This article was spotted by D.W. who sent it along, and it’s a stunner, because I’ve blogged a lot on this site, and even written a book (Microcosm and Medium) about mind manipulation and the techniques and technologies about mind control.
But this one is a stunner, not only because MIT is behind it – think about Bill Hates’ implantable vaccine technology that is supposedly in development with MIT – but also for what it portends:
The concept here is simple enough: a “glove” that uses various prompts to “tweak” or “control” the subjects of one’s dreams:
A team of researchers at MIT’s Dream Lab, which launched in 2017, are working on an open source wearable device that can track and interact with dreams in a number of ways — including, hopefully, giving you new control over the content of your dreams.
The team’s radical goal is to prove once and for all that dreams aren’t just meaningless gibberish — but can be “hacked, augmented, and swayed” to our benefit, according to OneZero.
Think “Inception,” in other words, but with a Nintendo Power Glove.
“People don’t know that a third of their life is a third where they could change or structure or better themselves,” Adam Horowitz, PhD student at MIT Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces Group and a Dream Lab researcher, told OneZero.
“Whether you’re talking about memory augmentation or creativity augmentation or improving mood the next day or improving test performance, there’s all these things you can do at night that are practically important,” Horowitz added.
To be sure, as I pointed out in Microcosm and Medium, dream states, hypnotic states, and so on, were the subject of much experimentation around the world, and particularly in the former Soviet bloc, and there was much success in enhancing people’s performance and creativity. But there’s a downside to this, as is suggested by this statement:
But the Dream Lab might be on to something with its Dormio glove. For instance, in a 50-person experiment, the speaking glove was able to insert a tiger into people’s sleep by having the glove say a prerecorded message that simply said “tiger.”
And at the end of the article, there’s this:
“The unconscious, it’s another kind of intelligence,” Rubin Naiman, sleep and dream expert at the University of Arizona, told OneZero. “We can learn from it. We can be in dialogue with it rather than dominate it, rather than ‘tap in’ and try to steer it in directions we want.”
For the purposes of today’s high octane speculation, let’s take that last statement first and then deal with the statement about inserting “tigers” into people’s dreams by means of the simple prompt of saying the word “tiger”. In the case of the second statement, we’re being asked to be in “dialogue” with our unconscious mind. Well, for the record, the word “dialogue” is one of my hot buttons, because usually when people say that they want a “dialogue” these days, that usually means that they don’t want a discussion, but rather, a pseudo-conversation designed to wear you down until you agree with them. That makes me doubly anxious about having “dialogues” with the unconscious. Anyone who’s read a bit of Freud or Jung will immediately be made aware of how deep that pool is, and if I may so put it, “here lurk demons.” Whatever one makes of their theories or for that matter of psychiatry or psychology in general, they did not formulate them in a vacuum, but over a long period of observation of their patients. It is a bizarre world. And that brings me to a point: in the spiritual tradition to which I attempt to adhere, there is constant caution about engaging in “dialogue” with such things for the simple reason that that part of the human mind is open to all sorts of influences, and hence, in that tradition, one prays for protection from them during sleep, the “time of least resistance” to their influences.
Which brings me to the “tiger” statement, because this I found most chilling, for it indicates an ability to insert a meme or topic by the mere mention of a word, into someone’s dreams. If one may thus influence someone’s creativity for the better, one might, equally, damp it or extinguish it altogether.
In other words, they now not only want the ability to manipulate your conscious thought, now they want your dreams as well.
Place a voice recorder or notepad and pen within easy reach of your bed.
When you begin to feel yourself drifting off to sleep, repeat aloud three times: “I will remember my dreams clearly and well, and will record them when I wake up.”
When you awaken, whether in the morning or the middle of the night, quickly record whatever you can recall from your dream.
Be very literal. Jot down the first images and feelings that come to your mind without judging or analyzing, Whatever comes to your mind, just note it and let it be.
Step 2: Give Your Dream a Title
Familiarize yourself with titling by paying attention to newspaper headlines and magazine story titles.
Let the title be the first word or phrase that comes to mind.
If you have trouble, try saying aloud a very basic summary of the dream’s content to help identify its central themes.
Repeat your title aloud, slowly, and think about what the word or phrase means or suggests to you generally.
Set the dream and its title aside.
Step 3: Read or Repeat Your Dream Aloud – Slowly
Repeat or reread your dream aloud.
Speak slowly, keeping in mind that the dreamer is always dreaming about the dreamer.
Verbalize your thoughts and feelings yourself, so that your brain fully absorbs the information. Don’t let others do it for you.
Step 4: Consider What Is Uppermost in Your Life Right Now
Quickly review the title and/or summary of the dream with which you are working.
Assess what is uppermost in your life right now, looking carefully at your work, your family, your relationships, etc.
Be instinctive. Whatever first comes to your mind is most likely what your dream addresses.
