Is life just a deep dream?

[Winston]

Interesting thoughts.

http://socraticsociety.wordpress.com/20 ... am-theory/

Cut the Crap…The Dream Theory
Posted on May 26, 2009 by unswsocrates | 3 Comments

By Albert Russell

When I was asked to present a topic, I felt like a person in the middle of a hot and dry desert who suddenly heard the sound of water, and found hope of reaching the water.

I wanted to talk about Arthur Schopenhauer’s book “On the suffering of the world�, but then I thought it might be better to talk about some fundamental questions: “Who am I?�, “Where am I coming from?�, “Where am I going to?’’ and “Do I really exist?�

I have been thinking about the answers to these questions for a long time. As a result, I have come to develop a theory which provides me with satisfactory answers. The theory is that the whole universe is nothing more than a deep dream. And time and space are the factors which make this dream deeper, making it easier to believe it as reality. Since an object has both time and space dimensions, then it will experience past, present and future in one direction. If the same object exists in a realm in which there is no time and space, then there is no past, present and future concerning the object. In other words that object knows about past, present and future at the same moment.

If we assume that this world we live in is a dream containing time and space dimensions, and the waking world is the world with no time and space dimensions, then when we wake up those questions will become meaningless, since there is no past, present and future in the waking world. These questions only belong to the dreaming world.

But this theory leads me to some other questions. “Regarding this theory, do the definitions of religion, science and philosophy change from the dreaming realm to the waking one?�, “Are we free in this dreaming world?�, “Did we choose to be a part of this dream?�

When I read the book “On the suffering of the world� by Schopenhauer, I came to believe even more firmly in my dreaming theory, as I felt a deep connection between my ideas and his. Here is a passage from his book:

“Life can be regarded as a dream and death as the awakening from it: but it must be remembered that the personality, the individual, belongs to the dreaming and not to the awakened consciousness, which is why death appears to the individual as annihilation. In any event, death is not, from this point of view, to be considered a transition to a state completely new and foreign to us, but rather a return to one originally our own from which life has been only a brief absence.�

[MrPeabody]

The Tibetans have a practice called Dream Yoga where you practice waking up in your dreams, i.e. recognizing that you are dreaming in the dream. The assumption is that life is a dream, and the same techniques used to wake up in a dream can be used to help you wake up from ordinary life, which is also a dream.

[Jeygonza]

The Tibetans have a practice called Dream Yoga where you practice waking up in your dreams, i.e. recognizing that you are dreaming in the dream. The assumption is that life is a dream, and the same techniques used to wake up in a dream can be used to help you wake up from ordinary life, which is also a dream.

What the hell is that. What's the point, to dream a life or life a dream?

[Winston]

The Tibetans have a practice called Dream Yoga where you practice waking up in your dreams, i.e. recognizing that you are dreaming in the dream. The assumption is that life is a dream, and the same techniques used to wake up in a dream can be used to help you wake up from ordinary life, which is also a dream.

That's interesting and makes sense, if life is indeed a dream that is.

Btw, I've been having a lot of flying dreams lately. They say that creative people and artists tend to have them. Do any of you have those? Isn't it so disappointing to wake up each time and realize that you can't fly anymore? In the dream though, you could swear that you could. It was so easy.

[MrPeabody]

The Tibetans have a practice called Dream Yoga where you practice waking up in your dreams, i.e. recognizing that you are dreaming in the dream. The assumption is that life is a dream, and the same techniques used to wake up in a dream can be used to help you wake up from ordinary life, which is also a dream.

That's interesting and makes sense, if life is indeed a dream that is.

Btw, I've been having a lot of flying dreams lately. They say that creative people and artists tend to have them. Do any of you have those? Isn't it so disappointing to wake up each time and realize that you can't fly anymore? In the dream though, you could swear that you could. It was so easy.

I fly all the time. I have used that to wake up in dreams several times, where I was flying in the dream and I recognized in the dream that people can't fly in ordinary life. The Tibetans also use a technique where you read a book in your dream. If you read a sentence and then turn away and read it again and it is different, then you know it is a dream. But, the flying works for me.