deptstoremook
2005-09-11, 07:48
Let me open this by saying this isn't a debate thread. This is something that has been on my mind and I want to organize it into words, and I feel it may be interesting to some of you on this forum. Let me further state I was unsure what forum to put this in, but this seemed like the best choice.
I don't want it to go in Science of the Damned because it is more cerebral and speculative than the usual dream topics.
A week ago, I watched a film entitled Waking Life. The film details the dreams of an unnamed character, as he experiences multiple false awakenings and engages in dialogues (and listens to monologues) about dreams and other related topics.
This was one of those artsy films, which I usually hate, but this one sort of stuck in my head, and has to date.
One of the ideas expressed had always floated around my mind, but I really started analyzing it after the film--what if, when we die (or are about to), we enter into a protracted dream, which encompasses an entire life, and what if, at the end of that one, there is another dream?
In essence, what if immortality existed in an endless chain of dream-universes?
My consideration of this idea in the first place has its roots in my fear--worse than fear, actually--of death. I personally want to cling to any type of eternal consciousness, because I have not been able to accept death as an atheist would view it.
I have noticed when I dream at night, in this life, my dreams are often more shadowy and I am less lucid than I am in waking life. This has led me to view the closing lines of TS Eliot's The Hollow Men in a different way.
quote:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
If my current life is a dream, and its awareness level is 100, then my next "dream-life" may have an awareness level of, say, 60. If this awareness continues decreasing but never reaching 0 (true death), then there will be no sudden death, merely an infinite petering out of awareness--eternal life, but not the way I would have liked it.
Unfortunately, this seems to be the most likely; the human brain, after all, has its limits, and carrying on these parallel worlds to successive degrees would naturally become more and more difficult, and thus the worlds more and more obscure, with time.
There is some poetic justice to the idea of recursive lives, though--if I were able to look back on my previous "lives," they would be more and more lucid, until, if I could look back far enough, they would be infinitely clear, and I would be infinitely aware--God, in other words.
I will grant that this is essentially an extension of the classic "brain in a vat" scenario, and that it is thus unprovable, but I am not submitting it as an argument, rather as what I called it just previously--an extension of an ancient philosophical scenario.
This part of my post is digressionary and fragmented and thus, I understand if you don't wish to read it.
I also need to mention the subject of time. Obviously, in this situation, time becomes infinitely arbitrary, because it allows an entire lifetime to exist in the blink of an eye. This beggars a real-world question: how long do regular dreams last? The obvious answer is "however long you sleep," or "however long your REM cycle lasts," but I posit that if we accept that time is subjective, then a regular, night-time dream, could last for an eternity, which opens up an entire other can of worms.
I know there must be a name for this line of reasoning, the seemingly paradoxical fact that I may have, just last evening, spent an eternity in a dream, only to wake up remembering only brief fragments. It essentially asks--am I in two places at once?
But I have digressed, and this post has become fragmented. Time is a beast that deserves its own topic, and so I will stop now. If you have read this far, I applaud you and hope you will reply with comments or thoughts of your own.
Edit: The short story An Incident at Owl Creek is a crude example of what I'm discussing, and is easily available online.
[This message has been edited by deptstoremook (edited 09-11-2005).]
I don't want it to go in Science of the Damned because it is more cerebral and speculative than the usual dream topics.
A week ago, I watched a film entitled Waking Life. The film details the dreams of an unnamed character, as he experiences multiple false awakenings and engages in dialogues (and listens to monologues) about dreams and other related topics.
This was one of those artsy films, which I usually hate, but this one sort of stuck in my head, and has to date.
One of the ideas expressed had always floated around my mind, but I really started analyzing it after the film--what if, when we die (or are about to), we enter into a protracted dream, which encompasses an entire life, and what if, at the end of that one, there is another dream?
In essence, what if immortality existed in an endless chain of dream-universes?
My consideration of this idea in the first place has its roots in my fear--worse than fear, actually--of death. I personally want to cling to any type of eternal consciousness, because I have not been able to accept death as an atheist would view it.
I have noticed when I dream at night, in this life, my dreams are often more shadowy and I am less lucid than I am in waking life. This has led me to view the closing lines of TS Eliot's The Hollow Men in a different way.
quote:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
If my current life is a dream, and its awareness level is 100, then my next "dream-life" may have an awareness level of, say, 60. If this awareness continues decreasing but never reaching 0 (true death), then there will be no sudden death, merely an infinite petering out of awareness--eternal life, but not the way I would have liked it.
Unfortunately, this seems to be the most likely; the human brain, after all, has its limits, and carrying on these parallel worlds to successive degrees would naturally become more and more difficult, and thus the worlds more and more obscure, with time.
There is some poetic justice to the idea of recursive lives, though--if I were able to look back on my previous "lives," they would be more and more lucid, until, if I could look back far enough, they would be infinitely clear, and I would be infinitely aware--God, in other words.
I will grant that this is essentially an extension of the classic "brain in a vat" scenario, and that it is thus unprovable, but I am not submitting it as an argument, rather as what I called it just previously--an extension of an ancient philosophical scenario.
This part of my post is digressionary and fragmented and thus, I understand if you don't wish to read it.
I also need to mention the subject of time. Obviously, in this situation, time becomes infinitely arbitrary, because it allows an entire lifetime to exist in the blink of an eye. This beggars a real-world question: how long do regular dreams last? The obvious answer is "however long you sleep," or "however long your REM cycle lasts," but I posit that if we accept that time is subjective, then a regular, night-time dream, could last for an eternity, which opens up an entire other can of worms.
I know there must be a name for this line of reasoning, the seemingly paradoxical fact that I may have, just last evening, spent an eternity in a dream, only to wake up remembering only brief fragments. It essentially asks--am I in two places at once?
But I have digressed, and this post has become fragmented. Time is a beast that deserves its own topic, and so I will stop now. If you have read this far, I applaud you and hope you will reply with comments or thoughts of your own.
Edit: The short story An Incident at Owl Creek is a crude example of what I'm discussing, and is easily available online.
[This message has been edited by deptstoremook (edited 09-11-2005).]