Step 5: Describe Your Dream as if Talking to a Martian
Consider which details stand out the most in your dream.
Describe those details as if talking to a Martian, or someone with absolutely no shared frame of reference.
Belabor the obvious. If something seems to go without saying, say it anyway. Explaining the obvious aloud offers clues to a dream’s meaning.
Think about symbols that commonly occur in your dreams and familiarize yourself with their meaning and intent. This helps you to interpret dreams more quickly and easily as you move forward.
Step 6: Summarize the Message from Your Unconscious
Reflect on the work you have done in steps 1 thought 5.
Try to summarize your dream’s content in one or two clear messages from the unconscious.
Remember your interpretation simple, grounded in common sense, and relevant to your current, waking life.
Honor your work. Though it may initially be challenging, step 6 prepares you to understand the dream’s guidance.
Step 7: Consider Your Dream’s Guidance for Waking Life
Repeat aloud the message you summarized in step 6.
Consider the symbolic solutions offered in the dream.
Translate the symbolic advice into commonsense guidance related to current situations in your waking life.
If the dream does not seem to offer solutions, consider what steps you can take to address the issues raised in the dream.
Consider one or two tangible actions you can take in response to the dream’s guidance.
Dreaming of boxes tends to mean that you feel there is something hidden away from you. An empty box probably indicates a sense of disappointment. Lots of boxes means you’re having trouble processing your feelings and need to hide them away…
2. Phones.
A ringing phone means that some part of your personality is finally getting in touch with you the way it needs to. There could be an insightful situation right around the corner. If you don’t answer the ringing phone, it may be that you’re choosing to ignore these messages.
3. Flying.
Flying in a dream is typically classified as a lucid dream. These types of dreams are a wake up call from your subconscious mind. Flying can mean you’re having difficulties in your waking life that you are trying to rise above.
4. Moon dreams.
A dream with the moon in it indicates a hidden, unseen, or perhaps slightly revealed creative side of you that’s trying to escape.
5. Roads.
Roads are a symbol of your journey through life. If you dream of a clear, paved road or path, you may see your journey going forward as pretty simple. If it’s murky, foggy, and hard to navigate, you may fear your future.
6. Flowers.
To see a budding flower indicates that new opportunities will soon present themselves. Sprouting plants might mean that some of the seeds you’ve sewn are about to spring to life. Dead flowers mean a chapter of your life may be ending.
7. Water.
Water in your dreams tends to reflect your ambition in life. If you keep dreaming about the ocean, it may be time to take on bigger opportunities and take risks. If you dream of shallow streams and small ponds, it may be a sign you’re over-reaching.
As a professor, researcher, and author I was fortuitously teaching an evening class on Dreams and Dreaming the night of September 10, 2001 at a university near Toronto, Canada. This particular class was one where the students had to hand in an assignment with a recorded dream from the previous week. As such, they handed in a recent dream they had had on the evening just prior to September 11th. Upon grading the papers I came upon one assignment that was particularly fascinating.
One student recorded a dream she had had just a few nights before September 10th. The dream imagery was of an airplane hitting the CN Tower in Toronto (this is a major monument in the city). The plane then hit the tower again, and she recalled seeing great gouts of smoke and fire. This dream scene was followed by one with her father who was hiding up in the attic of their home. He was running in the dark attic trying to avoid anyone seeing him, as he was being incriminated for the planes hitting the tower. The dream was so powerful and emotional that it woke the student from her sleep.
Of course, the next day a version of the story came alive in the news, with similar details unfolding in the weeks and even years to come. Had this student predicted what would be broadcast all over the world with a similar story in her dream? Do dreams provide information about the future, and if so, how does this happen?
Judging from both research studies and anecdotal evidence, it seems that dreaming about the future is not an uncommon phenomenon. Just as the student saw images similar to the upcoming events of 9/11, people have reported these types of dreams from the beginning of recorded history. Often there can be distortion of details, as the tower was in Toronto rather than in New York and the main character was represented by her father. However, the imagery in dreams is very salient to the dreamer. She lived near Toronto and therefore incorporated imagery that was relevant in her own daily waking life while telling herself a story of what was to come. This seems to be a common theme with dreams in general. We dream about important events that are told within the story of our own day-to-day existence. Key figures in waking life are our dream characters and familiar surroundings become the vista for the dream story to play out. Nonetheless, important information is being portrayed in the dream story, and sometimes it’s a glimpse at the future.
So if dreams about the future are fairly common and have been recounted for many years, why are they not discussed more often and more openly? It turns out that in some cultures these dreams are considered a very helpful and well-known experience. In North American culture we have distanced ourselves from our own dreaming mind and so these are considered coincidental or of non-importance. This stems mostly from a mistranslation of the bible by a biblical scholar, St. Jerome. This scholar replaced the word “dream” for “witchcraft” throughout the bible, which resulted in dreams becoming associated with the occult from then on. At this point in history, the course of dreams was changed for centuries. Any and all discussion surrounding dreams became forbidden and was quickly ignored.
