Other people in dreams |
I had a nighttime dream in which I was both the character of myself and the character of someone else, a friend. What I know for sure is: that this other person was not really them. I'm sure if I asked them if they were in my head last night, they would wonder what I meant by asking.
So, the brain, the mind, manufactures a conscious person out of memories of behaviors and traits of someone else, as well as subverting the I-am-me programs of the neural network of the brain to construct this other person. Remarkable.
And all the while, the real me, 20% conscious of the dream, thinks everything is OK.
I wouldn't even have noticed anything about this except that I've been trying to observe interesting aspects of reality to write about on my blog. I'm guessing that this kind of thing happens all the time, perhaps to everyone, if they would think to notice.
It's remarkable that the brain is capable of thinking it is several people at once. This, I would guess, is the explanation for how it's possible for people to have multiple personalities at once. The brain is capable of functioning like that, but usually doesn't except in dreams.
But even so, from my understanding, they are only one person at a time. That was what I experienced in my dream. I was only one of the two characters at a time. But there was no sharp abrupt transition between the switching back and forth. Weird, very dreamlike.
Imagine people whose complete life consists in dreams (there are probably people having this condition). They would live their whole life thinking dreamland is real reality.
Certainly when I'm dreaming and aware of it, I think dreamland is real reality, the only reality. Only upon getting close to waking up does the remembrance of "really real" reality intrude, and I then recognize that I am dreaming.
Could it be that this "really real" reality is also just a dream which we will presumably wake up from someday? No, of course not.
I suppose you could consider the soul, the spirit, as the real self, and that upon entering heaven at death, this is a "waking up". Even more so when receiving a new glorified body and entering the new heavens and new earth to live in God's presence for eternity.
I wonder if we will then sleep or have nighttime dreams? Will this glorified body have a brain? If so, will it function differently than our current brains do? Will it be able to manufacture the illusion of being someone else in a dream?