What is a Dream?

We all have some idea of the basic concept of what a dream is, ofcourse, for it's a common experience, we all have dreams, and so consequently there is a basic understanding of it that we form from experience, cultural and religious beliefs, and science. But exactly is it? Well it all depends on how you interpret, what you interpret. The official definition you might find in a dictionary of a dream is "A series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep." This take really gives no insight as to what a dream actually is, it is simply stating random components of a dream, without really defining what it is. The use of the word "involuntary" is also the biggest flaw in that definition because it is possible to exercise free-will, conscious thought, cognitive ability, a strong sense of self, and the ability to remember waking life memories and/or other dream memories within a Lucid dream, a fact, that contradicts that dictionary definition. The Psychologist view is that a dream is, mental activity typically in the form of an imagined series of events occurring during certain phases of sleep. So a deeper look into that they are saying that a dream is a steady flow of subconscious, repressed, or forged memories, mental images, and interpersonal beliefs, wishes and desires, all collectively merging together to form a world entirely within your imagination, made by your thoughts, emotions, and beliefs during primarily REM (Rapid eye movement) sleep. Religious views on dreams typically involve some type of mystical or spiritual element to them, In Islam, Christianity, Judaism as well as many other religions there are cases of prophets, saints, holy men having prophetic, or warning dreams. There are also instances of the Lord visiting people in their dreams, as well as angels and spirits in some Monotheistic religions such as Christianity or Islam. Some religions and cultures placed a much greater importance on dreams, like the ancient Egyptians believed in many interpretations of dreams accepted in their society an example would be, dreaming of a cat symbolized a large bumper crop,and seeing yourself in a dream having relations with your wife during daylight symbolized that your sins will come to light and their god will have seen your misdeeds. These symbols and believes were part of there way of life, and they structured their entire lives around it. The Native American Ojibwe people believed in dream catchers, shaman interpretation, spiritual dream quests, spiritual communication in dreams, mutual dreams, lucid dreams and had an entire religion and culture with a foundation in dreams. They believed a dream was a spiritual world, in which waking life had some influence. My Theory, similar to the Ojibwe belief, is that a dream is an alternate reality, that acts as a bridge between the physical world of waking life, and the spiritual world. This bridge, a dream, is our subconscious imagination manifesting in a particular cross dimensional plane in which the spiritual world intersects with pieces of waking life we bring into the dream (memories, thoughts, mental images, emotions). The soul leaves the body when dreaming, allowing this phenomenon to occur, caring with it all your passions, desires, beliefs, emotions and memories. In a Lucid Dream, your mind and soul become aware of this event, allowing you to exercise free-will, control more aspects of the dream world, and bring more aspects of waking life into the dream. A dream is simply, a bridge between the physical and spiritual world.

What is Reality?

what exactly is it, reality? Many would say it is simply the world as it is, but then id ask what does that mean? And they'd say something along the lines of, It means the state of everything that is real in world, water, fire, sand, trees, etc..things that are tangible, and perceived the same by almost the entire human species. Now this definition of reality, although a lot more satisfying than saying "because it's real not fake", but it still yields more questions. Well first, id rather use my own terminology to better explain my theory of reality. There are three different states: Actuality (the true 'reality', an objective truth of how things really are on all levels), Reality ( The parts of actuality seen and accessible to human beings),and Perception of reality (P.O.R. is the parts of reality interpreted, known, and on some level, understood by the individual). Let's start with the most basic and relatable, perception of reality. Your perception of reality is how you see, what you see; In other words, what it all means to you, and what aspects of reality you understand, and how you understand them. For example, you and a friend may see the exact same girl/guy, and talk to her for 30 minutes each separately, at the same place. ok, now in your friend's perception of reality, that girl is tall, skinny, beautiful, smart, funny and interesting. But in your perception of reality, the girl is kind of short, an average weight, unattractive, stupid, corny and boring. You and your friend both saw and interacted with the exact same girl, for the same amount of time but perceived the girl completely differently, exact opposites actually. This is due to the fact that we as human beings all see the world or, reality, through a lens comprised of our nature, culture, language, interests, humor, intelligence, etc.. and life experiences. A word like Love or Hate, carries a different meaning, however different it may be, to each individual human being according to how they see the world through this lens that is ones perception of reality. So then what is exactly is this reality that we are perceiving? Well reality is yet another lens on top of our perception of reality, what I mean be that, is that reality is the world we can see and grasp to a degree. Our reality is limited by the barrier of the human capacity to see or understand actuality, The five senses, human anatomy, and emotions are examples of what makes up this lens. You can only experience the actuality of the world through sight, smell, touch, taste and sound. So even something as basic as a rock, no matter how much it is studied cannot be known in actuality because we will still only understand it through the five senses, but how many other elements comprise this simple rock, that would completely change how we view it if we had more senses to observe it with; Or all the different colors we even have scientifically proven to exist (i.e. ultraviolet, infrared), that because of our human anatomy cannot be seen be us, though it is seen by other life forms like the common bee. Reality is the parts of actuality that human beings are capable of perceiving, like the girl in the previous example, in reality she is say, 5'7, 140 pounds, with blonde hair, that is the reality. And finally what is actuality? Actuality is simply the truth, the answer to "what's inside the box" in the schrodinger's cat theory. Actuality although can't ever be seen, or mentally and in many cases physically tangible to us human beings. One example of actuality is, the Lord or Creator, no matter whether he exists or not in your perception of reality, or is accessible to you in reality, he will exist in actuality regardless. Another, non-religious example would be love or the shape of the the earth, no matter how these things are perceived or whether or not we as humans can access them, they do exist, even if it's nothing like we imagined it to be, or even if we imagined it at all. In other words, my theory is that we are in a circle within a circle, with countless other, smaller circles in between them, like so:

What is Love?

