Who is the dreamer?

Abstract

We find it self-explanatory that we perceive our waking world through the physical body, via the five senses whose relay centre is the brain. Yet it is not so simple to explain who the dreamer is in the physical body, as it sleeps. An exploration of this evinces that the traditional hypothesis of material reductionism drives us into a dead end street since its proposed creative process is based on the supposition that matter was created first from which it purportedly emanates consciousness. Once it is understood that consciousness comes before matter and that without it nothing can exist, it quickly becomes apparent that consciousness is not just light and intelligence, but also the matrix and indeed the ‘creatrix’ or mother of all there is. Under such circumstances the creative process is best seen as analogous to a prism revealing the inherent colours of white light, as it projects them into a dark room, which ultimately suggests that the brain is a kind of a projector. Both the waking and the dream world are seen as either internal or external projections. Certainly, the brain shows to be an adept projector when it comes to eidetic visions, for instance. An example of this phenomenon is provided from personal experience. Another support of the projecting phenomenon is the hypnotic projection, of which there is an example provided from yet another personal experience. Further evidence in favour of cerebral projection is the hypnagogic, as well as the hypnopompic vision. Karl Pribram’s findings that the world is a cerebral projection of holograms certainly underpin all the adduced examples. Ultimately they all affirm the view that the brain is a projector with multiple modes of operation. The two most common of these are, of course, waking and dreaming. In other words the brain, so it would appear, creates both the waking person and the dreamer, depending in which ‘gear’ it operates. However, when we examine the experiments with psilocybin, for instance, something puzzling eventuates: while the chemistry of the mushroom induces vastly expanded consciousness, or indeed mystical epiphanies, brain functions are considerably reduced. This is, of course, the precise opposite to what is to be expected while we presume that it is the brain that is responsible for both the generation of consciousness and the projection of waking life and dreams. There is only one event that can shed sufficient light on this conundrum: The NDE of Pam Reynolds. The operation on her aneurism required hypothermic arrest, thus rendering her body to a state of medical death. To everyone’s surprise Pam, like Lazarus, returned from the dead, reporting that the world can be seen in the brain dead state, moreover in a superior manner, thus leading us to the inference that we are not the physical body, but a subtle body within the body of flesh and blood, serving as a template for the latter. Pam’s report upon her return to her earthly body also confirms the ancient view that our etheric, or soul, ascends to an astral plain where in some cases at least, it sojourns as light being for a time, presumably reincarnating on earth once again in order to mature towards the ultimate at-one-ment with Absolute Consciousness, as experiments with psilocybin may lead us to infer. The same experiment also suggests an illustration of why we normally are unaware of the oceanic realm of Absolute Consciousness. It is because the brainwaves of ordinary waking experience project the imagery of the waking world into the ‘sea’ of Absolute Consciousness, so deflecting our attention from its very embrace.