Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
I have always been fascinated by dreams. I think it’s partly because my own dreams have always been so vivid. But while dreams are familiar to all of us, they remain something of a mystery. What are dreams? Why do we have them? What purpose do they serve? What, if anything, do they mean?
Blaisé Pascal (he of the famous wager) observed that “life is a dream, a bit less inconsistent.” I think he nailed it. Whatever dreams are, they are indistinguishable from our non-dreaming state of consciousness while we are dreaming. From inside a dream, the inconsistencies and even frank absurdities of a dream are not apparent to us, and we readily accept them as reality. It is only when we awaken that we are able to recognize a dream for what it was.
That raises an interesting question; how can we ever be sure we are not dreaming? Do we ever really know we are awake? I have had dreams from which I awakened only to discover the dreamlike absurdities continued, at which point I woke up again. That’s right, I literally experienced a dream within a dream and was only able to recognize both for what they were when I eventually woke up . . . assuming I ever did wake up. Again, how would I know for certain?
What I am experiencing at this very moment could be just another dream state which seems completely real while I am in it. French mathematician and philosopher Rene Descartes famously struggled with this same question only to eventually conclude that one cannot ever know for certain. Descartes’ “evil demon” hypothesis was eventually recast by modern philosophers as the “brain in a vat” problem, which later served as the inspiration for the wildly entertaining movie, The Matrix.
As for why we dream, there have been a lot of possibilities proposed. Some suggest dreams serve the purpose of organizing, consolidating and processing information gathered by our senses during our waking hours. More specifically, some think dreams assist in memory formation, perhaps by helping to move new information from short-term to long-term memory. Others speculate that dreaming serves the purpose of processing feelings thereby contributing to emotional health. Still others believe dreams are the body’s way of eliminating unneeded or irrelevant mental clutter, much like emptying the cache on a personal computer. And some suggest that dreams are merely the random firing of neurons which our brains attempt to make sense of by weaving into a story, however incoherent or implausible that story may be.
The bottom line is that we do not know why we dream. Moreover, it is not even entirely clear why we sleep, at least in the manner that we do. Going unconscious and temporarily paralyzed would seem to make us pretty vulnerable to enemies and predators from an evolutionary perspective. In a process called unihemispheric sleep, ducks drowse with only half of their brain, leaving the other half awake and aware. That would seem to be a much better approach from a survival perspective.
If one considers the anatomical and physiological traits of humans – and every other species – they have all apparently resulted from evolution. That being the case, it seems to me that dreaming must confer some kind of competitive advantage or it would not have been so universally retained and perpetuated in our species.
As for what that advantage may be, I wonder if it might have something to do with imagination and creativity. Historically, our ancestors spent their days like other animals, searching for food and shelter while avoiding predators. While they were awake, their brains were completely occupied by these practical matters of survival. But when they slept, their untethered minds were free to roam and play and imagine. So maybe dreams are where imagination and creativity originated. If so, dreams may be the inspirational source for many human innovations that have allowed our species to flourish.
Chemist August Kekule first proposed the ring structure of benzene in 1865, a problem he had been struggling with for some time. According to Kekule, the inspiration for his breakthrough came when he dozed in front of a fire and imagined atoms dancing into the form of a snake, which then proceeded to seize its own tail. When he awoke, he recognized the insight for what it was. Although the information needed for his discovery was already in his brain, it was the dream’s fantastic imagery that appears to have prompted his imaginative leap.
I frequently awaken during the night from a dream shaking my head saying, “wtf was that?” Although I have not been a student for over 40 years, I continue to have the obligatory anxiety dreams with that as a theme. I still find myself unable to remember the combination on my high school locker as the bell is ringing for class. I continue to abruptly recall as finals loom at the end of a semester that I had signed up for a course I have never attended. I was apparently a much more neurotic student then I recognized at the time.
My dreams have also revealed that I am more insecure and emotionally needy than I am generally willing to admit to myself. I routinely have dreams in which I am endowed with some form of superpower. Levitation is a particularly common theme, probably inspired by my Catholic upbringing. The levitation dream originally began as a daydream I would commonly have while drifting off listening to the unintelligible Latin during daily mass as a student at St. Joseph School. When I wasn’t daydreaming about the backside of the girl in the pew in front of me, I would drift off in one in which I would dramatically levitate above the congregation while deeply in prayer. Naturally, they would all recognize my special holiness and treat me very differently from then on. So, did I ever confess either of these clearly sinful daydreams during confession? Hell no! I can’t even imagine the penance our insane Irish priest, Father Kelly, would have inflicted on me, but I’m pretty sure I would still be saying rosaries today for that shit.
In my adult levitation dreams, I typically choose to display my power very casually but also in a manner that will be widely witnessed and acknowledged; sort of a “Yeah, I can float when I want to, it’s no big deal.” As I levitate above the awestruck throng – perhaps to do something as mundane as change a light bulb or open a high window – I smile down on them indulgently, seemingly indifferent to their amazement and adoration. It’s pretty transparent stuff, and I always wake up laughing from those dreams.
I have also had dreams that seemed to be trying to communicate something from my subconscious. In one memorable example, I am observing the path of a large, irregularly shaped rock – presumably, an asteroid – as it drifts and tumbles through space. The rock does not seem to have any particular destination that I can discern. It does not appear to be traveling to anything, it’s just traveling. As it cartwheels through the void, it periodically passes close to objects that I assume are planets. Some of these planets appear to be very beautiful, much like Earth looks from space. Others appear inhospitable like Mars, or even toxic, like Venus. As the rock passes each one, the gravitational attraction alters the rock’s trajectory and brings it close. The attraction is not permanent, however, so after a brief interlude, the rock continues its journey until it comes within the gravitational attraction of yet another planet and the process repeats.
