The World We See Is A Dream In The Brain

Category Enlightenment, Universe

It’s been said that the whole world is an illusion, yet there’s still something being experienced, and there seems to be a “me” to experience it. Let’s take a look at how we can graphically illustrate this illusion-creating process through a pair of 10-minute videos and see how our bodies interact with the illusion, if the world is, in fact, an illusion at all.

The world as we know it can not actually be perceived. The ONLY thing that is ACTUALLY being experienced is the electrical signals stimulating the appropriate areas of the brain. So while it looks like we may be looking at another person or at a movie, we’re actually seeing the brain’s perception of a visual experience.

It’s similar to how when we dream at night, we can “see” a world that feels very real, and even though our eyes aren’t looking at anything other than blackness, the brain is still activated via electrical signals and thus we can “see.” The same is true when we close our eyes and visualize. It is recognized that the dream and the visualization are just illusions because they are not coming through the eyes.

The physical world may seem more real because it comes through our eyes, but that doesn’t mean that we can actually see a real physical world. We can ONLY see the brain’s perception of it. This sounds like a subtle difference, but it’s actually a key point. We can NEVER actually interact with the world itself through our minds, only our perceptions of it.

Let’s continue with the video.

So we can see that the brain is constantly interacting with electrical stimulation which we interpret to be an external reality, whether at night when we dream or during the day when we’re “awake.” It’s a lot like watching a movie comprised of electrical stimulation.

Who is it that’s watching the movie? The movie may be changing, but there’s always “someone” there watching. In the video, they called this observer the soul. It can also be called awareness, spirit, the witness, or even God. (The video cuts off at the end so we will continue on our own from here, now that it has set the foundation.)

When we start looking more closely to figure out who this observer is, who this soul is, we ultimate find that there is no me. At best, we can say that awareness exists. Thoughts may be running around the brain, but “I” am the one observing this. The soul is watching the show.

In many spiritual traditions, “enlightenment” essentially boils down to reconnecting and reidentifying with this witnessing soul, a non-localized awareness. The experiences shows us, experientially, that the physical world is entirely an illusion. When we “awaken,” it’s very similar to waking up in the morning and realizing that the whole dream, even though it felt monumentally real when we were immersed in it, is actually totally made up. It ONLY existed within the mind and it has no reality on its own.

So now let me offer you a few questions to consider:

Is the one who experiences the dream and interacts with it the same as the one who witnesses the dream happening?

Is the experiencer the same as the awareness?

Does the observing soul have the capacity to be affected by or damaged by the dream world abiding in the mind?

Continued Discussion | 3 Forum Comments

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13 Responses to “The World We See Is A Dream In The Brain”

Myrko @ AwakeBlogger said:

Hey Ariel! The whole intro with both videos, is it really important for the last conclusion that there is only awareness?

In the end, we don’t know if the physical world exist or not, if it is really outside our senses or if we are running on a simulation only happening in the brain. But it doesn’t matter to conclude, that there is only awareness and no “me”?!

Myrko @ AwakeBloggers last blog post..What is The Present Moment?
Ariel Bravy said:

Hey Myrko!

What would your conclusion be?
Myrko @ AwakeBlogger said:

We can’t say for sure if we are in a simulation or not, can we? I mean, maybe we all live in a matrix, who knows …
We could expect that this is not the case, but really this is impossible to tell, what do you think?

I think there is no conclusion to draw from the video.

However, to know that there is no me, that this little me is only a concept we build up in our lifetime, this can be known by awakening to our true essence, by realization. I’d say

Myrko @ AwakeBloggers last blog post..What is The Present Moment?

Ariel Bravy Reply:
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:48 pm
hehe, what’s real? What the “I” is is to be determined. We each need to realize what the “I” is for ourselves. Simply hearing about it or coming to an intellectual conclusion ultimately won’t be of total value.

Perhaps the best question to work with from here is “What am I?”

What is the “I” that knows? Who is the “I” that seeks the “I”?

