The body, the brain, the spirit

Things “deleted” or repressed in our waking life sometimes do come out in dreams. Many other things happen of course, like all the stuff science talks about, but besides that and according to my own experiences and research during sleep it’s not just our brain doing its thing (compartmentalizing info, detoxing, resting, regulating body processes, etc.) but also our consciousness doing something else.

By consciousness I mean something you might also call “spirit”, or the true essence of a human being.

The brain (and the CNS overall) is kind of like a computer — a processor that keeps our physical body working in a normal manner.

It is also responsible for learning new information and patterns, building connections, making sense of external stimuli, and being able to function appropriately in human society. Of course, besides the brain processor there is also a unique genetic code that regulates other things in our bodies. This code along with our brain and the central nervous system makes us pretty unique but also uniform in a way where all humans share basic traits, abilities, and patterns which help us understand each other.

DNA is much more complicated and deep than what the science knows about it, I believe. I am certain that humans are capable of changing and/or “waking up” certain genetic code patterns and dormant genes to acquire new or forgotten abilities and knowledge. Most of us don’t achieve it due to lack of knowledge and effort; for instance, waking up those dormant genes would be much more challenging than keeping a harsh workout survival routine. It’s just an example to illustrate that it would take great focus and determination, PLUS there is no guide, no blueprint in existence. No one does it and those few who do will not share their ways because they will most likely be hunted down and killed or put in secret labs and eventually killed. Yeah, I am a conspiracy theorist.

Consciousness, essence, spirit is something else which resides right next to — or even within and in tight correlation with — our physical body, our cells and organs. I have NO DOUBT that it exists and constitutes the most important part of our being.

While the DNA, the brain, and the central nervous system are all super important, without this other component a human being would be something that one might call an NPC in a computer game. He or she will have a unique personality, a unique set of traits, a living functional body made of cells, bones, organs, etc. This being would have basic reactions and emotions, feel pleasure and pain, fear, loneliness, joy, etc. But it would be not exactly… alive maybe?
It would be programmed to live and die like an organism with some extra developed abilities (higher functioning than brain and body of any other earthly creature/animal)… and I just noticed that I have switched to calling this being “it” instead of he or she.

Our spirit is something that can go on when the physical body (including the brain) ceases to exist. It doesn’t have a personality or a character that we inherit and develop when we are born here and grow and learn in this world, but it does have unique features, some kind of recognizable core.

I believe that it’s not just a drop of water in the ocean that will simply blend into the rest of the ocean (the body/consciousness of some bigger being that some think of as God). I think that human spirit can develop and grow experience, and ultimately keep its unique core, signature, and essential nature even after the physical death of the human body.

Many questions are open to research and pondering. For example…
How does this spirit end up in a human body? Is it the same as consciousness? Does everyone have it, or are there actual NPCs out there? Can someone have bigger or smaller consciousness? Is human essence the same as spirit? Should we come up with a different term or ascribe more exact meanings for each term to avoid confusion?

I’ve had moments when I knew it WAS NOT my brain that perceived reality. During certain meditations when the brain is quiet and the CNS is reserved for controlling basic body functioning, one can “think” (it’s not really thinking though) with something else. Of course, a deeply scientific person may argue that this is just the brain doing some different thing without using words (silencing inner dialogue), and yeah, maybe it’s just that, maybe, maybe… But there are so many occurrences which lie beyond what science can explain simply in terms of us being alive as long as the brain and body is alive! Also, science no longer doubts that thoughts (something non-physical, one would say) are actually material enough to travel through time and space, be transmitted like signals, and get from point A to point B without saying them with words or writing them down. If thoughts are really material and do exist and can travel like signals without having physical bodies, how can one doubt that there could exist whole beings which have no bodies made of flesh?

Anyways… I was going to talk about a dream and about how some things unwanted in “real life” tend to come out in our most vulnerable states of being. I’ll take it into the next post because my focus will be on certain type of “entities” that can affect us in our dreams.

Photo from today’s walk, quite “dreamy” ))