The truth is, if we pay attention to the imagery we have during sleep it will reveal much about waking life. Research shows that dreams reflect illness in the body, relationship issues, financial concerns, problems we or other people may be having, and events yet to be experienced. They offer a plethora of information for anyone who is willing to pay attention. It’s a part of the self that, when given consideration, will pay back one million-fold.http://www.bodymindsoulspirit.com/precognitive-dreams-can-we-dream-about-the-future/
We have yet to come to an understanding of how this is possible, but the marriage of psychology and physics is attempting to shed some light onto this incredible experience. Perhaps more importantly, people who are willing to pay attention to their nocturnal thinking patterns will gain rich and vital information that is truly helpful in the waking day. Furthermore, this is a whole new frontier of human consciousness that can be explored if one hasn’t begun the expedition already – a frontier that is vast and uncultivated, but waiting patiently to reveal its secrets.
About the author: Teresa was a professor, author and researcher of Psychology when a wave of spiritual transformations occurred over a 17 year period. She experienced NDE, clairsentience , pre-cognitive dreaming and other transformations that set her on a life course and onto the path she is taking today.
As you probably know, in sleep you constantly move between the phases of dreamless sleep and the dream state. Similarly, in wakefulness most people only shift between ordinary unconsciousness and deep unconsciousness.
What I call ordinary unconsciousness means being identified with your thought processes and emotions, your reactions, desires, and aversions. It is most people’s normal state. In that state, you are run by the egoic mind, and you are unaware of Being. It is a state not of acute pain or unhappiness but of an almost continuous low level of unease, discontent, boredom, or nervousness — a kind of background static. You may not realize this because it is so much a part of “normal” living, just as you are not aware of a continuous low background noise, such as the hum of an air conditioner, until it stops. When it suddenly does stop, there is a sense of relief. Many people use alcohol, drugs, sex, food, work, television, or even shopping as anesthetics in an unconscious attempt to remove the basic unease. When this happens, an activity that might be very enjoyable if used in moderation becomes imbued with a compulsive or addictive quality, and all that is ever achieved through it is extremely short-lived symptom relief.
The unease of ordinary unconsciousness turns into the pain of deep unconsciousness — a state of more acute and more obvious suffering or unhappiness — when things “go wrong,” when the ego is threatened or there is a major challenge, threat, or loss, real or imagined, in your life situation or conflict in a relationship. It is an intensified version of ordinary unconsciousness, different from it not in kind but in degree. In ordinary unconsciousness, habitual resistance to or denial of what is creates the unease and discontent that most people accept as normal living. When this resistance becomes intensified through some challenge or threat to the ego, it brings up intense negativity such as anger, acute fear, aggression, depression, and so on. Deep unconsciousness often means that the pain-body has been triggered and that you have become identified with it. Physical violence would be impossible without deep unconsciousness. It can also occur easily whenever and wherever a crowd of people or even an entire nation generates a negative collective energy field.
The best indicator of your level of consciousness is how you deal with life’s challenges when they come. Through those challenges, an already unconscious person tends to become more deeply unconscious, and a conscious person more intensely conscious. You can use a challenge to awaken you, or you can allow it to pull you into even deeper sleep. The dream of ordinary unconsciousness then turns into a nightmare.
If you cannot be present even in normal circumstances, such as when you are sitting alone in a room, walking in the woods, or listening to someone, then you certainly won’t be able to stay conscious when something “goes wrong” or you are faced with difficult people or situations, with loss or the threat of loss. You will be taken over by a reaction, which ultimately is always some form of fear, and pulled into deep unconsciousness. Those challenges are your tests. Only the way in which you deal with them will show you and others where you are at as far as your state of consciousness is concerned, not how long you can sit with your eyes closed or what visions you see.
So it is essential to bring more consciousness into your life in ordinary situations when everything is going relatively smoothly. In this way, you grow in presence power. It generates an energy field in you and around you of a high vibrational frequency. No unconsciousness, no negativity, no discord or violence can enter that field and survive, just as darkness cannot survive in the presence of light.
In quantum physics—the scientific study of the nature of physical reality—there is plenty of room for interpretation within the realm of what is known. The most popular mainstream interpretation, the Copenhagen interpretation, has as one of its central tenets the concept of wave function collapse. That is to say, every event exists as a “wave function” which contains every possible outcome of that event, which “collapses”—distilling into the actual outcome, once it is observed. For example, if a room is unobserved, anything and everything that could possibly be in that room exists in “quantum superposition”—an indeterminate state, full of every possibility, at least until someone enters the room and observes it, thereby collapsing the wave function and solidifying the reality.