I’m still not able to confidently interpret what my subconscious may be trying to tell me, but the dream does seem to be a pretty good metaphor for the friends and relations we have in life. As we drift through life, we encounter people in our lives and, for whatever reason, are attracted to them. We spend time with them – maybe a short time, maybe a long time – and then move on.
But if that’s the message, then what about the permanent relationships in our lives? One would expect that some of the planets would have sufficient attraction to capture the rock and keep it in orbit. On the other hand, there would also be the possibility that a planet’s attraction would be so strong that it would overcome the rock’s inertial resistance and pull it to its destruction. Lots to unpack there.
Before continuing the main theme of this essay, a brief digression on gravity with which I am also obsessed . . .
Quantum theory nicely explains three of the four so-called “fundamental forces” that apparently govern the universe: the strong and weak nuclear forces and electromagnetism. Gravity is the exceptional outlier, and if our theories about how the visible universe was formed are correct, it is by far the most important.
As Carl Sagan once remarked, “we are an example of what hydrogen atoms can do given 15 billion years of cosmic evolution.” Gravity created the stars from hydrogen atoms, and the stars in turn created all the other elements in the periodic table and all ordinary matter. After that, the other three forces were apparently responsible for creating the inorganic and organic compounds necessary for life.
The book, What’s Gotten Into You: The Story of Your Body’s Atoms from the Big Bang to Last Night’s Dinner by Dan Levitt, is an accessible and entertaining read for someone wishing to understand our current theories about how all of this happened. It turns out that the universe is self-organizing, at least with respect to visible matter.
But what is gravity and how does it work? According to Einstein, gravity is not really a force of attraction. That is just our net impression which results from the effect of gravity on mass. Instead, gravity is a distortion of space created by the interaction of mass with spacetime itself. And if you’re wondering why we use the term spacetime, just try creating an adequate operational definition of time without referring explicitly or implicitly to space, or vice versa. It can’t be done. The two are fundamentally inseparable, as Einstein recognized.
Most of us are familiar with the classic two-dimensional model of gravity that attempts to describe this distortion, i.e., the “bowling ball on a bedsheet.” But that model falls far short of adequately describing a three-dimensional phenomenon. A more realistic model may be found here which provides a better illustration of how gravity actually works.
My own internal understanding of gravity is that it is a displacement of space which results from its interaction with mass. Here’s how I think of it . . . imagine a submerged basketball moving through water in a swimming pool. As it moves, it disrupts and displaces the medium that surrounds it, i.e., water. This effect is stronger close to the basketball and becomes progressively weaker as we move further away.
As the 3-D model in the link above illustrates, mass also seems to displace the medium that surrounds it (space), but in a precisely opposite manner. Instead of pushing it away, mass essentially “sucks up” space. Maybe more accurately, in the presence of mass, space seems to contract. It almost appears as though objects are not so much traveling through space toward each other as they are being brought together as a result of the space between them shrinking. Physicist John Wheeler succinctly summarized the relationship when he concluded, “matter tells spacetime how to curve; spacetime tells matter how to move.”
If that interpretation is accurate, then it seems to me that space, i.e., the medium being curved or contracted, must be made of something. If so, then empty space cannot be literally empty because space itself is something. Space cannot be made of nothing because nothing cannot exist, and nothing certainly can’t “curve.” Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli and others have proposed a fascinating possible solution to this dilemma that could also help harmonize gravity with quantum theory in his book, Reality is Not What it Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity.
In 1697, philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz posed the question, “why is there something rather than nothing?” I think a strong case can be made that the answer is “gravity.” Without gravity there would be no organization in the cosmos; no stars (and therefore no elements beyond hydrogen), no planets, no galaxies, and certainly no life . . . nothing but an amorphous distribution of particles that have no interest in aggregating to become anything more. That said, it seems to me that gravity is less a fundamental force than an emergent phenomenon that occurs as a result of the interaction between matter and spacetime. I’m wondering if matter is even possible without spacetime. If so, where would you put it? Thus, spacetime may be the fundamental entity and everything else emerges from it. So the critical question is, what is spacetime?
Okay, back to our main thesis . . . Besides the funny, absurd and anxious dreams, I have also had some very troubling dreams that I am almost afraid to try to interpret. In one, I suddenly remember that as a boy growing up in Western Kansas, I murdered someone. I do not remember the details of the dream, but I very clearly recall the shock, horror, and revulsion I felt for having committed an act that was so completely out of character. I was also incredulous. How could I have forgotten having committed such a heinous act? Is it possible that I am not the person I have always believed I am?
When I awoke and had recovered from the shock, it got me thinking. Is it possible for someone to do something so contrary to their own self-image, and so psychologically and emotionally traumatic, that they can completely repress the memory of it? I remember someone once asking me, “what is the worst thing you’ve ever done?” Is it possible I wouldn’t know?
I have never been so relieved to wake up as I was after that dream. I literally sat up in bed and said “Whew!” And while it may be the most troubling dream I have ever had, it sparked creativity and became the inspiration for a screen play I later wrote. Unfortunately, the characters – especially the male lead – are so loquacious that it became hopelessly dialogue heavy (I know, what are the odds, right?). I have therefore decided to convert the story to a novel . . . someday . . . maybe. I’ll sleep on it.