On lucid dreaming and the quantum human soul

What life after this is like and how to get there

ESSAY | THE WRITER'S LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING

There's a very simple answer to life, the universe and everything. In a funny way, it is 42 for me. Because just as Deep Thought took 7.5 million years to work it out in The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it took me 42 years. And I'm part of the computer which Deep Thought designed: Earth 2.0. But this isn't science fiction. This is scientific fact. This is how I can quite reasonably explain what this life is all about, what comes after it, and how to get there. This is not a religious text. I've been asked to clarify my politics, religion and general way of looking at life in the past. This is an anarchist atheist blog entry.

I did not have an epiphany. This is not a sudden realisation. It's something I've formulated over the last 3-4 years. If anything, being homeless for three years was what convinced me there was no God. Not because I felt somehow deserving and forsaken. What happened to me couldn't be the work of any god: I did it myself. No, it was because I had time to think, to question, read and learn. I did this by spending many long days in Tonbridge Library. I'd spend my allotted hour of computer time typing up this blog, then I'd retire to the reference section and I'd borrow books from the lending section. Regarding what follows, further reading shouldn't be necessary but I'd certainly recommend learning more. Firstly, let's get my atheism and anarchism into some context:

I'm an atheist, in that I deny 'God' in man's image. I don't deny that the earth may have been visited by a greater intelligence, many thousands of years ago. I would be a fool – given all that I believe – to assume that there was no other life in the universe. I certainly believe (hope) that there are many, far superior races out there. The sheer size of space makes it a paradox, and upon that is built both scientific research and blind faith. The curious explorers who want to learn more, and those who prefer to accept what's fed to them. I'll come back to personal utopian and dystopian worlds later, as well as how to get there. For now, my atheism is rooted in a desire to question and discover, not to accept as fact, that which is unproven. I don't consider my scientific views to be in any way blind faith.

Anarchism next though: In the 80s, I was a punk. It was more than the music: It was a movement and a way of life, just as Bowie became my life guide throughout, and my musical roots go back to Kingston and the birth of Ska, and all that true Two Tone represents. But when I was a punk, I wore white laces in my D.Ms. At the time, that stood for Anarchy, Peace and Freedom, where red laces were Anarchy and Chaos. But far from the stereotypes of either portrayed in the media, there is a deeper humanitarian nature to true anarchy, as defined by Noam Chomsky and Ross Ulbricht. A self-governing society can work, provided a balance is collectively maintained. True and pure anarchy is a redistribution of power, where power is returned to the people.

Add the atheism, the anarchism and some weed together, and you have a mind which can question the greater things. Being pretty extreme left wing (in the relatively simplistic sphere of geopolitics when compared to the universe), I seek to reconcile what I say with all who might object, if they're prepared to have a debate and not to fight. We may agree to differ, but by having that conversation, at least the two parties are better able to understand one another. Only by continuing to talk do we increase our understanding.

So what of life, the universe and everything? I'm limited by words, just as ancient scribes were when they recorded the events of whatever it was which happened 2000 years ago. Religion packaged it and monetised it, but the ancient scrolls and scripts are so open to interpretation that it requires a leap of faith to accept any theory. All religion did was package one version and sell it. I don't believe we know who or what any creator might have been, how we got here, or where we came from. It is perhaps for comfort that I choose to believe there are other races out there in the virtual infinity of space. Consider the size, and consider the Drake equation, and you get an idea of how it's a paradox requiring some faith, but no more than religion, and not packaged, other than by those who label us conspiracy theorists. As such, we explore and we question. We can be wrong. We desire debate from a wider conversation, but while that label is applied, we're the freaky geeks, the nerds, the computer programmers and hackers. In any case, most of us wear white hats, which means the same as those boot laces in the 80s. But at the end of any debate, I would seek to reconcile religion with science, in the exact way Carl Sagan did in Contact. That book and film left both sides open, for further debate, none with a definitive answer. Contact contains one of my favourite quotes, about humanity:

“You're an interesting species. An interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other.”

And that fits in with my greater outlook on life, the universe, and everything. And of course, Stephen Hawking:

“For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.”

Arthur C. Clarke:

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”

And finally, David Bowie:

“Knowledge comes with death's release.”

Four great minds. Four thinkers. Four visionaries. Together, those words and the other works of those individuals and others, are the background for the formulation of what I like to think is a unifying theory. I have my own philosophy:

“Imagine you are in an empty room, with no visible means of exit. How do you get out? You could stop imagining. Or you could use your imagination.”

Clearly, I chose the latter path. I think a lot, and I try to make sense of those thoughts in my writing. I do believe knowledge comes with death's release, I share Clarke's fear, and I believe in communication, at all levels. That only breaks down if I'm dealing with someone who lacks basic human instincts through pure ignorance of their own making and perpetuating. Well, in my theory (And backed up by scientific thought), those people are destined to an eternal hell of their own making (see below).

