Quantum Mind-Body -or- Dreams and Quantum Mysticism
Philosophy of Nature -or- What is Real?
When researching the dreams in my database and typing in the keyword "real", over 33% of the dreams have the word "real" in them; "It seemed so real". Dramatic performances can be real, imagined or dreamt. Much like Morpheus says to Neo when asked about the imaginary nature of the Matrix (Neo: "I thought it wasn't real"), Morpheus responds; "Your mind makes it real". By the same token, dreams are internal visionary dramas that play out on the inner dream screen or theatre.
Daniel Dennett has debunked the idea of such a theatre of the mind using the concept of the observer in the "Cartesian theatre". Dennett's criticism is valid if we use classical physics as the basis for such an observational theatre. A scientific revolution was sparked in the year 1900 when Max Planck discovered the "quantum mechanical" nature of reality, shattering the old paradigmatic conceptions of classical physics and philosophy of nature.
In this new paradigmatic sense, the observer in dreams is not defined by the "flatland" of classical physics. Instead, I believe that in our nightly dreams we are "observers" running "quantum mind-body" simulations of how we as observers can learn to "act" and cause the "collapse of the wave function" in waking reality. What we do in our dreams, is learn primarily through visual observation how to observe, act and cope with our everyday reality.
Below is a dream that speaks about finding the visual theatre design of the International Institute for Dream Research website "synchronistic" with her dreams. It was the psychiatrist Carl Jung who coined the modern idea of "synchronicity". Jung and the physicist Wolfgang Pauli "Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle" believed that the old Cartesian dualism of the mind-body was psychologically wrong and that quantum physics provided a natural bridge for solving the mind-body problem. These ideas are discussed further in the dream interpretation "Quantum Mysticism -or- The Dreams of Wolfgang Pauli". It is this "quantum mystical" design of mind-body process philosophy in our dreams that I am trying to make visible for you the reader. Said differently the dream is a "quantum theatre".
Here's the dream;
Silvia, 38
I have dreams with auditoriums and theatres in them, when I came across the theatre images on your website it struck me as synchronistic. So I thought I would contribute this dream.
I am in a parking garage, traveling downward through a driveway that curves around. I am eager to see what's around the bend but apprehensive as well. It feels as though the parking garage is below ground. I don't think I'm in car or other vehicle but I don't feel my body. I arrive at a place that is an auditorium with seats going down towards a theatre. It is dark but I am able to see things. There are naked people standing around talking, they keep talking after I walk in. I realize I am naked too. It doesn't bother me, after all everybody else is naked much like when I am at the gym locker room. I sit down. I don't know the people who are gathered around standing lower than where I am sitting. Its as though I am at a conference or seminar.
It seems to be on high tech gadgetry. I am given a head set that is for some kind of virtual reality program. I put it on but the screen is blank (blue). There is a keyboard. I am asked to contact a friend of mine from work with instant messaging. I remember the word "IM" (Instant Messaging) when I wake. I could not get in touch with him. I tried several variations of his name (I couldn't remember his IM ID). I felt frustrated at not being able to contact him and letting down the people who were there. I have had other dreams with auditoriums, parking garages, and some kind of vision aids, ie glasses, lenses.
Mr Hagen's Reply: Plato's Cave -or- Experiential Learning of Mind-Body
As a student during the spring of 1979, I read Susanne Langer's ideas about mind, art and philosophy. Langer's ideas play a key symbolic role in the visual theatrical design of the International Institute for Dream Research website. The Western tradition of theatre has a long history. The allegory of "Plato's Cave", is a visionary experiential tool to help understand that what we "see" are cultural representations of virtual reality and not reality in itself. The "virtual" aspect of the IIDR website, which includes the imagistic concepts of nudity (much as in your dream) both in its artistic as well as grotesque imaginative forms, highlights the cultural use and abuse of bodies and mind by a variety of sub-cultures and individuals. You are not the first and hopefully not the last to "see" that via technology I am attempting to make visible what seems invisible, namely the collective unconscious dreaming process with its transpersonal base and superstructure of our visual culture. Finally we can "see" the "Small World" of our dreams and the human condition.