The role of the observer has long been a source of contention for those who disagree with the theory. The strongest competition to this interpretation, and probably the second most popular mainstream interpretation (meaning, a lot of incredibly smart people think it’s a sound theory) is called the Everett interpretation after Hugh Everett, who first proposed it in 1957. It’s known colloquially as the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI), because it postulates simply that the wave function never collapses; it simply branches into its own unique world-line, resulting in every possible outcome of every situation existing in physical reality. If you’re having a hard time getting your head around that statement (and the fact that it’s held to be correct by the likes of Stephen Hawking), allow us to spell out some of the implications for you—but first, you may want to plug your ears to hold your brains in.
10: There Is A Multiverse, An Infinite Number Of Parallel Physical Realities
You’re probably familiar with the concept of “alternate universes,” and if so, probably because you’ve seen it in fiction. After all, one of the very first instances of the concept appeared in DC comics, first touched upon in a couple of issues of Wonder Woman, but firmly established in a 1961 issue of The Flash. The fictional “Multiverse” concept established by DC, and taken further by Marvel, is simply the concept that there exists infinite alternate realities, each containing separate and unique versions of their characters, which exist outside one another and often cross over.
This is the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics in a nutshell (without the crossing over, so far as we know). It states that since the wave function never collapses, every possible outcome of any event is realized in a separate and non-communicating physical reality, which actually exists alongside our own. It is interesting to note that this seemingly coincidental use of alternate realities, perfectly describing MWI, was put forth in a fictional medium just four years after Everett’s initial proposal of the interpretation. If MWI is correct, it is certainly not a coincidence—for fiction may be more than just made-up stories, as we’ll see later.
At any rate, this means that there is a version of you whose car broke down this morning, forcing you to take the bus (or, if that happened this morning, then vice versa). There’s also a version of you who was attacked by a dive-bombing kamikaze bald eagle, for this doesn’t just apply to mundane stuff; as a necessary consequence of Many Worlds, it must hold that
9:Highly Unusual, Unlikely Events Must Happen
Let’s consider an NFL football game being played. Assume that every time the quarterback throws the ball, there is a gigantic invisible die being rolled, a die which contains an infinite amount of values. The most common, likely outcomes—receiver catches the ball and scores, catches the ball but gets tackled, ball is intercepted, and so on—are assigned to a very high number, perhaps billions, of values. Very unlikely outcomes—say, the ball bounces off of the sole of the sprinting receiver’s shoe as he is hit by a linebacker, is barely scooped up off the turf by a running back, who somehow eludes all the tacklers and scores—are assigned to a low number of values. But crucially, they are still assigned.
MWI concludes that all values are rolled in some timeline somewhere, even the most unlikely ones—and inevitably, the timeline where the low-probability value gets rolled will be ours. As evidenced by the play described above, which totally happened and decided the outcome of a divisional playoff game.
And there is no ceiling of improbability, other than physics—whatever could possibly occur.
We have no way of knowing whether or not even those physical laws remain consistent across all possible world-lines, because we unfortunately can’t communicate with or visit them to ask. So even when confronted with circumstances that appear to be impossible, like a glowing ball of light that shoots fireballs at a police helicopter, or a missing woman unknowingly standing in the background of a photo being taken of her family for a newspaper story about her disappearance, it helps to remember that nothing is impossible on a large enough scale—indeed, given an infinite number of chances, literally anything you can imagine is not only possible, but inevitable. And just as inevitably, the impossible or unimaginable—given billions upon billions of chances—will happen here in our world-line. Which leads to a couple of interesting observations about human nature…
8: You Have Done And/Or Will Do Everything You Could Ever Conceive Of
If you find it impossible to imagine a man inexplicably killing a bunch of people for no reason, or someone surviving injuries that would destroy a normal person five times over, or a pilot managing to land an airplane with all controls restricted or disabled without incurring any major injuries, you may be finding it a little less impossible now—considering what we know about how probability works in a Multiverse. But as soon as we begin to apply this to ourselves personally, the implications threaten to become overwhelming; for there are billions of versions of you—all of which are undeniably you—but many of which are very, very different from the “you” of this world-line.
The differences between those versions are as staggering and vast as your imagination, and the reality of their existence forces us to examine human nature a bit differently. Of course, you would never kill anybody (we hope), but have you ever thought about it? There is a world-line where you did. In fact, there’s a world-line where you’re the worst mass murderer ever. Conversely, there’s another where your tireless efforts and dedication to the cause brought about world peace. Did you have a band in high school? That band is the dominant musical force on the planet, somewhere. Have you always kind of wondered what would have happened had you mustered the guts to ask out that one girl or guy that one time? Well, you get the idea.