A quick digression: one of the causes I follow closely is that of nonhuman rights. Just like (most of) us, animals are sentient beings: They know they're alive. They sleep, and they know that there was something before and after that; a yesterday and tomorrow, past and future. Like humans, animals are self-determining creatures: They are aware of actions and reactions. They have a conscience. It's that conscience – in both humans and nonhumans – which I believe can exist separately from the physical body. It is the soul. I believe that the human body is just a physical vessel for that soul during this life. I believe that life as we understand it, is merely one part of an ongoing existence, the greatness of which we can't yet comprehend. And I believe that once our physical bodies age and die, our souls continue to live (and I just said 'arseholes').

A good analogy is a TV: when it's switched off, it's just a physical box which does nothing, unless it's switched on. Switch a TV on, and it will show various broadcasts from the many available TV channels: Pictures, sounds; an intangible thing. It's no longer just a physical box; it has a life of sorts. And the human body can be thought of in exactly the same way: a device for giving the broadcast the means of expression, except the intangible thing in this case is the human consciousness. Just because you switch a TV off, doesn't mean those broadcasts stop; they're still there, but the TV needs to be on to see them. And so, when the physical human body dies, the consciousness - the soul - continues to live, albeit in a different physical form. Some say that's what ghosts are, and based on the evidence supporting the eternal human soul model, it's a perfectly reasonable assumption. So ghosts do exist. The dead really are able to visit us, because they're still around. Some people find that comforting.

And of course, there are always caveats and paradoxes. Because 'ghosts' or whatever we want to call the form we take in the afterlife, exist in a form which is generally invisible and undetectable to us. It's a simple scientific fact that there are forces of nature and physics which challenge even the finest minds (supersolids being one example). But for me, it's an easy and comfortable thing to accept as fact: That when I die, my consciousness will continue to live. In an attempt to explain how that might manifest itself to us when we actually experience it (come the time), I need to briefly cover quantum mechanics. For that, we need to return to the choosing of paths from above.

Imagine you're on a path and the path splits in two. You now have two options: the right or left path. As I'm left-handed and left-wing, let's say I choose the path on the left. Assume that the paths are enclosed, by walls, trees, or whatever. So I'm walking along the left path and I can't see outside it. Does the other path still exist? Like the tree which falls silently in the woods and makes no sound, this is a paradox. But it's one designed to make one think. If we think logically, of course that other path is still there: we saw it. But was the act of seeing it, the very thing which brought it into existence? This is what quantum theory is all about: Everything exists in many parallel states, only taking final form with some sort of catalyst. Erwin Schrödinger demonstrated this with his thought experiment, Schrödinger's cat: Essentially, a box contains a cat, which may be either dead or alive. Until the box is opened, the cat exists in both states (alive and dead). The opening of the box is the catalyst: It makes one think.

A real-life example of the quantum world is the 512-Qubit D-Wave II quantum computer, currently running in British Columbia, Canada. A traditional computer, however complex and whatever device hosts it, is a binary machine: Boil a computer down to its raw operating code and it's all ones and zeros: either one or the other; binary. A binary bit is always either a 1 or a 0. A quantum bit exists in both states simultaneously, until it is called into operation by a computational command. The potential power of a quantum computer is truly mind-boggling. In the quantum universe, everything exists in parallel states, until it's called into existence by a catalyst. At that point, all of the alternate states – which weren't brought into existence – continue to exist. Got that? Because that's the biggest mind hurdle, accepting such a weird fact.

There are quantum mechanics at work in our daily lives. Every time we make a decision – consciously or unconsciously - we call a scenario (a universe) into existence. In the quantum world, all of the potential universes which would have been called into existence if there was a different catalyst, still exist. When we die, a universe is created in which our dead physical body exists, and where some may mourn and others celebrate. But at the same time, alternatives exist. At the point of death, unable to continue the path of the physical body, our consciousness will find itself in a different universe: One which existed at the moment of death, but which couldn't be occupied by the physical body we just lost. It's a simple matter of (and as easy to imagine as) one set of options being switched off. Scientific fact: Life doesn't just end. This is not just a comforting thought to combat that of eternal nothingness; it's science. We only know all this now, because we're able to observe things at a sub-atomic level (and it wasn't long ago that the holy grail was splitting the atom).

So when we die, we take on a different physical form: Think of it as some sort of ethereal, spiritual thing, because that's the easiest way. In that non-physical form, we are free to move around, without limits or borders. And free of our frail human bodies, we are also free from the ravages of time, and what that can do to age a physical thing. We (our consciousness, or our soul), are effectively immortal. And this is where I'm able to posit a unifying theory on heaven and hell, because quantum theory proves that consciousness moves to another universe after death (other links, here).

