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Date: 22.05.1999
Subject: Consciousness
Welcome
Hi there and who are you?! It is time for another
night-report. It is almost like a morning-report, because Nathen kept
me up all night long. I can tell that I will be a good daddy. If my
child is crying in the night..... No Problemo!!! So, tonight’s topic
is about mind, consciousness, you, the rest and the truth....
This topic goes back to Paul Tholey*, but it is apparent connected
with lucid dreams, so that you have to think about it sooner or later.
Reality? In recent times a lot of movies wanna open our eyes and
question reality. X-files, Trueman Show, The Matrix, Existence... what
is real and how real is your life? In the most of those movies there
is a close connection to dreams. Thus, how real are your dreams?
Suppose you are dreaming and I'm one of your dream characters. Well,
now assume that I face you and talk to you about that stuff I'm just
writing. So, I'm in your dream!!! How would you find out that I'm not
real? How do you know that I do not have my own consciousness? How do
we know that dream characters we see all night in our dreams have not
a consciousness of there own and therefore are not only illusions of
our mind? How would you find out that I'm (me as a dream character of
your dream) not aware of your dream?
Okay, okay here is one possibility to find it out, ask me (your dream
guy from your dream) if I can draw a picture of you?! This would show
that I have an own perspective in your dream. Here is another good
question. Ask me if I can tell you a word you never heard before! Or,
think about a rhyme or poem and tell it to me! Or, just tell me how I
came here! Initially, there is the point that you talk to me at all.
That you CAN talk to me without knowing what I will tell you. In other
words, that we have a kind of conversation. Far before that, that I'm
encountering you in your dream or any other dream character. Assume
there is something like a unconsciousness and this part of you (probably
a part of your brain) puts me in your dream because of an occasion
from your waking life. E.g. you know tomorrow is Wednesday and this
means a new night report from DAEN, so that's the reason why your
brain puts me in your dream. But what about dream creatures you never
saw before in your life? Assume your mind finds a way and we skip the
unanswered question about why do we dream about what we dream about?
Let's focus on the questions you asked me before. Here are the answers:
I will show you a picture of you, come up with a totally strange word,
which you never heard before, but if you check it in a dictionary you
will find it and I tell you a very nice poem or rhyme from 8 lines.
These are results from Paul Tholeys studies. Nothing of that proofs
really that I have my a consciousness of my own, as dream guy in your
dream, but how would you proof it in real life? At least I could show
in your dream a bit of memory ability, own perspective, and creativity.
Is this psychic... transcendental? Maybe, there is another explanation.
Think about how many different characters you can play in your 'real
life'? You can act like me, you can pretend that you are DAEN (which
is probably not that hard, all you have to do is to talk big deal of
bullshit :) . Or you can feel like you felt with 16.
Our mind can mimic an infinite amount of different characters, so that
the real question should be: “How can we identify ourselves?”.
Multiple-personality-disorder, people lost about this ability and 'can'
switch between different personalities (voluntary or not). Some of
those people have up to 200 different characters. The cause for this
disorder is in the most cases a traumatic event e.g. rape, witness of
severe accidents, etc. and the victim tries to displace himself...
Well, what did we learn tonight? Nothing, which is more than
absolutely nothing. For further reading a very interesting link to: Conversation
Between Stephen LaBerge and Paul Tholey in July of 1989.
* Tholey, P. (1989). Consciousness and abilities of
dream characters during lucid dreaming. Perceptual and Motor Skills,
68, 567– 578.
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