This could actually explain a lot: strong feelings of deja vu, feelings of a close connection with someone you’ve never met, morbid fascinations with things that should repulse us, or even instances of people acting strongly “out of character” in our own worldline. For as we will see, some may have a degree of “resonance” with other world-lines or versions of themselves, which can bring about the knowledge that:
7: You’re No Different From Anyone
Hinduism, along with some other schools of religious and philosophical thought, teaches the concept of reincarnation—that we as human beings manifest physically on Earth multiple times, that we can learn from our past and future “lives,” and that such learning is in fact the purpose of our existence. This belief system can be seen as an intuitive understanding of the Multiverse; and given our previous assertion about you being a mass murderer, it can be comforting to know that the experience of all facets of human nature is an explicit part of our growth.
Of course, this is not to say that anyone should kill people or engage in any other immoral behavior—after all, the purpose of this continued cycle of learning (according to Hindu belief) is to eventually learn all that there is to learn, and transcend our physical existence. Ideally, we learned many lifetimes (world-lines) ago all there was to learn from indulging the dark side of our nature.
But the kicker here is that our experience is our experience (an idea we’ll get to in a little more detail shortly)—and that all of human experience must be realized by every one of us before we can move on to wherever it is we’re moving on to.
While some believe that our destination is a type of eventual godhood, wherein we all get to preside over a universe of our own creation, others believe that the cycle simply repeats—that once everything runs down and heat death results in the destruction of all realities, our accumulated knowledge will be used to restart the cycle and create the next Multiverse. Which, of course, means that…
6: All Of This May Have Happened Before (And May Happen Again)
If reality is a continuous cycle—along the lines of “Big Bang, expansion, contraction, collapse, Big Bang again”—then, given what we believe about the Multiverse and its infinite world-lines, you have existed before. In fact, all the infinite versions of you have existed before, and will exist again—and the same goes for all of us, along with every possible idea, creation and situation throughout all of our past and future, across all realities.
In one fell swoop, this concept explains instances of both deja vu and strong feelings of predestination. Even if deja vu seems meaningless and random, and the premonition turns out to be incorrect, these things are only true of our particular world-line—and it appears that some people (or all people, just to varying degrees) are able to achieve some degree of “resonance” with alternate world-lines—another concept that first appeared in comic books.
Indeed, one of the more common forms of deja vu involves experiencing an event which we recognize from having previously dreamed it. While seen by some as precognition, this really suggests resonance with alternate (or identical but previous) world-lines—especially when you consider that the “dream world” may be seen as an alternate world-line itself, and one just as real as the waking world.
Of course, if everything that exists or will exist has already existed, this leads to the conclusion that
5: There Are No New Stories, Songs, Events Or Anything Else
Many writers of stories, songs and other artistic types describe a feeling of the pieces that they craft already existing, fully formed, waiting for the artist to come along and excavate them like fossils. In an infinite Multiverse, this makes perfect sense, for this is exactly what the pieces are.
Art is a uniquely human endeavor, and one that strives to communicate aspects of the human experience that may be difficult or impossible to communicate by other means. While it is not possible to accurately describe in any language what love “feels like,” there are plenty of ways to communicate this in art—indeed, it is through artistic expressions that resonate with us (that word again) that many of us develop our first notions of the nature of love—and that’s only one example. How should it be possible for an artist to communicate effectively, through a story, song or painting, an emotion that the reader, listener or observer has never felt before?
In our Multiverse, this is explained by the fact that these expressions of human emotion, thought, and perspective have essentially always existed, for as long as the impulses that spawned them have existed. This very piece of writing, which has been written before in order to guide another version of you to knowledge that you already have, can stand as a perfect example.
For that matter, consider the possibility that stories aren’t just stories. The Marvel Comics Multiverse acknowledges the existence of our world-line, one where superheroes don’t exist but are merely stories in books and movies. It could very well be that—since physical laws may be very different in other world-lines—these are not stories at all, but actual people and events transcribed from other realities. This goes for anything ever “imagined” or “created”—there exist world-lines where Hogwarts School and Harry Potter, Camp Crystal Lake and Jason Voorhees, Gotham City and Batman, all exist in physical reality.
And if you’re thinking that this line of reasoning—everything exists, nothing is ever created—implies that nothing is ever destroyed, well
4: You Are Technically Immortal
That is exactly what it implies. The fact of our immortality in a Multiverse can be illustrated in various ways. For one thing, the First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy (such as the electrical charges generated by your brain, or the heat your body produces) cannot be created or destroyed, but simply changes form—implying that the energy that powers your body must go somewhere when it leaves, and that consciousness cannot be destroyed, but is infinite. For another, consider the thought experiment known as Quantum Immortality.
