The Dreamtime: A Question of Questions

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream….

My daughter said to me the other day, that she wonders if she should change her destination, and instead of being a teacher, become a Cosmologist by trade.  When I asked what she meant by “Cosmologist”, she described that as “a person who studies the nature of the universe”.

As often happens, a conversation with one of my kids has set my mind churning, and I’ve reached the point that it’s time to get it into writing.  I do, totally, believe that reality is what we make it, but my thoughts the past few days keep going back to “just what is reality”?

I know there are many theories on just what is real, and what is illusion.  The popular belief, of course, is that matter is solid and immutable (unless some specific energetic force converts it into another form), that the world of our waking days is real, and that we are only participants in an ongoing saga of physical and energetic forces which interact, intermingle, and part again.  We’re all victims of fate, as it were, walking through a world of solid objects, and interacting with other living forms.

Is that reality?  Or, as another theory which is growing in popularity would state, is it all a figment of our incredibly talented imaginations?  Are we, in fact, simply walking in a living dream?  Are those objects and beings around us constructs of our own minds, creations of a fantasy world designed to keep our higher self minds entertained?  Are we born, do we grow, live and die, simply in a night’s dreaming?  Will we pass on from this life, only to waken in another, and find that our entire so-called existence has been a dream?

Pretty far-out musings.  Or are they?  We really, when we sit and think about it, have no proof that we are in fact not simply walking through the dreamtime.  Although we can touch others, and watch and read about them moving through their own lives, how do we know that they, and the objects we touch, see, hear and smell around us, do not simply cease to exist when our attention is removed from them?

Is the person or object we interact with, and then leave, and return to, really still there?  Or have we simply recreated the space from memory, to continue writing the story where we left off?

So often, when I sit and write a blog post, I’m sharing my point of view, my conclusions, my opinion.  This time, however, I’m not sure I actually have an opinion … but, rather, a mental room full of questions upon questions, the answers of which all make sense, even though they contradict.  As there is no way to absolutely prove, one way or the other, which theory is correct, does that mean that they all are correct, and what is true shifts as we alter our perspective?

If so, that certainly would be another point in favor of the “life is but a dream” theory, wouldn’t it?

I’m sure there are those out there, possibly even someone reading this blog, who will point out that many experiments on the physical nature of reality have been done, and “matter” is in fact irrefutably real and tangible, so therefore the common thought that we are solid beings walking through a solid world, and that what we perceive is in fact reality, is the true one.

This is a valid point, but it of course is valid only in that all of the experimental evidence depends upon the very thing it is testing … that it’s testing something that is real.  However, if even the scientists are all a figment of someone’s imagination, that sort of blows the proof right out of the water, doesn’t it?

I’m not sure there really are answers that will continue to hold water when perceived from an opposing perspective.  I do know that everyone out there is going to have his or her own opinion, or at the very least suspicions.  Each person is going to move through their day manifesting the evidence of whatever theory they find comfortable for them.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with that.

One thing that does disturb me about the extreme-edge point of view that each person is alone in the Universe, and creating all of the people and objects around them, of course, is the entire realm of how we interact with one another.  If one takes that extreme a view, it means that our kids, our spouses, our friends, our pets, our loved ones of infinite forms, don’t really exist other than in our own minds.

I don’t like that idea.  And I don’t have to like it.  It’s my choice.  You can’t make me.  ::smile::

However, to mentally disallow that aspect does not necessarily negate the possibility that we walk through the dreamtime.  It simply would mean that we’re all dreaming … together.

That we each create our own reality or, as Miguel Ruiz stated it in his “Four Agreements” series of books, write our own story, does not necessarily negate the thought that the beings around us are not sharing that reality in a real and tangible and individual way.  I feel that we all, in fact, influence each other, for (as another theory states) everything is energy/vibration.  As we send out thought forms, they intermingle with the thought forms of others, and the world around us is a combination of what we create ourselves, and those aspects of the creations of others which we accept as parts of our own.

Does this mean that we aren’t in control of our realities?  No, not necessarily … for it is certainly strongly plausible that as we consciously apply the practice of creative thought, we can choose to erase those aspects of influence that don’t work for us, and replace them with things and events that do.  Nor does it means that those people who are victims of tragedy, or of others who consciously apply ill intent, are to blame for their own situations.  All it means is that, as we learn that we do have control of the story, we can choose to rewrite it for the better.  Rewriting is not always an easy task, of course, and  doing so means perseverance, faith, and the ability to shield oneself constantly – for those forces which influenced us toward trouble in the first place are still out there and as convincing as ever.  It is, however, possible.

None of that changes that somewhat unsettling (which may not be a negative thing, depending on how you look at it) possibility that the world of physical reality is in fact the dream-world.  Another way of putting it, as expressed in various cultural belief systems, is that it is the spirit world which is real, and our physical realms are simply the expression of the spiritual.  As the quote states, on the main “Animal Communication”  page of this website:

“We are not physical beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a physical experience.”  { Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: a French Jesuit, scientist, and philosopher]

I do believe in the Law of Attraction.  I believe that Thoughts Become Things [Mike Dooley], and that The Secret is not really a Secret at all, but something that we apply in our lives every day.  As to whether or not the physical evidence around us is the reality, or simply a product of a higher, spiritual or mental, application of creative energy, though?

I’m still working on that.  Row, row, rowing my boat down the stream of continual questions.

How about you?  I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject!

A Few Resources Which Explore This Topic in various ways:

• The Secret
• Tut.com (Mike Dooley)
• What The Bleep Do We Know?
• Messages From Water
• The Artist’s Way
• The Four Agreements
• Relativity: The Special and the General Theory
• The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature

Related posts:

1. Of Kriyas and Crias
2. Better Than Ever? (Law of Attraction)
3. Trust and Innocence