Reality exists in your brain

by Nickolas 59 Replies latest jw experiences

AGuest

First, thank you for directing me to this thread, dear Nick (the greatest of love and peace to you!). Second, there is SO much here that comports with what I have come to know... including that I know nothing... that I don't now where to begin. And because I'm under the weather, it may have to wait (because there is SO much I'd like to comment to). The main difference is that what I DO know about these things did not originate with me... or my brain... but with someone who does know. But we are truly not that different in our thinking - we just attribute what we DO know/understand... minute as it may be... to very different SOURCES.
As for lucid dreaming, I experience this all the time. Not only can I control my dreams, even what I dream about, but I can change the details... and outcome... repeatedly. While I'm asleep. In that light, I would not call what occurred with you "lucid dreaming" (although I realize some might). That's because although what you "saw" had not actually occurred yet, you still "experienced" every facet, with what SEEMED to be all of your physical senses (sight, smell, etc.). But how could that be... if your physical body was not involved but still lying asleep in the bed? I could occur, dear one, because, as I have tried to share here... the SPIRIT also possesses such senses. It, too, can see, taste, touch, hear, and smell. In this case, your spirit simply preceded your body into the experience your body was going to have... once IT awoke. Your spirit, however, simply woke first.
I know, I know... sounds far-fetched. But I promise you it isn't something I "know", something I thought up. It is part of what I have learned the spirit does... from One who is a spirit... who MY spirit can see, touch, smell... and hear. Just as your spirit was able to see, touch, smell, etc., your morning constitution. Your experience was real, dear one. Just not as to your physical body. But that doesn't mean you should discount it.
Truly, if folks could grasp that we are SO much more than just the physical vessel we "reside" in... wow, where "science" could and would go. What... or rather WHO... they would find! Unfortunately, the limitations we self-inflict... because our of our... ummmmm... loyalty to the flesh and "worship" of what is physical... greatly limits us and hinders any "real" progress we could ever make. Religion is to be blamed for this, though. Had those in religious power known... and TOLD... the TRUTH... rather than wielding such power to control their fellow man, many, many more persons of science would have sought to PROVE the "unprovable"... rather than dedicate their lives to disproving it.
Anyway, thank you, again... and peace to you!
YOUR servant and a slave of Christ,
SA
Nickolas

That is a wonderful post. Thank you, Shelby. Yes, it is clear that there is another aspect to ourselves that is not physical. My sense of the dynamic is that the non-physical aspect is psychological rather than spiritual in nature. For many years I interpreted such things as manifestations of spirituality but after so many failed tests for credibility I came to interpret them as something far more ordinary.
TheJigsUp

maybe the 'spiritual' and 'psychological' are something that go hand in hand for some part.
even to go as far as to say the psychological although fuelled by the physical for the most part, becomes more than the sum of its parts.
music is a wonderful example of the physical and psychological crossing the border into a kind of 'spirituality'
i suppose it all depends on how you want to define the terms.
lets say i performed a piece of music beautifully (HA) and no one recorded it
it was percieved by most as beautiful and when it was over there was nothing there.
the sound waves died in the white noise of the expanse and nothing but the memory of something percieved was left.
none of the listeners have any proof of the shared experience. but it happened. theoretically speaking as i probably wouldnt
perform a piece of music beautifully :)
maybe someone didnt hear that performance and so for them there is no credible, tangible proof of it ever happening apart from
the 'spiritual' experience of the listeners.
Joey Jo-Jo

Reality exists in your brain? I havent read most post but by the title I always thought the brain to be our processor and recorder, we see through our brain using our eye's, we ear through our brain using our ears, we taste through our brain using our tongues.
The human brain can do some incredible things, see and ear things that arent there, dream, senses and deja vu, but reality exists in our brain??, I believe the brain gives the key to reality. For example when a flying object it me in the face leaving a scar I still have today, you can't say it was my brain that made that object float in mid air and hit smack on the forehead can you? It wasn't mass hysteria, mass hysteria would be like someone walking into a bank with a machine gun, something needs to trigger hysteria.
btw Nickolas I find your posts extremely arrogant, LSD, schiz, sleep paralyses, what your saying is anyone is either crazy, imagening it or on drugs lol
OnTheWayOut

Reality exists in your brain?
While I have enjoyed this thread, apparently the title is not true for everyone.
Nickolas

