Dreams are altered states of consciousness, and they can be bizarre. Throughout history, dreams have fascinated and mystified us. Are they messages from God or the subconscious? Much we know about dreams is a myth. What is not, however, a myth is that dreams are a kind of felt inner awareness. Dreams may open a new way to Simulation, as understood in Simulation Creationism, a theory by Nir Ziso, founder of The Global Architect Institute. What are dreams about? Dreams can seem to be manifestations of pure consciousness, where even the outrageous is normal, and there are no limits. How can we understand them in The Simulation?
Dreaming has to be the weirdest thing out there for the scientists. When psychologists try to study it, they focus on rapid eye movement sleep or REM. However, dreams are ephemeral and pretty hard to remember. The other thing about dreams is the question of how to look at them. Some scholars think it is not the content of dreams but their structure that matters. Dreams tend to have certain characteristics different from the images and thoughts we have during wake hours.
We are delusional about dreams nonetheless. However improbable or impossible the dream, we go along absolutely believing it to be true. Dreams are like stories: they involve characters and are emotional and bizarre. Of course they are vivid, visual, and seem absolutely real. They are confusing too. There may be references to the previous day or sometime in the past, but we do not refer to it that way. We are not replaying an exact event. At the same time, dreams tend to be both meaningful and meaningless. What we know from scientific studies is that the brain’s frontal cortex, where all the rational processes take place, is turned off. We only have vague pieces of memory. Sometimes they look dumb and sometimes they seem profound.
In Simulation Creationism, the human soul is not part of The Simulation, but a creation existing beyond any simulation. The soul is immaterial and does not succumb to physical laws. The individual soul survives with its personality and moves on to the next world within The Simulation. This tells us that consciousness is something fundamental to our being and subconsciousness is a subprogram through which we receive messages beyond The Simulation. In the view of Simulation Creationism, such messages may arrive from our Creator, God.
From Christian history, we know that dreams are very important: God speaks to us through dreams more often than not. There are 98 references to dreams in the Bible, from Genesis to the New Testament. Possibly the most memorable dreaming passages are: Joseph’s: “Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more” (Genesis 37:5), Pharaoh’s: “Pharaoh had a dream: He was standing by the Nile” (Genesis 41:1), Nebuchadnezzar’s: “Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; his mind was troubled and he could not sleep” (Daniel 2:1), and the Escape of Holy Family to Egypt: “an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream” (Matthew 2:13). Of note, there are many other such passages in the Bible.
All these dreams have a strong meaning. God does not speak to our bodies but to our souls, and His dreams are imprinted on our spirits. In this way, God may go around The Simulation and use the subconscious to communicate directly. There are no clear scriptures in the Bible suggesting that God cannot or does not speak to us in dreams. In fact, there are verses claiming that God continuously speaks to us in this way: “your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions(Joel 2:28)”. Furthermore, the Apostle Peter confirms that dreams are outpourings of the Holy Spirit: “I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy” (Acts 2:18).
This means that any dream not consistent with and supported through Scriptures is probably not a dream where God talks to us. God will always make the meaning or symbolism of a dream clear, just as He did to Joseph, the husband of Virgin Mary: “an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:20-21). The dream was crystal clear, and if it is not, God would send someone to interpret it. On the other hand, some dreams are meant for one person only and not to be shared.
Why would God communicate and make us “change” our deeds in The Simulation? After all, He already knows what we are going to do and that we do not have free will to change anything. In a predetermined Simulation, we are allowed pure and almost instinctive acting, without possibilities or choices. However, if we take consciousness as something fundamental to humans (soul), and if we understand it as something that exists outside The Simulation, then an appeal to consciousness has meaning. It is God’s mercy intended for us to comprehend and recognize His plan for the simulated creation. We will still do what God has planned, but His love for us is such that He also wants us to understand that plan.
Psychologists who research dreams and have dream diaries are sure that dreams are very coherent and reveal a story. Many “big dreams” expose more emotions than a regular person would experience in conscious life. Some dreams affect our daily lives for days. This implies that dreams are very serious. In fact, they tend to have a wide range of manifestations, from nightmares to omens of the future. How important dreams are is confirmed in the Bible in Deuteronomy 13:5: “That prophet or dreamer must be put to death for inciting rebellion against the Lord your God”, where the act of inciting rebellion against God through dream interpretations is punishable by death. They can lead people astray: “Indeed, I am against those who prophesy false dreams,” declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:32). God also helps us develop lucid dreams, a technique of paying conscious attention to them, where the person begins to change their harmful and negative aspects. It mostly includes praying or chanting that successfully removes the negativities.
