The Conscious Physics of Dreams

Hi,

In response to my previous post, someone asked,

Question:

"Ok, but when I'm dreaming I'm still experiencing almost the same as when I'm completely awake in the physical world. My consciousness gets easily tricked and I confound my dream with reality.

Therefore my question: where are those essential particles and energy that constitute reality and make my consciousness when I'm dreaming?"

Answer:

Thanks so much for this question! It offers a really wonderful opportunity to exhibit the explanatory power of my simple and scientific Principles of The Physics of Consciousness.

First we state the relevant Principles.

1. All the physical Energy created in the Big Bang possessed, and still possesses, Consciousness as an intrinsic property, in fact, physical Energy is exactly equal to physical Energy, E = C.

2. Similarly physical formations of conscious Energy experience similar conscious states within themselves. For example, your conscious experience is more similar to another human’s than to that of an octopus.

3. Like all the physical phenomena of our Universe, Consciousness is a local phenomenon; physico-conscious forms have more of an effect on one another’s conscious states the closer they are to one another. For example, you can affect a nearby friend’s Consciousness more than that of a friend on a different continent.

Now let's use these simple scientific Principles to construct a conscious-physiological model of the brain that includes dreaming.

Conscious Energy came into existence in the Big Bang, and it is capable of taking on many different physical forms possessing correspondingly different physical properties. And each physical form privately experiences within itself, the subjective conscious experience corresponding to that physical form. For example, you, yourself, within your exact physical configuration of physical energy and particles at any moment, experience the exact subjective conscious experience corresponding to that configuration of conscious Energy and particles.

Over the course of the billions of years of terrestrial evolution, many distinct physico-conscious forms have come into existence possessing many distinct conscious properties and abilities. Today we focus on the human brain and central nervous system.

The central nervous system is a complex formation of Conscious Energy and particles that, as its name already suggests, generates and experiences an individual centre of Consciousness within some physical region within itself.

Its network of conscious nerve fibres extends throughout the body, and is in physico-conscious connection with the body. Via this network of nerve fibres, it centralises conscious transmissions of conscious experience from throughout the body to your centre of Consciousness. It also sends conscious transmissions outwards to the body surrounding it.

Now, the centre of Consciousness of your central nervous system, which is your personal centre of Consciousness, is situated within your brain, and, thus, it is most immediately surrounded by your brain.

And your brain works by way of specific “brain regions” or “centres”. So, for example, the occipital lobe, is a region of the brain at the back of your head, that is responsible for visual conscious experience. Then there are different centres associated with auditory, and linguistic Consciousness, as well as smell and movement etc.

This has all been empirically established by modern neuroscience, where scientists can use brain scanning technologies to watch in real time, as specific regions of the brain light up corresponding to specific conscious experiences and functions.

Now, let's explain what's happening here by way of the Principles of The Physics of Consciousness.

We begin with a thought experiment that I encourage you to carry out. In this experiment we are going to consciously choose to change the particular regions of your brain that you are using and consciously experiencing, within your centre of Consciousness at the moment.

Thought experiment: Stop reading, close your eyes, and think of, and visualise, your favorite person, or animal, or cartoon character, or what have you.

In the performance of this experiment, you consciously chose to change the regions of your brain that your centre of Consciousness is in physico-conscious energetic connection with, from the regions associated with reading, to the regions associated with visual imagination.

And this can be empirically verified; Neuroscientists could scan your brain during this experiment, and observe the different regions that light up corresponding to the two conscious activities.

Now, let's say you chose to imagine your mom’s face. When you saw her in your mind’s eye, what was going on? ( And don't worry for the moment about how dimly and fleetingly she might have appeared, we’ll explain this dimness later in the essay. ) Did a miniature mom materialise within your skull that you could then gaze upon? No, of course not. We know what exists within your brain, and that is neurons, gray matter, and no mini-mommies.

So, what's going on? Well, since all Energy and matter is conscious, so are all neurons. And neurons can be configured into different physical configurations. The physical reconfigurability of neurons is known, technically, as “Neuronal Plasticity”.

And since all Energy is conscious, each different physical configuration of neurons, experiences within itself a different subjective conscious experience.

So, when you imagine your mom, your centre of Consciousness connects with the regions of your brian dedicated to visual imagination, and willfully and intuitively configures them into a configuration, that when connected with your centre of Consciousness, is experienced within your centre of Consciousness, as vague visual perception of your mom’s face.

This does not mean that the individual neurons involved in the imaginative construction of the image, also individually experience conscious experience anything like you do. Rather, they continue to experience normal neuronal conscious experience, whatever that may be.

Neurons are conscious, and their Consciousness affects the nearby and connected Consciousness of your centre of Consciousness, in such a way, depending on how they are physically configured, that you experience visual perception of your mom within your centre of Consciousness.

Here’s a great analogy: Have you ever seen when a large crowd of people each holds a coloured placard above their heads to create a larger image in combination? They're really good at this in North Korea.

The people in the crowd are like the individual neurons in the imaginative region of your brain; none of these individuals is conscious of the overall picture they're contributing to, but, rather, continue to experience their personal conscious experience of being within the crowd.

Your centre of Consciousness, that is you, are like a king, up above the crowd, demanding to see a pic of their mom.

Visual imagination like this, is a very advanced conscious technology that has taken billions of years to evolve here on Earth, out of the basic conscious Energy of our Universe. And it is a conscious skill that can be further developed with practice; visual artists who work from their imaginations are much better at it than normal, for example.

