I wanted to start a new topic, which I think has the potential to help understand the phenomenon of dreaming.
The main inspiration for this comes from a Norwegian author, Terje G. Simonsen, who has done research on reports of the paranormal and current understanding of physics. In his book (my English translation of the title: “Our hidden abilities”), he repeatedly uses the analogy of “the mental internet” to describe his take on the reality of paranormal experiences. Shortly explained, it means that we’re all to a mental field.
Another technology analogy would be ourselves as infomation systems. Memory can be compared to a hardrive, there are scripts for certain situations, the brain is like a processor, which different functions etc.
Something I thought of recently, was if the dream-state could be understood as being disconnected from the external senses that we rely on in our waking lifes? Being disconnected from these senses, the nature of our experience change as being in a dreamscape. It’s also possible to think of the mind being a sensor-system of it’s own apart from the external senses (the five external sensor-systems). There’s maybe a decoder in the brain that translates sensory input into something computable by the mind.
In terms of technology, what would constitute the mind? Is it like an operator outside of the machine, or is it just another part of the machine? Does all the intentions araise from within the system? Is there a selection of images that constitute a definition of “self”? Is there a blueprint (a class in order of object-orientated programming language) for the self upon which we build our images of “self”? Are there concurring processes within the system? If so, how are resources being distributed and prioritised? (A mouthful, I know).
I’ve had experiences while dreaming telling me that the brain is processing input from my waking life, in sort of meaningless and mechanistic ways, but I’ve also had experiences of meaningful content speaking to my life and choices to make. I am curious as to there are different levels within the dream-state.