Based on a migraine experience that I had a few years ago I have concluded that dreams are not non-physical or are at least partially physical. Maybe some of you can shed some light on this one for me. I always keep this event forefront in my mind when reading ANY text that claims that dreams are of a purely non-physical nature. I know that fundamentally it's just data in the MBT model, but maybe someone can elaborate for me because if dreams are a separate reality frame than physical, what I am about to say is illogical because the physical brain shouldn't be affecting anything.

For the entire story about my migraine era you can read it on my blog here: http://www.malleablelight.net/2009/08/10/say-no-to-prescription-drugs-and-amalgam-fillings

Back in 2007 after a dentist poisoned me with amalgam filling I began to start regularly having migraines with visual aura. They visual part would effect both eyes (because it was a neurological poisoning) and would render me blind, only being able to see flashing colors. Each visual aura episode would last approximately 45 minutes and I would have these episodes several times a week. A migraine with visual aura can't be confused for something else, it was the same pretty much every time. I would lose my ability to think, I would go blind and then have a headache from hell.

One night while in a dream (sleeping) the visual aura showed up. Yes, I saw the visual aura in my sleep. Then about halfway into it I woke up and was still seeing the exact same visual aura in waking life. So basically the migraine started in my sleep (in my dream) and I saw the aura, which indicates to me that the visuals in "this specific dream" were not being fed to me by "non-physical" but instead a mercury poisoned physical brain.

What do you all think about this? I just want to know how this experience fits into the MBT. I was thinking that maybe a non-physical data stream could be getting fed to the physical brain during dreams making the brain "required" for dreaming.

Thanks all!

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After all this is over, all that will really have mattered is how we treated each other.

http://www.malleablelight.net

My guess is that it is just data being interpreted by your consciousness. It doesn't really matter whether you are interpreting it in PMR or NPMR.

Right, but how is the poisoned physical brain coming into the picture? You can't mercury poison consciousness. That's the part that is hard to explain, and based on what I said above this would suggest that the brain is "required" for classic dreaming. See what I am saying? NPMR being filtered by a poisoned brain doesn't seem efficient or logical.

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After all this is over, all that will really have mattered is how we treated each other.

http://www.malleablelight.net

Hi Dbmathis, good to meet you:

I agree with Sainbury. The mercury poison of consciousness affected the flow of information. You can see it as a data corruption. The fact that the data corruption caused by the physical affected your non-physical condition does not mean that you "required" the brain. I haven't gone through your condition, but I think it is probable that somebody more experienced in NPMR accessing would still access NPMR despite a brain conditioning.

I also would say that I experienced the opposite. I experienced real taste and touch added to the common vision in NPMR as real as in PMR, meaning that experiencing can be similar without the use of your PMR body.

I think you came to wrong assumed conclusions. As an information processing being, everything is possible. Information affects information and you can process not only PMR information.

Claudio

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"Every moment can be as good as you want it to be."
"Experience is the ultimate teacher."

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Nice to meet you too soprano.

What you are saying is that data filters through the physical brain before hitting dream consciousness which would mean that dreams (at least this one) are at least partly physical in nature. The term NPMR would not exist without PMR, else we would just call it R. Since PMR does exist and is not the same as NPMR and I shared the experience in both PMR and NPMR, they are either both the same or one is filtering the other. Doesn't make sense. Sorry.

My point here is that dreams are at least partly if not all a physical phenomenon. Not that data is or isn't being corrupted. I am not suggesting that OBE states are physical, only the classic dream.

_________________
After all this is over, all that will really have mattered is how we treated each other.

http://www.malleablelight.net

Dreams are partly a physical phenomenon.

When we are dreaming, we are still getting feedback from our PMR brain and body, and we are neither completely separated from the body in terms of consciousness.

Actually, there are devices that takes advantage of this, called "REM-dreamer" or "NOVA dreamer". The device is sitting on ones face, and can detect when one enters REM stage, when it detects it, two red LED lights blinks. The person dreaming can then see the red light out of nowhere in the dream, and thus get lucid. It's a device for lucid dreaming.

I'm glad you got rid of the mercury and got well again.

That's helpful specialis_sapientia and I was not aware of such devices so thank you for sharing.

_________________
After all this is over, all that will really have mattered is how we treated each other.

http://www.malleablelight.net

Well, if I am understanding MBT correctly - whether you are dreaming, or meditating, or having an OBE, or at the dentist it is just your consciousness interpreting data. It's all data there is no difference. The difference is in the focus or interpretation by your consciousness. Remember terms like PMR and NPMR are terms for a model to be able to understand it.

Dbmathis;

In the MBT model, there is only consciousness. Physical and non-physical is only a matter of perspective. It depends where your awareness is at the time. Wherever your awareness is, that will appear more 'physical' to you. However, the physics in each reality frame/dimension can be different so it will feel different than the one you are most used to.

Also, since we spend most of our time in this specific awake reality, we use this physical experience as a basis of interpretation of any data we receive into our consciousness from the dream reality or any other reality we shift our awareness to whether intentionally or not.

