A question comes to me from someone in Costa Rica. I’ll turn it into a Journal entry.
“What do you think is the origin of dreams? Why do they exist? And what is occurring when we dream? Can you offer me any input on this subject?”
Here is my response:
“Hello Dreamer.
We dream from inside of our bodies. This is where the energy of dreams originate. The dream energy gets from the field of the subconscious, which is the body, up into the world of the brain mind, where the energetic of the subconsciousness is turned into what we experience as the thoughts and feelings of the dream by the utilization of the brain mind pathways.
Some general comments about thought formation in the process of the brain may be helpful…
As in the waking state, the heart mind is the channel through which all subconscious energetic is being channeled up to the brain mind; initially entering brain mind territory via the nucleus of the solitary tract (nucleus tractus solitarii, or just, the NTS), which is located in the midline along the length of the medulla oblongata, in the brain stem.
At this point it is helpful to note an anatomical consideration that there are more pipes and tubes and connections going from the heart to the brain than from the brain to the heart. This aspect of our physical nature has interesting implications worth pondering.
From the NTS, the thought energetic resonates specifically with the right hemispheric pathways via the right amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex, and floods these centers. These pathways are holistic, spatially oriented, non linear, and are creative in nature. The right brain does not define the boundaries of the body, and considers the enormous and expansive aspect of who we really are. After all, it is listening directly to the heart. The right hemisphere is viewed as a parallel processor.
The heart-right hemispheric thought/feeling process then progresses across the corpus callosum in the midline of the brain to the left hemisphere, which is viewed as a serial processor. The left hemisphere is linear, deductive, not holistically oriented, and considers our identity as a single and separate consciousness. The thought energetic is routed through the left amygdala and hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, assimilating a response which we then perceive in our consciousness as a thought/feeling.
If the left hemisphere has been highly conditioned with the traumatically based formats of Judge, Critic, Skeptic, Pusher, or Victim, then these formats of memory consolidation will invariably override the initial offering of the heart mind and the right brain. Such override will color all of our responses, whether they be in the sleeping or waking dream states. The result of this abuse of the heart and body by the left hemisphere is that we do not listen to our hearts, when we really need to be learning to listen to our hearts.
Example: you feel a special closeness to someone, a special intimacy such that you find yourself in a state of trust with them. You can share with this individual who you know has a good heart. The heart resonance field of this individual is kind and altruistic and courageous. Then you let some doubts and fears creep in based on prior conditioning and your cultured negativity bias. You start questioning their motives, and then you start questioning yourself. You may turn to your family members, who have a lot of the same entrainment as you do, to get some advice about how to trust this “stranger.” Maybe they are even your children that you have trained yourself in this very pattern of enmeshment. They advise you not to go down this path of trust and love with this individual. You concur. A knot in the heart has just been formed.
The origin of the trauma imprint resides in cellular memory in the physical body, and in the electromagnetic auric Light Body; both bodies being inseparable. The vibrational essence of trauma memory is the long term assimilation in the subconsciousness of the emotions of guilt and shame, and our perception of our ongoing daily experience as such.
Our conditioning actually starts in utero. Traumatology research is giving this proper notice. In utero, and in the preverbal period, we are beginning to feel what it feels like to be me based on the ambient electromagnetic field imprints of whoever is hanging around, usually the family of origin members who carry their generational psychic imprints of about seven generations.
We either feel guilt/shame triggering and we go about developing in fear and doubt, or, we experience higher emotional frequencies of courage, neutrality, willingness, acceptance, and joy and therefore we go about developing in love and trust.
If the Light Body leaves the physical body permanently, then we have given up the ghost, so to speak, and we transition from life to Life after Life, and we are in another dimension of existence. If aspects of the Light Body project away from the physical body, then we are projecting our knowing consciousness to another space time locus, and this is what we call astral projection.
Astral projection can be an important feature of the dream world, and the world of meditation. The waking state, the dream state, and the meditation state can be indistinguishable in some evolved individuals. Such beings, known as Siddhas, live in unbounded mind states, and can travel interdimensionally inside of themselves.
Remember, all of Creation is holographically existent inside of our Being, and we visit all of Creation inside of ourselves in advanced states of consciousness.
One important case study is the story of Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D, who worked as a research scientist at the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center (known as the Harvard Brain Bank). In 1996, at age 37, she experienced a rupture of an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) in her left hemisphere. This is a form of what is known as a hemorrhagic stroke, or cerebrovascular accident (CVA).
Her experience during the stroke is recounted in the NYT Bestseller chronicle entitled My Stroke of Insight, A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey. She had a craniotomy 2.5 weeks post stroke to remove a golf ball sized blood clot from the left hemisphere. Her full recovery took 8 years. Now she goes about telling and teaching others about her experience and insights.
During the stroke event, and in the immediate ensuing aftermath, she experienced a full shutdown of much of her left hemispheric function, and hence her left hemisphere was not able to override her right hemisphere. The right hemisphere took over, and she experienced what she described as nirvana. She was allowed to experience unbounded mind, even as the contralateral side of her body and her motor speech center was paralyzed, a problem that was less fascinating to her feeling state than her expanded mind experience.
