces the dream?". Dreams have been studied. When you are asleep, you don't dream all the time. If you're interested, as a beginning there is a long wikipedia article.

 

3. In most case I can discern whether I am dreaming or not: when awake, it is not so difficult but when asleep there is some issue.

When I am in a very strange situation, I usually says "it is a dream" and open my eyes. It happens when I want to run and my feet don't move, or when I want to push something and my arms are frozen. Or when I fly, or when I go back into the past, at school or at the army, or encountering some relative that has passed away a long time ago. In some way I have learned to insert rationality in my dreams and can escape at will. It does not work all the time though.

 

1. I don't think you are understand what I am saying, I am basing the idea on the quantum physics theories that suggest consciousness creates reality and destroys the wave function and develops a one possibility seemingly solid & defined reality, basically I am saying if consciousness brings reality into existence then my body which is part of reality does not exist, thus I do not exist when I am not observing myself.

 

2. I am not saying reality is like a dream that you would have during the night, I know there is rational laws of physics but I believe reality is a different form of reality and it makes sense that the entire reality is within our consciousness as the holographic universe would support this and the idea that reality is a drema really fits the concept consciousness creates reality as quantum physics suggests, I cannot describe in what way it is a dream but if you study wave functions and the collapse of it, it seems reality is a dream & it must be.

 

If external reality ceased to exist while you were dreaming, then the roof falling in on you while you were dreaming would not kill you, but of course it does.

 

Up until the last gasp of that problem around the time of Wittgenstein, some philosophers used to make heavy weather of the fact that since what we experience is only the interaction between our mind and stimuli from the outside world, our reality is in fact just this interaction, but not objective reality, which is defined as the stimuli in themselves, if they could be 'known' by a mind which would not change them by its very act of perceiving and understanding them.

 

The apparent puzzle is solved by realizing that the 'reality' we share with each other, to which our language and science refer, and which is the only reality that matters is the world which is the vector-product of the typical way our perceptions influence the stimuli that act on them, not the 'world-in-itself' of physical stimuli which underlie that interaction.

 

 

I am not talking about the holographic universe reality I am talking about quantum reality, I can tell from your and everyone elses reply here tha you didn't realize I am refering to the observation effect that states "atoms exist as a wave function and when a conscious observer looks at it, one possible state comes into existence" in other words consciousness creates reality. It is the work of niels bohr. if you want to know more check out this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4Z8CqAiYI8 its a bbc horizon documentary on the quantum reality, that is what I mean by consciousness creates reality.

[Marat]

It all comes down to how you define 'reality.' If reality were significantly subjective in the sense that all observers were creating their own independent realities, then social cooperation, language, politics, and all the complex forms of sharing reality we observe everyday would not exist. The significance of the quantum mechanics effects you describe occurs far below the level on which we locate the term 'reality.'

[lemur]

If consciousness essentially creates reality and observation forms reality into a defined state, then I was just wandering were is my body and thus myself when I am dreaming? I have realized that my body including my head cannot exist when I am asleep & dreaming because I am not observing it nor sensing it in anyway, this must mean that my body, brain & self does not exist when I am dreaming, yet if that is true, then what produces the dream?

 

The only possibility I can see is that all of reality is a dream and that the dream of reality and the dreams within reality which we have every night is produced from a higher level of reality beyond this world, and that would make sense of the thought "Consciousness creates reality" because in a dream, we create reality, yet we have no idea we are doing it for our sub-conscious is performing this act without us knowing, so whom knows maybe all of reality is in some sense a dream and that are sub-conscious creates it, yet it obviously has much more complex & defined properties, and that if you leave a cup on the table, turn your head away and then turn back it is still there yet in the dreams we have at night, it could mysteriously dissapear. it seems irrational but I do not see too much wrong with it honestly.

It is interesting to experiment with consciousness-shifting and, with caution, you can develop the ability to draw on various forms/modes of consciousness for insight without latching onto one or the other as the ultimate replacement for materialist reality. Obviously if you actively dismiss materialist consciousness you will encounter numerous protests from other material entities, both living and non-living.

I also can see evidence we are all one consciousness separated in this dream with the illusion of space & time because of the unified field theory.

This is also an interesting idea - one that can help with experiencing certain religious beliefs. Be careful, though, because it can also lead to notions of ESP and people otherwise being able to connect with each other sub-consciously, hear each others thoughts, etc. You don't want to start obsessing about the possibility that people are listening to your thoughts because such thoughts can provoke as strong a reaction as the patriot act did by legalizing wire-tapping.

 

 

 

Up until the last gasp of that problem around the time of Wittgenstein, some philosophers used to make heavy weather of the fact that since what we experience is only the interaction between our mind and stimuli from the outside world, our reality is in fact just this interaction, but not objective reality, which is defined as the stimuli in themselves, if they could be 'known' by a mind which would not change them by its very act of perceiving and understanding them.

I think Plato's cave is an early rendering of this idea. I don't think it's that difficult of a concept to deal with. It's like knowing that your sensory perceptions are like the view-finder of a video camera where you cannot see the world beyond the camera except through the camera. So you can use your sensory data to interpolate what might be outside the camera causing the images to appear as they do, but you just have no way of somehow circumventing the camera. You can use the camera to look through microscopes, telescopes, magnifying glasses, infrared lenses, etc. but you're always stuck with the camera itself. It's a frustrating concept, admittedly, but it doesn't prevent you from making claims about what could be going on outside the camera.

 

The apparent puzzle is solved by realizing that the 'reality' we share with each other, to which our language and science refer, and which is the only reality that matters is the world which is the vector-product of the typical way our perceptions influence the stimuli that act on them, not the 'world-in-itself' of physical stimuli which underlie that interaction.

And yet it remains possible to consider the existence of physical stimuli beyond "the typical way our perceptions influence the stimuli that act on them."

 

It all comes down to how you define 'reality.' If reality were significantly subjective in the sense that all observers were creating their own independent realities, then social cooperation, language, politics, and all the complex forms of sharing reality we observe everyday would not exist. The significance of the quantum mechanics effects you describe occurs far below the level on which we locate the term 'reality.'

I think this is a common misuse of the concept of "subjective." I.e. many people assume that subjectivity is necessarily individually unique and that harmonization among different individuals' subjectivity can't and doesn't occur. Therefore, they assume, anything that people widely commonly agree on must transcend subjectivity. In fact, all those social interaction forms you mentioned are often used to (re)produce and enforce institutional consistencies among individuals' subjectivity. It's like with time: it upsets people tremendously if everyone sets their clocks to their own arbitrary time setting, so people set their clocks to prevent punitive effects of not doing so, such as missing trains, showing up late for meetings, etc. Fashion is a better example because it is such an obviously arbitrary/subjective aesthetic. People could choose to dress in any way possible, but they often choose to base their choices on tastes derived from familiarity with "fashion-trends." But even if everyone thinks basic black is always in fashion, it's still not more than subjective.