Dreams are made of this

It is now necessary to provide a feasible mechanism through which dreams, the mind, faith, the power of belief and reality can interact.

To connect all these Bolus used the idea of the microcosmic man and a universe filled with invisible corresponding lines linking all elements within it.

This was, as we know, shot down by the deterministic, observer orientated model of the universe of Descartes and Newton. This in turn, left the Austrian physician, Franz Anton Mesmer, floundering to find a scientific basis that would explain the workings of his discovery of hypnotism. For all its lack of ‘poetry’ and strong belief in the discreet nature of things, the science of the time obligingly provided one.

Borrowing the notion from the ancient Greeks, Newton and the other advanced physicists and mathematicians of the time believed that there was an invisible substance called ether (or aether) which pervaded everything, even ‘empty’ space.

This gave Mesmer the idea for his “fluid of animal magnetism”. A universal medium in which all bodies were immersed and through which, Mesmer believed, the planets influenced human behaviour.

The ancient Greeks, Newton, Mesmer and later, Einstein, were part of a long line of thinkers who though strived to work through science; found it difficult to ignore the intuitive belief magic has always voiced, namely that the universe is filled with some kind of ‘substance’ that pervades everything. Much like Bolus’ corresponding lines of influence. It was Albert Einstein of course, who gave this belief its best known expression when he succinctly said: “Nature, abhors a vacuum.” This statement leaves the door wide open to the assertion that the mind (as well as the brain, and our physical body) are linked to the world and the universe through a host of invisible ties much in the same way as the tides of the sea are linked to the phases of the moon.

That means that our dream existence, as magicians believed, interacts, somehow with the universe. Trying to discover how, theoretical physicist John Wheeler, found himself tangling with the very fabric of reality. And the more closely he looked at it the less substance he found it contained. The reasoning is that matter is the same everywhere. Whether we exist as a carbon-based, long-haired, leather jacket clad, bipedal mammal who is on the constant look-out for potential mates of the opposite sex, or a lifeless lump of rock on the surface of the moon, we are, essentially, composed of the same fundamental staff.

The only difference lies in the vibrational mode of the atoms which make us up, which also indicate their state of energy. Energy, as Einstein proved is just another form of matter; or rather matter is a solid form of energy, thus, the energy state of any particular atom or molecule of matter also determines its identity. The same carbon that makes up our bodies, for example, exists in atomised form in the heart of stars. The minerals that swim in our bloodstream are also found in lumps beneath the Earth. Each contains a different amount of stored energy encapsulated in its molecular matrix and theoretically, by the studied application of energy, each can be transmutated into the other.Yet the fact remains that we are alive and these things are not. We don’t yet know what exactly life is. We do however, know precisely what it is not.

Trying to explain what the universe can possibly be made out of and how all these different forms of matter can arise, scientists have theorised the existence of a tremendously small micromolecule that fills the entire Cosmos, and which actually also forms ‘empty’ space. This micromolecule which is so small as to make the smallest atom by comparison look like the side of a house, is called a Superstring, and it exists in a state of constant vibration. As it vibrates in and out of different stable energy states it forms all forms of matter and all states of it.

Now, these micromolecules, at the moment, have only a purely mathematical existence. Because of their minute size their experimental observation is exceedingly difficult and the difficulty of directly observing them is further compounded by the predictions of the mathematical equations governing their behaviour.

The equations predict that these molecules exist not in the three dimensions we are accustomed to, or even in the four of Einsteinian Space-Time, but in nine! Eight dimensions of space and one dimension of time, and if you are finding this hard to visualise think of a crumpled ball of paper. Apart from its generally ‘smooth’ outer surface there are other, interior ones, which constitute, in our example, different dimensions of the paper-ball’s existence.

Superstrings then are responsible for the existence of practically everything, including us. So, we are all in effect, created out of the same staff that makes up the Universe and because of this our sentient minds may be able to tap into other aspects of this universe’s existence in ways we are not yet aware of.

Our consciousness, the argument goes, is the result of the “vibratory excitation of the complex molecular structure of the brain,” and our sense of perception is part and parcel of this. Change, for instance, the vibratory status of the molecules either chemically (with LSD for example), or electrically (by placing your body in a strong electromagnetic field) and you can also change the way the brain (and mind) interacts with the universe, we perceive, at a molecular level.

When we dream then, or when we are under extreme conditions of stress, our minds may be able to go into some sort of overdrive.

A kind of charged, energy state that allows our perception to expand in some way. To reach out, so that we can then experience something of the Superstrings’ other dimensions, which may be worlds not much different from ours but with their own set of natural laws.