In this experiment (preceded by “thought” for a reason; for crying out loud, don’t try this), an experimenter sits in front of a device which is programmed, with 50/50 probability, to either discharge a device which kills the experimenter, or produce a click (in which case, of course, the experimenter survives). In the second case, the experimenter and all observers experience the same outcome- a click, and nothing else. But in the first—since (assuming MWI is correct) it is not possible for the experimenter to experience termination of consciousness (because consciousness is infinite)—while any observers will see the experimenter killed, the experimenter himself will experience the first outcome, the harmless click, on another world-line. Said experimenter can never experience a different outcome, and thus—no matter how unlikely it becomes after repeated attempts—will always survive the experiment, from his point of view.
This means that while we will all experience dying, we will never experience death—the termination of our consciousness. How can this be? It calls into question the very nature of consciousness, which leads us to the very real possibility that…
3: We Are A Projection Of Ourselves
In the late 1970s, physicist David Bohm formulated a theory describing what he called the Implicate and Explicate orders of existence. This theory, which is consistent with MWI, states that there is an enfolded or “Implicate” order of existence which encapsulates all of consciousness, and that there is a corresponding “Explicate” order of existence which comprises all that we physically see and experience, and is the projection of the enfolded “Implicate” order.
Bohm arrived at the controversial conclusion (along with physicist Karl Pribram, who arrived at the same conclusion independently) that the entirety of observable existence is basically the mother of all holograms. Just as a laser filtered through an encoded film produces a hologram, our collective energy of the implicate order (the laser) filtered through our human consciousness (the film) produces the explicate, physical reality (hologram).
Michael Talbot’s excellent book The Holographic Universe examines this and many other aspects of Bohm and Pribram’s theories in detail, but the overarching and inescapable conclusion—which you have likely already drawn yourself—is that:
2: We Collectively Create Physical Reality
If the Explicate is but a “projection” of the Implicate, then we—our physical selves, and indeed all of physical reality—are a “projection” of our true, unfiltered consciousness. One that we all play a hand in creating, whether we know it or not, all the time.
This one notion explains practically everything that “can’t be explained” about the world we see. Supernatural phenomena, meaningful coincidences, psychic activity—literally anything and everything makes sense when one realizes that this reality is essentially a dream, dreamed by the most powerful consciousness imaginable.
If this is the true nature of physical reality—as suggested for centuries by Hindu scholars, intuited by generations of artists and philosophers, and articulated as well as possible by our most brilliant scientific minds—then there is only one statement left to be made. Probably not coincidentally, one that was made previously as a seemingly throwaway lyric in a 1967 song, by one of our greatest artists…
1: Nothing Is Real
Throughout the history of artistic and philosophical expression, one concept rises to the surface, especially in works that are particularly influential or have a great deal of longevity. From “Strawberry Fields Forever” to Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream, to Descartes’ assertion that “I think, therefore I am” to Bill Hicks’ great “Life Is A Ride” speech, and even in children’s nursery rhymes—life is but a dream. A powerful dream, and one containing an infinite number of lessons for us—but a dream nonetheless.
After all, if everything—Atlantis, Luke Skywalker, your neighbor Bill—is as real as everything else, then what is reality but what we perceive? And what is our perception, if not our creation?
I know that we have to process a lot here, but do keep in mind that there are almost certainly billions of versions of you mulling over the answer to this question; and that given billions of chances to find the answer, one of your versions eventually will—as will we all.
By Bahar Gholipour, Staff Writer | August 13, 2013
What is the difference between people who always recall their dreams and those who rarely do?
Credit: Dreamstime
People who tend to remember their dreams also respond more strongly than others to hearing their name when they’re awake, new research suggests.
Everyone dreams during sleep, but not everyone recalls the mental escapade the next day, and scientists aren’t sure why some people remember more than others.
To find out, researchers used electroencephalography to record the electrical activity in the brains of 36 people while the participants listened to background tunes, and occasionally heard their own first name. The brain measurements were taken during wakefulness and sleep. Half of the participants were called high recallers, because they reported remembering their dreams almost every day, whereas the other half, low recallers, said they only remembered their dreams once or twice a month.
When asleep, both groups showed similar changes in brain activity in response to hearing their names, which were played quietly enough not to wake them.
However, when awake, high recallers showed a more sustained decrease in a brain wave called the alpha wave when they heard their names, compared with the low recallers.
“It was quite surprising to see a difference between the groups during wakefulness,” said study researcher Perrine Ruby, neuroscientist at Lyon Neuroscience Research Center in France.
The difference could reflect variations in the brains of high and low recallers that could have a role in how they dream, too, Ruby said.
Who remembers their dreams
A well-established theory suggests that a decrease in the alpha wave is a sign that brain regions are being inhibited from responding to outside stimuli. Studies show that when people hear a sudden sound or open their eyes, and more brain regions become active, the alpha wave is reduced.
In the study, as predicted, both groups showed a decrease in the alpha wave when they heard their names while awake. But high recallers showed a more prolonged decrease, which may be a sign their brains became more widely activated when they heard their names.
