Spirituality for Living

We are talking about dreams. Not dream interpretation, mind you, though I can touch on that some also, but about dreams and the dreaming state. Anyone care to share what they understand to be the state of being we call dreaming?

I think in some form or another, we don’t leave the dream state. Excellent, and yes, you are right.

I’ve heard of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. So when the brain activity shows up in the eyes like that? Is a good start, thank you. Have you ever noticed peoples eyes have a habitual movement pattern even while they are awake?

I’ve noticed some people have shifty eyes. Also true, but even those who are showing “normal” eye movement while awake, like say, waiting to pick up their order at a fast food place, have a style of scanning the world around them. You can read a lot of their personality in it actually, like if they linger when looking at other people or just flit over them.

The dreaming state seems weird and unrealistic, or so most people think, but is your waking consciousness any less weird or unrealistic? If anything, in dream your mind tries to process the details you scanned over and tried to skip. It is more realistic that way.

I expect I filter it better so it has what I perceive as a more linear flow when awake. Otherwise crossing the street, etc. gets messy. And this filtering can be constructive, but the quality of that filtering isn’t uniform across people.

How no two people give the same eye witness accounts to police? Nor do two people dream exactly the same.

While we are awake, our individual brains are all over the place functionally. On different wavelengths, literally, and shift through those rapidly. They can go from very relaxed, to really stressed or intensely focused pretty quickly. Your brain wave pattern reproduces itself in a clearer way while you sleep. So whatever the waking habits of your brain are, they will be present in a baseline pattern while you dream.

Is it a myth that dreams only happen on one side of the brain? Actually yes, that is a myth. They also used to believe that the brain was less active while you were “relaxed”, even while you slept. They have discovered that the opposite is true. The brain is more like a diesel engine, uses less energy if it remains on than if it has to switch states. This allows processing.

I’ve heard new studies on day dreaming show it as very important to brain function. Yes, because even if you don’t think you saw everything at a place you were just at, you would be mistaken. You actually did, it just didn’t all go into your short term or “working” memory. The working memory field of your consciousness could be called your focus, and it is narrow of necessity. This is the only reason you can focus, but your memory picks up things without you needing to focus on them.

Alan Watts used the term spotlight vs. floodlight and that we’re overly trained to use the brain as a spotlight. Good metaphor and smart man. He is right, and even while awake we can adopt a floodlight consciousness. They call it meditation in some circles.

Dreaming is basically allowing all perceptions and thoughts in? Well, yes and no. I will move on and it might clarify for you. Ever notice your dreams always seem to be a “world”, but often an incomplete world? Something just seems off when you review them later?

Yes, but complete in that everyone in them takes it all in stride. Yes, the logic of it while you sleep is surprisingly consistent.

But I always feel vexed because I’m often confused. The strange thing is, dream logic is your personal logic. So all the metaphors that show up in dreams, they are in your dream world because, in fact, they govern your waking attention habits.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~

Series: Dreams » Next » Collective Dream »

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