The Dream Dimension

This entire entry could be a stretch, but my mind has a tendency to link certain subjects with others that one might consider barely related without my awareness until after the fact. I hope this isn’t the case and that I haven’t strayed too far from the subject of time.

In class today, I jotted down something from the magazine DJ shared with us: "Saint Augustine of Hippo, the famous fifth-century theologian, remarked that he knew well what time is-until somebody asked." I find this to be exceptionally relevant to nearly any philosophical, scientific, or religious debate, but I find time to be particularly inclusive to this statement since it is a generally accepted standard (although not necessarily exactly uniform in all cultures) universal concept and I personally would not have thought to question it had it not been of focus in Constructing Reality. Like Saint Augustine, I (thought I) knew what time was until somebody asked. Now the most I can do is introduce more inquiries based on the theories of others.

The spacetime relativity theory attempts to scientifically illustrate the behavior and construction of the universe, including governing forces such as gravity, light, speed, and time. In Euclidian perception, the universe is suggested to consist of three dimensions of space (height, width, and depth) and one (temporal) dimension of time. In this theory, the universe does not consist of four dimensions, but of 3 + 1 dimensions. The relationship between the two types of dimensions is additive, yet codependent. These dimensions provide arenas where all events of the universe take place. Time cannot be separated from the continuum because it depends on an object's velocity relative to the speed of light and also the strength of intense gravitational fields which can slow the passage of time. According to the block theory of the universe one can travel through time if he discovers worm holes and thus, time must exist like length, width, and depth because it would be continuous and simultaneous.

If time travel is possible, we would have to change location (space) as well as time. Continuous and simultaneous time would provide infinite locations and events at any given moment. We’d only have to find the specific coinciding coordinates to reach a certain instant.

…which makes me wonder…

Is the dream world contained within our own and can/do we control our ventures into it? "People in primal societies were unable to distinguish between the dream world and waking world or that they simply choose not to make such a distinction. They saw that the dream world was not only an extension of reality, but that it was a more powerful world." (http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/history.htm) Maybe our subconscious when we are asleep isn’t ‘sub’ at all. Perhaps it IS just an extension of reality beyond our control to which our minds travel routinely. It is possible that dreams are a different time and place which are experienced by deeper parts of our minds and bodies during the nighttime time and space which we naively consider purposeful for sleeping alone.