In other words, high recallers may engage more brain regions when processing sounds while awake, compared with low recallers, the researchers said.
While people are asleep, the alpha wave behaves in the opposite way —it increases when a sudden sound is heard. Scientists aren’t certain why this happens, but one idea is that it protects the brain from being interrupted by sounds during sleep, Ruby said.
Indeed, the study participants showed an increase in the alpha wave in response to sounds during sleep, and there was no difference between the groups.
One possibility to explain the lack of difference, the researchers said, could be that perhaps high recallers had a larger increase in alpha waves, but it was so high that they woke up.
Time spent awake, during the night
The researchers saw that high recallers awoke more frequently during the night. They were awake, on average, for 30 minutes during the night, whereas low recallers were awake for 14 minutes. However, Ruby said “both figures are in the normal range, it’s not that there’s something wrong with either group.”
Altogether, the results suggest the brain of high recallers may be more reactive to stimuli such as sounds, which could make them wake up more easily. It is more likely a person would remember their dreams if they are awakened immediately after one, Ruby said.
However, awakening at night can account for only a part of the differences people show in remembering dreams. “There’s still much more to understand,” she said.
The study is published online today (Aug. 13) in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.
I am a psychiatrist and intuitive. My passion is combining spirituality and intuition with mainstream medicine. When patients come to see me, I listen to them with my intellect as well my intuition, a potent form of inner wisdom not mediated by the rational mind. Accessible to all, it’s a still, small voice inside-an unflinching truth-teller committed to our well-being. Sometimes I experience it as a snap-shot-like flash, a gut feeling, a hunch, a physical sensation, a dream. Whatever the form, it is always a friend, keeping a steady eye on our bodies and spirits, letting us know if something is out of sync.
As a psychiatrist I see many people with everything material they can ever want, and still they feel lost. What’s missing is a palpable connection with their intuitive voice, one that will always guide them in a heartfelt direction. I believe that without this connection, it’s impossible to lead a truly passionate life, based on instinct and authentic inner knowledge. I’ve written my book, Dr. Judith Orloff’s Guide to Intuitive Healing: Five Steps to Physical, Emotional, and Sexual Wellness as a primer on how everyone can develop intuition and utilize it as a powerful tool for living. Intuition is not something I simply teach my patients. It has become a way of life for me. The magic of intuition is that it insists you live in the moment with no expectations, a continuing freshness. Intuition is our birthright, available to everyone. To access it, I’ve developed five steps that can be applied to any issue you’ll ever confront from healing your body, to riding a roller-coaster of emotions to sexual awakening. I live by these five steps; they continue to sustain me. I suggest you give them a try. My hope is that they will bring you the joy and clarity you’ve been searching for.
Your beliefs set the stage for healing. Positive attitudes stimulate growth. Negative attitudes impede it. It’s important to rid yourself of counterproductive attitudes that you may not even realize you have. If you examine your beliefs, choose life-enhancing ones, you’ll create optimal wellness. No organ system stands apart from your thoughts. Your beliefs program your neurochemicals. I’m not suggesting that you be Pollyannish, but that you be completely true to yourself. This will free you from unconscious negative beliefs that can sabotage your healing.
Your body is a complex and sensitive intuitive receptor. You must make a commitment to be in it completely to heal. Most people in Western society are conditioned to live from the neck up, ignoring the rest of their body. This stance is counter-intuitive. I’d like you to shift that perspective-to enjoy your intellect but revel in your physicality as well. Being aware of the sensuousness of your body opens intuition. Then you’ll become more cognizant of early warning signs your body sends. This gives you a head-start on preventing illness, choosing healthy relationships, and avoiding detrimental situations.
Step 3: Sense Your Body’s Subtle Energy
We are composed of flesh and blood, but also of subtle energy. Chinese Medical Practitioners call it “chi,” a vital substance which penetrates the body and extends many feet beyond it. From an intuitive point of view, these vibrantly colored energy fields, whose centers are called chakras have a significant effect on our health. For that reason, it is important that we learn to sense this energy within us, recognize when it is off, and learn to correct the imbalance. Feeling energy can be very sensual, an extension of love. Learning to tap into your body’s energy is healing.
Step 4: Ask for Inner Guidance
We each possess an intuitive voice that contains answers about our healing. Because our intellect is often so loud, this voice often gets drowned out. It’s essential that we learn to access the stillness within–though meditation, quite contemplation, connecting with nature, prayer-in order to gain answers about our health. Spend a few minutes each day devoted to listening to this voice. It may appear as a gut feeling, a hunch, an image, a sound, a memory, an instant knowing-as if a light bulb suddenly switched on. Learn to trust the signals your inner wisdom sends.