Memory works in a very similar way. Your waking Consciousness is connected to the memory centres of your brain ( a connection that energetically intensifies whenever something novel occurs ), and this physico-conscious connection leaves a physico-conscious imprint in the configuration of the neurons there.

When you want to remember something, your centre of Consciousness connects with the relevant memory centres, and willfully and intuitively searches for the desired event, and then perceives it, if it's there.

Conscious skills like this are developed through billions of years of conscious experience, that, here on Earth, over very long periods of time, has resulted in the evolution of our complex, powerful and imaginative human brains.

Now, we can tackle dreaming, although these preliminary considerations make things pretty obvious, so, you might want to stop reading here and see if you can work it out for yourself. The great thing about my theory is that it's so simple, logical and intuitive that the principles can be quickly taught and then employed by other thinkers.

As mentioned in the previous essay, sleep is not the end of Consciousness, but, rather, the conscious perception of nothing, or almost nothing. Sleep is a meditative state in which your centre of Consciousness withdraws ( or very significantly reduces ) its physico-conscious connections to the rest of your central nervous system surrounding it. Thus, sleep is experienced as nothingness, because the conscious witness that is your centre of Consciousness, is witnessing nothing ( or almost nothing, some external inputs can still break through into your reduced, sleepy Consciousness, and you still have some vague perception of the passage of time ).

Animals have evolved the conscious ability to dream, in order to review aspects of waking life, as well as to consolidate new memories and learning, and to strengthen new neuronal pathways throughout the nervous system.

So, for one example, let's say, one day something very significant happens to you. This will generate significant activity in the memory centres of your brain, which have evolved to be more sensitive to more significant experiences.

Now, your brain immediately surrounds your centre of Consciousness, and Consciousness is local, so, the increased conscious activity of your memory centres will have a tendency to affect and reconnect with your centre of Consciousness. Indeed, since dreaming has certain evolutionary benefits, your brain has evolved to be prone to this type of reconnection during R.E.M. sleep, for the reasons mentioned above.

Once your centre of Consciousness has reconnected with the areas of your brain involved in dreaming, you consciously experience neuronal simulations of events inspired by events from your waking life, in order to be better prepared, as well as better configured neuronally, for possible similar events in your future waking life.

Now the fundamental physical reasons for the differences between our waking lives and our dream lives have become obvious.

When you are awake, you are in significant physico-conscious connection with your local physical Universe. In dramatic contrast, when you’re dreaming, you're in physico-conscious connection only with certain, much smaller, subsets of your own brain. This has a lot of quite obvious repercussions.

Firstly, it means that, when dreaming, you’re in physico-conscious connection with a very much reduced density of conscious Energy and particles. This is why you could only visualise your mother very dimly and fleetingly, or, to use a very beautiful phrase, “as if through a glass darkly”.

When you look at your mom while you're awake, you enter into physico-conscious connection with the density of Energy and particles forming her actual physical face. Thus, you are receiving conscious information from an exceedingly large number of particles.

When you're imagining or dreaming her face, on the other hand, you are connecting with the very much smaller number of neurons that are being used in your imaginative construction of her face. This is why the image is comparatively so insubstantial and fleeting.

Secondly, the neurons of your brain are used to being under the control of your centre of Consciousness. You can use your visual imagination to imagine flying, and, thus, when you're dreaming you can imagine that you can fly, and sometimes your brain will accede to your wishes and you can fly.

In contrast, when you're awake, you are connected to your surrounding, external physical Universe, over which you have very little conscious control, thus, no matter how hard you will to fly, you're not going to.

Hence, we arrive at the two main reasons you know the difference between your dreams and your real life.

1. Your dreams are always much dimmer and more insubstantial than waking life, because they are formed out of such lower densities of conscious Energy and particles surrounding your centre of Consciousness.

2. You have much more conscious control over your dream realities, because they are formed out of the neurons of your brain, which you are used to being controlled by your centre of Consciousness. This is why the laws of physics are never violated in your waking life, but they are regularly in your dreams. Your waking life is in connection with the rest of our Universe, which behaves in a consistent and intelligible way over time, which is why your waking life forms a logical, consistent and continuous narrative over the whole course of your life. In contrast, your dreams are fleeting experiences, within illogical, inconsistent, and very small and diaphanous, neuronal sub-universes confined entirely within your own skull, where the laws of physics are regularly broken, and sudden changes in scene and action are commonplace.

You can confirm the above model of the brain through meditation. Meditation involves developing the conscious skill of witnessing your own thoughts from your centre of Consciousness. With a little practice and patience, you will notice that your brain, surrounding your centre of Consciousness, is constantly suggesting ideas and thoughts, that you can then choose to consciously engage with or not.

The brain has evolved to quite continuously suggest things for you to think about relating to our everyday survival. This ability is the root cause of anxiety and intrusive thoughts. Meditation in combination with your new understanding of how your brain works offer great relief from such anxieties.

Please note that no other theory of Consciousness is capable of constructing such simple and intuitive models of human conscious physiology. My theory also solves the hard problem of Consciousness, as well as providing the first simple, logical and intuitive interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, that aligns perfectly with our everyday experience as conscious entities formed out of nothing except quantum particles. The denial is getting ridiculous at this stage! It'll make for hilarious posterity!!

Check out the following audio essays if you’d like to learn more about The Physics of Consciousness:

https://youtu.be/gLluaVj8PJo

Thanks, all the best!!!