You can go to the TED website and listen to her describe this experience. This story has become the most viewed lecture on TED.
The heart is the seat of the mind. This process of understanding is a life journey, and will go on and on, because the heart goes on and on…forever. Future writings on this website will explore the heart and its mysteries.
Here is a creative description of the eternal nature of the heart as delivered in the theme song of the 1997 movie “Titanic,” which was sung by Celine Dion. The next time you hear this song, just let go of your left hemisphere, and let yourself go into its message.
My Heart Will Go On
“Every night in my dreams
I see you. I feel you.
That is how I know you go on.
Far across the distance
And spaces between us
You have come to show you go on.
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you’re here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
Love can touch us one time
And last for a lifetime
And never go till we’re one
Love was when I loved you
One true time I hold to
In my life we’ll always go on
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you’re here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
There is some love that will not
go away
You’re here, there’s nothing I fear,
And I know that my heart will go on
We’ll stay forever this way
You are safe in my heart
And my heart will go on and on.”
The Purpose of Dreams
Essentially, dreams arise from the vast repository/memory of the subconsciousness, which remembers everything, and is also connected to unbounded mind. That is why some dreams can be prescient, or allow you to foresee things that will occur.
Dreams serve to allow the subconsciousness (the whole Mind-Emotion-Spirit-Heart-Body) to detox all of the accumulated trauma imprints we carry. One might say that an important purpose of dreaming is to detox the psyche. I believe that is an accurate assessment.
There are important qualities to how we dream, and these 3 qualities help define what is known as “lucid dreaming.”
1) How vivid is the dream? The more vivid, the better.
2) Are we participating in the dream, or are we just witnessing it? Participation indicates more involvement, but witnessing may also be called for. Both participation and witnessing can help establish self accountability.
3) Are we able to resolve the issues and considerations being put to us in the dream? Resolution is better than no resolution. Resolution enables us to be OK with who we are because it is enabling a healing (forgiveness) of the trauma imprint which is usually, but not always, driving the dream.
It is important to recognize that you are also dreaming while in the waking state. So, the same 3 questions above apply to this form of dreaming as well.
It is important to consider that this whole Creation is a dream originating in the mind of Creator of this grander dream. The Creator created all of the multidimensions in order to know Itself through Its own Creation. So, the Creation and the Creator are evolving as well.
We are part and parcel of that Dream. We are actually co-creators of the more expanded Universal Dream.
There are dreams (desires and destiny) that we have in our waking state, and there are dreams that we have in our sleeping state. Regarding both types of dreams, just remember that dreams have no boundaries.
As a poet once wrote, “Go to thy bosom, knock there, ask what thy Heart doth know.
Signing off from Crestone and Beyond
More Reading:
- Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s website is www.drjilltaylor.com.
- Discover How to Use Your Nighttime Dreams to Heal & Transform
- Are Dreams More Memorable As We Age?…an entry on one of my favorite websites, whose author I profiled in this Journal entry about Life after Life.
- There are 4 writings on this website about how the heart functions outside of its role of pumping blood. These considerations are very important for body-mind-emotion-spirit health, and are the most important considerations for living a happy and healthy life that I know of. There are many many people who live happy and healthy lives in our world who would never need to read such writings. They are the living examples of a glowing heart…1) The Pulse of Life, 2) The Spiral of Life, 3) The Prayer of Life, and 4) The Beginning of Life.
- Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams…some helpful information about the health benefits of sleep.
- Sleep–Why You Need It and 50 Ways to Improve It…another good writing about sleep.
- Using Sleep as a Tool for Creativity…the importance of sleep and dreaming for our health.
- The Benefits and Potential Risks of Lucid Dreaming…dreaming serves a number of important psychological functions, aiding memory formation, creative problem-solving, helping you find meaning in life events and imagining a different future. This article explores the benefits and possible problems in some people who experience lucid dreaming.
- Improve Your Health by Optimizing Your Circadian Rhythm…posted here on 10-28-18, this article explains the many important considerations one should know about sleep and healthy circadian rhythms.
- The Science of Sleep and Sleep Deprivation…the cycles of sleep and the health benefits of sleep are explained.
- Top 33 Tips to Optimize Your Sleep Routine…more good information about how to improve your sleep.
- Dreams Can Help Determine Coherence of an ITC Contact Field…an advanced aspect of dreaming is explained by my friend Mark Macy.
- Cortisol and Sleep: The HPA Axis Activity Connection…another article about sleep chemistry.
- Thoughts Like Dreams…3 brief paragraphs on how to manage incessant thoughts.
- Death Is But A Dream…a 2020 writing by hospice physician Christopher Kerr, M.D., Ph.D., which you can learn more about in this interview.
- Oops! Don’t Dwell on the Past…a dream related writing by Mark Macy, posted here on 5-29-20.
- Why Do We Dream?…a few theories on why we dream are presented here.
- Worlds Within Worlds 27–What Are Dreams?…Mark Macy examines the dream world and astral planes.
- Can You Control Your Dreams?…techniques to induce lucid dreaming are presented.