Dreams and the Mind After Death

IS REALITY A FOCUS OF CONSCIOUSNESS?



Today my thinking cap has been firmly planted on the borderland between the world of dreams and the world of Reality with a capital R. This is due in part to a rather unusual dream I had in the wee hours of morning, one that I was abruptly awakened out of - hence my recall may have been sharper than what normally entails.



Admittedly, we are all in agreement as to what constitutes waking, hands-on reality. There is an unspoken, general consensus of long standing (a gentleman's agreement, if you will) that any experience not of the objective or externally generated is not really 'Real'. Our philosophers and psychologists allow for a little wiggle room when they use terms such as 'subjectively real' or 'internally generated', to label dreams, delusions, hallucinations or any other state of mind which cannot be validated by events in The Real World.



And you can't blame them; the very nature of our dichotomous brain system does not allow for a 'grey' state - things are either black or white, here nor there, real or imaginary. But I think we need to do a wee bit more wiggling, and take a long, healthy stretch into some of this uncharted territory. Such as dreams in general, and my dream in particular.



In the interest of brevity, the apex of MY morning dream was that of finding myself (with the typical and accepted invisible other or doppelganger present to my left - most of you know what I mean by this)... anyway, finding myself and he/she poised in front of a low, rocky area, through the middle of which ran a frothing, active tributary of water which grew narrower and narrower the further away from us it rushed. It was as if we stood at the mouth of a rocky, watery aperture. There was a wind, so brilliantly alive that we were engulfed in mist and rivulets of damp. Strewn here and there were beautiful homes set amongst the low cliffs, the most attractive of which lay at the furthest end from us, where the water and rock narrowed to a point from which these energies were being emitted.



Everything was so naturally colored, so alive and life-like, complete with detailed sensations of both wind and water buffeting my 'body' - (and mind you, this was not a hyper-reality, where the senses are super heightened, this appeared no different to the senses than waking life). But when I saw this beautiful home situated there at the entrance point, I actually began to cry in my dream. I could feel the gentle tears gather at my eyes to drip down on one check and that is the God's Honest Truth. [while I have had dreams wherein I've ranted, panicked, screamed, yelled, and so forth, I have never had a life-like experience of actual, 'normal' tears. I think this is the first time I've cried in a dream and felt the wet. And no, there were no tears or moisture present on my face when I awoke.]

Now, if one can dream and not know the difference -either upon the moment or later reflection - between Reality or Other, then who is to say what is really Real with a capital R? If for just one moment we shelve the bias of general consensus that demands all Reality must be objective in origin, what else is left us to declare one state more valid than another? If the mind/soul cannot tell the difference, then, to all intent and purpose, is there actually a difference?

Maybe the difference is only a matter of preference or of focus?

There have been many learned individuals who hold that Reality with a capital R, is no more or less than a dominance of whichever brain hemisphere is doing the driving. Seth, aka Jane Roberts, noted more than once that after death the hemispheres switched places (and here we have the mirror effect at work - AGAIN!). According to Seth, after we are 'dead', it is our right brain hemisphere that becomes the dominant partner, while the left (logic, reason, reading and writing) hemisphere become the submissive, silent partner. This makes no small sense when we consider that dreams, ghosts, aliens, and anything else from the land of subjective carries with it a proclivity for metaphor and symbolism (as does the right brain hemisphere).

So, taking this idea a step further, if we deny the 'reality' validity of the dream world, of the subjective state, aren't we also denying half of Reality with a capital R, itself? To do so would be akin to denying all that is experienced as cold (ice, snow, and so forth) and to state with bias that only that which is warm is Reality.


We may have to re-shift our conceptions of what is real and what is not, and perhaps the sooner the better. By the very nature of our prejudice, we may actually be in denial of half of our cosmic existence - no matter how well intended we may be in so doing.


I have to consider if there really is no line of demarcation between in and out, between life and 'death', between subjective and objective. I suspect these may be merely the rather poor divisions set in place by an already divided brain system.

A final thought. If there is no borderland, no actual demarcation or point A vs Point B, then the adage is true that the dead are here with us. Or as the aliens have remarked, "you are always here (with us)". There is only ONE arena, one true reality that encompasses both the subjective and objective. There is only ONE world and it is our less-than-perfect minds that only THINK there is a distinction (and relay this erroneous perception back at us).


Dreams are fascinating, whether one's own or that of others. And if Seth was correct, then we are going to have one mess on our hands when our time comes to die, and we must suddenly confront the other half of the coin that never was a half at all. Can you imagine learning to gauge and react and manipulate within a world that is right brained dominate? Where metaphor and symbolism are the norm, and language/detail are not? What a misadventure that will be! And it lays in wait for all of us.


Is there a way out? Yes...