Mankind
II
As mankind climbs the evolutionary ranks, he
crawls up to the point of higher life. This being the
point in time, where consciousness, and with that
awareness, albeit in a basic internal sense, becomes
available to the individual, with the formation of a
brain, and with it, a mind.
The lower regions of internal consciousness,
are where the point of coma sit. At this point any brain
activity, at least from the greater viewpoint of the
brains higher functions, is pretty much negligible,
existing for little or nothing more than the ticking over
of the body itself, breathing, pulse etc.
Further up the scale, the brains higher
functions are activated, whereby we move into general
sleep. In mankinds instance sleep involves dreams, a
direct spin off of the higher functions of intelligence.
Intelligence itself, despite many claims to the contrary,
being nothing more than mere pattern recognition.
It is within the realms of dreams, that we see
the true power of the human mind, as it flexes its
muscles, free from the constraints of the outside world,
and exercises its raw intellectual power with each and
every individual dream. The dreams themselves are all
conjured up instantaneously in real time, by the human
mind. The sights, sounds, smells, textures, in fact
everything pertaining to that particular dream, or indeed,
any part of that dream, are all evidence of the true
power of the human mind.
In the example of a man dreaming about
something so mundane as walking into a newsagents to buy
a magazine, every single aspect of that dream is conjured
up instantaneously by the man himself. The shop, its
shape, size, appearance, location, the people working in
the shop, the customers, all the goods within the shop,
the magazines, newspapers etc. their exact placings, and
even the contents of every single page, of every single
publication, are all created in real time. That's not to
mention the more complex aspects of the dream, the entire
personalities of all those participating within that
dream, their actions and reactions, in short absolutely
everything. All conjured up instantaneously, at the click
of a finger, by that single and solitary mind. with the
mind itself scouring all its available memory and
resources to provide adequate substance for those dreams
to take place. In the example of a nightmare for instance,
at some point in time within such a dream, the individual
concerned, will have come to the decision that something
scary should happen, at this point the mind will find
something scary to place within that dream. For instance,
a recently viewed video nasty, may well have provided
ample fear for that particular individual, allowing the
mind to regurgitate at least some of the movie concerned,
and play it within the dream. And if it can't find of any
relevance within its memory, it can just as easily,
conjure up a twisted version of something that would
otherwise be deemed as being unscary. For instance, a
doll lying face down on the floor, may well seem harmless,
yet when the individual picks it up, it could well
possess the facial characteristics of a rabid dog which
could then go on to attack that individual.
As any individual climbs the evolutionary
scale further still, they'll inevitably come to the cross-over
point between internal and external consciousness. It is
around this point, that the mind, may effectively mix
information from the internal and external environments.
This is most commonly seen when falling asleep in front
of the television for example.
Whilst the mind is for the most part only
really active on an internal level, as it commences
dreaming, it may then proceed to take snippets of
information from the exterior world by way of the senses.
Whilst the input derived from the senses, may not be of
sufficient clarity for the mind to fully comprehend just
exactly what is going on in the real world, it will be
capable of sucking in anything it does receive, and
allowing that information to be utilised within an
internal manner, i.e. the dream. In the common instance
of nodding off with the television on, certain aspects of
the current programme may in turn appear within the dream,
by way of the audio information being received by the
mind, albeit in a scatty sense, coming from the soundtrack.
The same principles are prevalent within the
commonly touted near death experience. Whilst the mind is
only conscious in an internal sense, and is therefore
dreaming, it scours all available sources of input for
information with which it may construct the present dream,
and with the mind being fully aware that it is lying on a
slab in an operating theatre, it commences utilising such
information within the dream. As and when such a time
occurs as the level of consciousness is at such a level
that it may suck in information from the outside world,
it may hear the constant beeping become a constant drone,
accompanied by the scurrying around of hospital staff,
with their claims of "We're losing him". This
then, now becomes part of the dream which that person is
currently experiencing, and which they themselves are
actively controlling, leading to them floating on up to
Heaven, or even sinking down toward the fiery regions of
Hell. Quite what happens within that dream, like any
other, is entirely dependant upon what that person wants
and/or expects to happen. In the common instance of the
nightmare, the reason such a dream turned bad in the
first instance, is because that person either wanted, or
expected something bad to happen, which it then did, with
the reverse occurring within the context of a good dream,
the reason something good happened is because that person
either wanted or expected something good to happen.
More interestingly, if and when such a time
occurs, whereby the information taken by the dreaming
mind, comes in a visual sense from the eyes, whether that
be a mere snapshot of the exterior world, or real time
images, certain strange experiences are then presented to
that individual. For example, assuming such an individual
is currently indulging in a dream whereby they are flying
through the air, if and when such a time occurs whereby
they are able to suck in visual information via their
eyes, without waking up proper, they will now be aware
that whilst they are flying through the air, they are
also in their bedroom, therefore leading to a fusion of
the two experiences into one, resulting in them
experiencing floating around their bedroom.
Such experiences are quite common, though in
the majority of instances, the only ones likely to be
remembered by any person experiencing them, are the ones
whereby the mind, climbs up from internal consciousness,
hovering around the internal/external mark up to full
external consciousness, whereby they wake up. Those where
the mind pops back down to internal consciousness,
whereby it continues dreaming, are simply forgotten by
the time the mind wakes up proper.
Copyright Sean Copland 1995-2010
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