Intuition is the language of dreams. Every ninety minutes each night during the REM stage of sleep, we dream. Dreams provide answers about health, relationships, career choices, any new direction. The secret is to remember them. I suggest keeping a dream journal by your bed. Before you go to sleep, ask a dream a question. For instance, “Is this relationship healthy for me or should I move on?” The next morning, write down any dreams immediately before getting out of bed. Try repeating the question, every night for the next week until your answer comes. As you develop the habit of remembering dreams, you’ll be able to benefit from this form of healing. As a physician, I have a continual sense of awe for the relationship between body and spirit. As your heart opens, so does your intuition. Your intuition will teach you how to see and how to love. It will instill in you a renewed faith to face anything.
Judith Orloff MD is bestselling author of the new book Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself From Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life (Three Rivers Press, 2011) upon which these tips and article are based. Her insights in Emotional Freedom create a new convergence of healing paths for our stressed out world. An assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA, Dr. Orloff’s work has been featured on The Today Show, CNN, and in Oprah Magazine and USA Today.
First a brief bit about the author fr/wikipedia: Michael A. Persinger (born June 26, 1945) is a cognitive neuroscience researcher and university professor with over 200 peer-reviewed publications. He has worked at Laurentian University, located in Sudbury, Ontario, since 1971. He is primarily notable for his experimental work in the field of neurotheology, work which has come under increasing fire in recent years.
and now, the video cover resonance, non-locality, Ingo Swann, remote viewing, para-normal activity, dreams, shared dreams, etc., etc., etc.
“Health, wealth, beauty, and genius are not created; they are only manifested by the arrangement of your mind—that is, by your concept of yourself, and your concept of yourself is all that you accept and consent to as true.”
—NEVILLE
There’s a level of awareness available to you that you are probably unfamiliar with. It extends upward and transcends the ordinary level of consciousness that you’re most accustomed to. At this higher plane of existence, which you and every human being who has ever lived can access at will, the fulfillment of wishes is not only probable—it is guaranteed.
After 18 months in relative seclusion, studying, meditating, and literally experiencing what it’s like to live in this miraculous plane of existence beyond anything that might be labeled “ordinary” or “normal,” I’ve undertaken this joyous task of writing about having wishes fulfilled. I’ve seen firsthand how virtually every wish or desire I’ve placed my attention on has transformed from a mental thought into an objective fact.
However, I’m not proposing memorizing an esoteric formula leading to a theoretical nirvana. My emphasis throughout this book is that manifestation is real and that it occurs when you make a specific decision to change your mind about who you are and what is possible for you to achieve within these parentheses in eternity called your life.
I’m inviting you to be receptive to a radical new idea about yourself. It’s radical because ever since you left your mother’s womb, you’ve been subjected to cultural conditioning designed to help you be content with living a “normal life” at the level of ordinary consciousness, which generally means accepting whatever life hands you. In many ways you’ve been programmed to believe that you do not possess the wisdom or ability to manifest the fulfillment of your wishes and desires.
I am saying as clearly as I know how to say it in these opening pages: There’s a plane of awareness that you can opt to live at, wherein you can, if you are willing to change your concept of yourself as an ordinary being, find yourself fulfilling any and all wishes that you have for yourself. Throughout this book I’ll explore with you what I’ve studied, learned, internalized, practiced, and, yes, lived regarding the powers of manifestation. It begins with changing your concept of yourself.
I would like to offer a few words on these two concepts of ordinary and extraordinary.
Ordinary is, well, so ordinary. It means that you do all of the things that your culture and your family have programmed you to do. It implies that you fit in, study hard, follow the rules, take care of your obligations, fill out the forms, pay your taxes, get a job, and do what every law-abiding citizen does; and then you retire, play with your grandchildren, and ultimately die. I want to emphasize that there is absolutely nothing wrong with this scenario—it is perfectly fine—but if it were completely acceptable for you, you wouldn’t be reading this book.
Extraordinary encompasses most of ordinary, since we all live in the same physical world. There will be forms to fill out, rules that demand our obedience, bills to pay, and family obligations to attend to. But extraordinary consciousness is associated with your soul, that invisible, boundaryless energy that looks out from behind your eyeballs and has very different interests than your ordinary self does.
The ideal of your soul, the thing that it yearns for, is not more knowledge. It is not interested in comparison, nor winning, nor light, nor ownership, nor even happiness. The ideal of your soul is space, expansion, and immensity, and the one thing it needs more than anything else is to be free to expand, to reach out and to embrace the infinite. Why? Because your soul is infinity itself. It has no restrictions or limitations—it resists being fenced in—and when you attempt to contain it with rules and obligations, it is miserable.
Your invisible self is extraordinary because it is a fragment of the universal soul, which is infinite. The part of you that knows you have greatness, and is stirred by the idea of you expanding and removing any and all limitations, is what I am addressing in Wishes Fulfilled. This is your new self-concept, one that is inspired by your soul.