We all have some idea of what it is, but most will admit that no one can ever no for sure what it is. The first step to understanding love, or anything really, is to experience it, you can read as many love novels and scientific speculations as you want, and you could know alot about love, or at least have some idea of what it is, but you wouldn't be able to understand it. But even then the mysteries of love are still hidden to us. Also one of the aspects of this amazing thing we call love, is that the English language makes it even more confusing and complex than say, Greek, or Urdu, with many different words for the different forms. My Theory is that there are 7 different kinds of Love: Love of a passion (loving poetry), Love of Beast (loving your dog or cat), Material love (loving a ring or money), Platonic love (loving your best friend,mother or child), Religious Love ( loving your lord or your belief),Self love, and of course, Romantic Love. Just about every human being has experienced at least one form of love, many of us have experienced multiple forms. However, though they share the basic concept of happiness and desire, they are all separate emotions. So what is, Romantic Love, that's usually what we mean we when ask 'what is love'. Romantic love is probably the most complex form of love, and because of that there are many theories and philosophies as what it actually is. If you take the scientific approach you might say that love is simply pheromones and chemicals released in the brain that induce a hyperactive infatuation, accompanied by a strong sexual desire that was developed as a survival tool over the course of human evolution to promote reproduction, protection and trust, and thus allow our species to further prosper. But for love to be as simple and primitive as that, really doesn't take into account the sheer complexity of the human mind alone, and leaves no room for a spiritual role in love, though, I cannot disprove it. You could take the realist approach and say that love is simply a figment of the imagination, a facade of delusional bliss, forged by the desperate minds of people looking for a deeper meaning, looking for something that does not exist, and finding their own fake idea of what they perceive as love, but in actuality, is simply non existent. This view on love is not only depressing, but it also gives no insight or elaboration as to why for sure, love does not exist, also the world isn't seen objectively by any human being, we all only see our own perception of the world and its wonders, so if one perceives love to exist in their world, does it not? They experience it, live with it, and feel it, so how can it be non-existent, even if it is? And of course there is the dreamers view of love, that it is an amazing and captivating emotion that allows for one to enter a state of immense bliss, tranquility and intense emotional and physical desire. An emotional contract that signs away your heart blindly and unknowingly to the one you love, commitment, respect, interest, happiness, attraction, desire and acceptance all at once, and more. The best way I would describe love would be, The ultimate connection between two human souls

The Robotic Minds of Modern Society

Yes, the new era of robotics and technological innovation has given mankind a whole new world of possibilities. We have cars, planes, clean water, electricity, plumbing, cell phones, txting, and so much more! We can travel half way around the world, in half of a day, 200 years ago that would have taken months or even years. We can talk to someone almost anywhere on the planet earth, Its amazing isn't it, what could possibly be wrong with such a perfect world of speed and convenience? Well just like all great things there is bound to be some negative effects. Today people are not in the natural world, well people who can read this blog post anyways, we are in an artificial world, cities and suburbs were designed by built by human beings, we have altered the the world in so many ways to make life better for us, all while destroying it, and its natural beauty. Now im not saying that the artificial world does not have beauty of its own,the extravagant architecture and neon lights of the modern world are beautiful as well.But it isn't Earth, its DC,its New York, or its Bridgeport.. its fake, and alot of people never see what the actual world looks like, or feels like, or..what it is, I know I haven't. But the change of the world, and reshaping of it, is natural, because its something that human beings will naturally do, so that isn't really the issue. The issue is that because so many people never step outside this artificial world, and adapt to it, the entire construct of the human mind changes to fit it. The neuroplasticity that occurs as a result of adapting to this world, is far greater than most people realize. Take public school for example, as many would say, it is the foundation for this society. One of the many great things about the modern world, well what does it do? It teaches you, it gives you better understanding of the world, it increases your intelligence (average IQ scores have steadily risen by about 3 points a decade since mass learning has occurred). But it doesn't just do that, it teaches you how to, think. You are learning, learning methods, what not to say, what not to do, and what not do think. You learn how you should be, and for many, they learn from their classmates who they should be. A student begins to "self" his or herself based on the feed back on their grades, behavior and cognitive function, and develops a sense of who they are because of it. They begin to see themselves as "smart", "normal", or "stupid" but not based on typical social interaction no, there actually is very little social about it, its based on grades. See grades really have little do with intelligence, it has to do with ambition, cooperation and understanding of the system. So then you have smart people thinking they are dumb, and dumb people thinking they are smart because of what the system implies to them, and how they interpret it. Also the individuality of a person is often lost, free thinking or different ways of thinking are frowned upon and everything must be done and THOUGHT, according to the public education systems demands. And you develop what I like to call an "institutionalized mind". Not only that but txting, facebook, twitter, social networking and txt type communication in general (in my opinion) atrophy your real world social skills, and change the entire way of human socialization and communication to a much more "removed" , fast paced, and 'Awkward' reality. And most of us have a sense of 'this isn't how it should be' often time. Common knowledge like "Don't ask a girl out over txt", results, on some basic level, we understand that all this is unnatural and socially destructive. How weird is "# kisses! :))" to you?, probably not that weird. We normalized electronic simulacrums in our everyday lives. We expect the shorter conversations, the lack of emotion in the cyber world, and lack of humanbeingness in our modern world. We think in Tweets, txts, videos, grades, and degrees now. We are used to being watched by the countless video cameras on streets and in stores, or having photo ID, being put in a database, and having numbers put to our name. This is the modern robotic world, and we are slowly but surely developing formally rationalized, robotic minds. Just stop and think for a second, why is it normal that when a guy has a chemistry or emotional connection with a girl, a tranquil, mystical and beautiful phenomenon, He asks her " What's your number", how robotic is that...