I like your analogy, TJI. Music can't be seen but it still has a physical presence. It causes shock waves in the air which cause physical movements in your ears that are interpreted by your brain. Once you have performed the beautiful piece it exists only in the memories of those who have heard it. It has become part of their reality with no physical proof that it ever happened. A parallel can be drawn with a supernatural experience that has a physical presence but is not recorded anywhere except for the memories of those who experienced it. The only significant difference I can think of at the moment is that music can be captured and simulated using technology while supernatural experiences have not been.
I'm disappointed that I come across to you as arrogant, TJU. It is not my intention and I suspect it is either an example of the limitations of text communication (no facial expressions, body language or intonation of voice to complete the message) or because you don't like what I have to say so you attack my character. But just to be clear, I mentioned halucinagenic drugs in support of the post by Twitch as a trigger for spontaneous illusions that the brain interprets as real. While I do not do nor ever have done halucinagens I do know two people who interpreted their identical drug-induced experience as a message from god and who became Jehovah's Witnesses as a consequence. That's two people out of thousands, so quite rare. I didn't mention schizophrenia but it is also a trigger for people seeing things that aren't really there - if you haven't seen A Beautiful Mind yet, it's probably one of the best representations of the disorder. I have never had occasion to actually meet anyone with schizophrenia so, again, quite rare. I don't consider myself to be crazy but I shared my own personal experience of lucid dreaming, which I at the time interpreted to be real when it clearly was not. What happened to you, I don't know because I was not there, but because I do not believe in the paranormal I believe there is a rational explanation. It may not have been in your head, but it will still have had a physical cause.
OTWO, this thread might have been better titled "Your reality exists in your brain". The physical world around you is real and your brain interprets the signals from your sensory organs to create a representation of the physical world. Your brain puts all the pieces together along with all the intangibles like thoughts and emotions and the result is your perception of what is real. The person sitting next to you on the bus will not have the same perception of reality that you do, even though you share the same space in time. It is just the way it is. He believes things that you do not believe. His reality is unique from yours so where, then, do your different realities exist if not in your individual brains?
AGuest

we see through our brain using our eye's, we ear through our brain using our ears, we taste through our brain using our tongues.
Interesting. And what of those without eyes/physial sight, or ears/physical hearing, or the ability to taste, etc., dear Jo-Jo (peace to you)? What of the Helen Keller's of the world?
because you don't like what I have to say so you attack my character.
Welcome to MY "world", dear Nick - LOLOLOLOLOL! Peace to you!
Peace to you all!
A slave of Christ,
SA
Terry

Imagine this:
You are sitting in front of your TV set.
A news flash interrupts the Gilligan's Island rerun and you are taken to a scene of devastation!
An earthquake in Japan! A tidal wave! Three nuclear reactors damaged!
STOP!
The Tv set is only a "report" which consists of images and sounds. It is NOT the very reality itself.
If you were standing in Japan, however, THAT would be reality itself.
Your brain is like that TV set. It merely "reports" through your senses what is going on from the outside. You assemble those reports inside
your mind and form impressions.
Where many of us are FOOLED is in an ability we have that TV sets do NOT have. We can imagine reports from outside which aren't really happening!
The ability to TEST one or the other consists of due diligence.
Skepticism and testing are the dividing line between people of faith and people of science.
Crux

Lucid dreaming and dreaming in general are somewhat of a fascination of mine. I keep a dream journal and have excellent dream recall. And I have read/am reading several books on the subject.
As for "it's all in your head". There are several authors that take a much more extreme, spiritual view of lucid dreaming and out of body experiences. At least one example I can think of, the author believes that through lucid dreaming one can come in contact with "higher beings".
Dreamviews.com is one of the largest dream communities on the net, they actually have to split up dream sections to give the exsistentialst view point thier own forum. Some people firmly believe in a connection that extends outside ourselves. Some even practice what they called shared dreaming, believing that you can enter someone elses dream.
Personally, I remain open minded, but have a hard time rationalizing my experiences the same way other people do. That whole content of consciousness thing. Subjective experience shaping my view of the world. If I ever experience a shared lucid dream, I'll change my rationale. Until then, just because we both dreamt about a cat on the same night doesn't really hold that much weight with me. :P
ANYway, what I really wanted to post was if like me you find the topic fascinating, you should check out the movie Waking Life. It's a rotoscoped/animated film about a guy who is perpetually stuck in a lucid dream, experiencing false awakening after false awakening. Through out the course of his dream he has philisophical discussions with his dream characters from a myriad of different view points. It's a great movie, and very quoatable. One of my favorite lines is about "not being an ant." Check it out!
Terry

We live in a society of slackers who lie back and dream, cogitate, reverie, opine, fantacize, imagine, conjure and assert.......all without ever bothering to get up off their butt and APPLY those ideas to real life to TEST them for concrete fact.
Anything can be true if you don't test it.
Arguments are silly putty.
Tests are a contest for reality. Winners and Losers suddenly appear.
We can curse the weather all we want. But, an umbrella makes a practical contribution, don't you think?

Reality exists in your brain

Share this