Interestingly, the question may very well lead us to realization itself.
Ariel Bravy said:

Oh, one other big point to bring up:

Location is an illusion. The idea of there being a “here” or a “there” depends upon the illusion of separation. All external reality is a projection, including time and space. In Reality, they all exist within us, for we are the One and the All. We are the infinite.

Our external reality actually exists within us. We do not exist within external reality.

Our “location” is simply part of the formula for “who we are” (or who we’re identified with and pretending to be). It is an energetic mirror for showing us who we are, as is everything else in the “external” physical reality well call our life.

Nicholas Powiull Reply:
September 6th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
P.S. Good point to bring up!
This is how I explain it: In the beginning before life and time, consciousness was the only thing that existed. Consciousness is all there is now, all there was before, and all there ever will be. This infinite consciousness was focused on nothing, since nothing existed except for the infinite consciousness. The only way to focus on anything else, would be to split consciousness into a seemly separate part of consciousness. This would then create the ability to focus on “another part” of the same consciousness. This nothing that consciousness was focused on, was everything. Everything together in one moment; makes the everything, absolutely nothing. Since there is nothing else, except for everything.

Through a vibrating process of changed focus, consciousness begin to expand. The vibration allowed for the perspective of consciousness to expand by looping consciousness back onto itself. In other words, the vibration of consciousness allowed itself to perceive itself as being here, there, and the space in-between (the space to make here and there possible).

Through the vibration, there was an measurable distance from here to there. It took time to get from here to there. Yet, the time it took to get from to there was based on the perspective of consciousness. The measurement between here and there could take as long or as short amount of time that consciousness perceived. Consciousness could decide through perspective which part of the vibration to focus on. Consciousness could instantly move from here to there or it could perceive itself to be here and there simultaneously. As well as here, there, and the space in-between in one moment.

To understand what I am saying, hold an object in your hand, now move your hand from one side to the other. When that object is moving, it is not moving in time. The object from ‘point A’ to ‘point B’ is not the same object; all the atoms (or the one atom of everything) disassembles and reassembles anytime something so called “moves”. It is not moving at all inside time. What is actually happening, is that the object is relocating itself to be where it was already. In other words, all objects exist everywhere all at once in time because every object is the same object. If an object were to move faster then the speed of light, it is not that the object moves that fast, but that the object exists everywhere and just materialized from and to the location it already was existing. You only observe it as moving in time based on perspective.

This is what makes time an illusion. Time is a perspective of the measurable distance from one thing to another, but the one thing and the other are both the same-thing.

Thank you again Ariel!
Nicholas Powiull said:

I have analyzed the question ‘who am I’ for as long as I could remember and the more I questioned it, the more experiences I would be lead to. I have experienced myself as being every label there is to be and the conclusion I derived to is that I am infinite. There is nothing I am not and everything I am. I could be labeled in an infinite number of ways and each way would be correct depending on who I decided to be in each moment. There, who I am is much too huge to know. I define my life by who I choose to be and I know exactly who I choose to be. I choose to be loving, knowledgeable, helping, intense, passionate, I choose to see beauty in all forms, etc… the list goes on, but I only choose the positive for myself and only choose to see the positive in everybody unconditionally.

Thank you again Ariel for your inspiring influence!
Have a Consciously Flexing day,
~Nicholas Powiull @ Conscious Flex

Nicholas Powiulls last blog post..How to Attract Money into Your Life & Get into the Mind-Set of Abundance (My Personal Experience): by Nicholas Powiull
AngelMia said:

It’s been said that the whole world is an illusion. Does anyone know who originally quoted this information?

Ariel Bravy Reply:
November 16th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Probably whoever the first person to ever become enlightened was. It’s the same Truth regardless of background or time. It’s all the same Self.
TJones said:

I would have given this post 6 stars, if it was an option. Just added this to StumbleUpon.

Ariel Bravy Reply:
December 20th, 2008 at 2:33 am
haha, thanks for the stumble, TJones!
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[...] Are Truly Loved writes The World We See Is A Dream In The Brain: So we can see that the brain is constantly interacting with electrical stimulation which we [...]
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