You could say everything in non physical and subjective. Things/data only appear approximately objective.

Remember, you are not using any of your five senses in NPMR. You are only bringing your experience of using them there with you. Just like you can bring any experience you've had with you, (or leave it behind i would guess) and that will play a factor in how you interpret the data you receive into your consciousness there.

For example; a person in a wheelchair may still have the experience of walking in a dream. Or vice versa.

My interpretation would be that you are bringing your experience only of the migrane/aura/poisoning with you to your dreams. One is not filtering the other, one is not more physical or more fundamental than the other.

Welcome to the forum!
Take care

Steve.

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Be the difference.

I am calling focus in this instance PMR and NPMR. Within Tom's MBT he does the same thing. You have to call it something :). I am saying that it's a logical impossibility for NPMR and PMR to be separate and the same all at the same time or you could not logically say I am shifting my focus from "here" to "there".

Waking life and classic dreams therefor seem to share the same "focus or perspective" which happens to be PMR.



This implies that I created the sense of the migraine as I have in the past with sight and hearing when obe. This is not what happened. A real migraine started in the dream and then continued into waking, which suggests that it "exists objectively".

_________________
After all this is over, all that will really have mattered is how we treated each other.

http://www.malleablelight.net

Dbmathis,

Your logical impossibility is a problem of perspective. From a PMR objective perspective i can see where one might derive this confusion.

Its all a matter of perspective.

One could look at a glass full of water and say: It half empty or half full. Is the glass half full of water or half full of a million drops of water? The water can be perceived as one thing or a million drops? Of course both are correct, just two different ways interpreting the same data.

Steve.

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Be the difference.

:) So we are back to "since it happened in both realities (perspectives)" then the logical conclusion is that PMR at least played some part in it by some means of filtering. Unless you simply deny that I had a migraine in PMR. This means that dreams are at least partly physical.

_________________
After all this is over, all that will really have mattered is how we treated each other.

http://www.malleablelight.net

Dbmathis,

Hmmm...let's try this.

Insert the word 'experience' into this sentence like this:

This implies that I created the experience of the migraine as I have in the past with the experience of sight and hearing when having the experience of an obe. This is not what happened. An experience of a migraine started in the dream experience and then continued into my waking experience.

Your consciousness is the totality of all your experiences, whether they come from the dream experience or waking PMR experience.

One experience is not more 'real' or fundamental from the perspective of your consciousness.

Steve.

_________________
Be the difference.

Dbmathis:

I disagree with your perspective. I think SS contributed with his assumption that dreams relate to the physical. It is our interpretation and focus that bring us closer or further from PMR. The fact that PMR affects the data streams we process, does not mean or proved that they are "created" exclusively by PMR. PMR may give a starting direction, but the final driving depends on each of our different capacities to process information. Dreams are NPMR as any other NPMR experience (like OBE). You cannot catalog objectively. Dreams and OBE are affected by the subjective. If you are aware that they both are information, the main difference is in the awareness itself. If you are perfectly aware in a dream and relate to the physical you can catalog it as an OBE, but that again is an interpretation. My perspective is more in tune with what Sainbury and Steve posted. PMR is like a woman. You can get more or less attached to, but if you practice and experience more NPMR you can easily get less attached to PMR if you want to. There is no general rule for all. It depends on your interpretation and your present capacity to control data streams.

NPMR and PMR are sets of data streams. You, we are always in both. It is our awareness that can allow us to not only experience more NPMR but also parallel process more. It is not an either or. It is easier to experience NPMR the farther you get away from PMR, but with practice and if you can lower your entropy you can parallel process more and experience more NPMR without sacrificing much of your PMR perception.

What you called focus can also be named awareness.

BTW: I totally agree with Steve.

Claudio

_________________
"Every moment can be as good as you want it to be."
"Experience is the ultimate teacher."

> http://soprano.com <

We know from objective MRI brain scans that migraine visual auras do indeed start in the PMR, which would imply that my "experience" of a dream and waking reality are one in the same -OR- PMR stream is filtering / bleeding into NPMR. It can't be any other way. I understand that reality is based on perspective / focus / awareness and because of that very thing we have perspectives broken into different subsystems that we call NPMR and PMR. If things were not broken into smaller systems there would be no way for consciousness to reduce entropy.

If I read you all right, you're saying that the mercury poisoned my consciousness. We could also say that istead of chopping down the tree I chopped down consciousness. I will add this to my list of interesting possibilities :). I can't confirm or deny it at this point so I have no choice.

Once again my point is that PMR and NPMR must be either the same or filtering / bleeding into each other. I think this is what you all are saying too, just in different ways.

BTW, thanks for arguing with me tonight, it's taking my "focus" away from the fact that I am running a high fever and am in severe sinus infection pain. You guys are great.

_________________
After all this is over, all that will really have mattered is how we treated each other.

http://www.malleablelight.net