I write not of the biblical heaven and hell, but of personal ones. We can now appreciate, that after death, we continue to exist. In that form, we have freedom of movement and time. Roughly translated, there is an entire universe to explore, and an eternity in which to do it. Faced with that, how might some of us react? I'd suggest that the open-minded and curious would find themselves in a personal utopia (I know I would). But to anyone conditioned, blinkered, limited by belief, or just dumb and ignorant, faced with all that potential knowledge, it could be overwhelming: A personal hell; fear of the unknown for eternity. You only have to think of the people you know, to be fairly sure of who's going where. It's not wholly down to them being a good or bad person; it's down to how their mind deals with such a huge thing. It takes a level of intelligence and an open mind to accept these things, but not much.

Ancient aliens from distant galaxies aside, there's no white haired, bearded old man; there's just all of knowledge. Personally, although I fear the process of death itself, I don't fear what comes after.

So now we have multiple quantum universes, hanging in limbo, all around, just waiting to be called into existence. All that aren't, still exist, in the past and present. We just can't see them. We're not aware of many of them in our current physical form. So how do we go exploring? We now move onto lucid dreaming. A lucid dream is a dream during which the dreamer is aware of dreaming. During lucid dreaming, the dreamer may be able to exert some degree of control over the dream characters, narrative, and environment.

At some point before reading this, you'll have woken from sleep today. You remember being awake yesterday, because you're a sentient, self-determining being. You remember that you've slept and what you remember of that, is down to your ability to dream and recall those dreams. And every day, we remember waking from sleep, and being awake before that. The part we never remember, is that actual moment of transit: Passing from wakefulness into sleep. As soon as you wake, you know you've been asleep, and you remember being awake before you slept. But you cannot remember falling asleep. That's where we go to catch dreams, and there's a way to do it, but it takes a lot of practice.

Lucidity is a sort of semi-conscious state, somewhere between conscious and unconscious, but where the subject is aware of their surroundings. Lucid dreaming is simply taking control of one's dreams. It involves being able to recognise, in sleep, when one is actually asleep. It's quite literally, being in a dream and being able to say to oneself, 'I am dreaming'. The trick is not waking yourself up.

There are many books on the subject, and most teach the methods (mind control) which help to achieve lucidity. There are many suggested ways, and the one which eventually worked for me was this (and Exploring the World of Lucid Dreams, by Stephen LaBerge Ph.D and Howard Rheingold):

As you lay in bed at night, become aware of your surroundings. Concentrate on your thoughts, and keep telling yourself that you're falling asleep. Eventually and naturally, you will. And like most people, most of the time, you'll miss that moment when you pass over and actually fall asleep. The next thing you may be aware of, is that you're dreaming. It's a fact, that the last thing on your mind as you fall asleep will remain there. With a lot of practice (it took me about six months), you'll eventually have a eureka moment: A moment when you realise – in your sleep – that you are dreaming. You are now lucid. As such, you are free to move around as you please, as you are no longer constrained by your body (it's asleep, like the TV set). The first time it happened to me, I looked from the bed where I lay, at the sofa in my living room, which was up a short flight of steps. I don't know if steps are called a 'flight' and the bit at the top, the 'landing' for this reason, but taking it literally, I decided to fly up the steps to my sofa. And so, in my dream, I stood, Superman-like, and thrust my fist out ahead of me. And I flew. And I got so excited that I woke up. This went on for several weeks.

Eventually, after almost a year in total, I was generally able to lucid dream at will. For a while, I resisted the urge to fly, as I didn't want the euphoria to wake me. A bit of a warning here: You may find yourself (as I did), living a life which seems like a long day which never ends. Because being awake and asleep become so alike (apart from being able to to anything and everything in the latter state), it can sometimes feel like you're never sleeping. It doesn't get physically exhausting, because you are sleeping, or at least your physical body is. But it can get disconcerting. It is a completely new way of living, after all.

Once you're in control of your dreams, the limit is quite literally your imagination. And that dream scape you're exploring can be the universe. So, every night, you're experiencing a little of what it'll be like when you're finally freed of your physical body. For now, you can only do it when you're asleep. In that place, time and space act differently. There are other dimensions. It's a lot to take on board and you can see why it would take an eternity to discover it all.

Knowledge comes with death's release.

So that's how I live my life. People asked, so I told: I'm a writer.

My first novel, The Paradoxicon, was a semi-autobiographical story of a man seeking answers through lucid dreaming, while battling his own demons in the space between wakefulness and sleep. My latest novel, Cyrus Song, gives a more humorous skew on things (with talking animals), but nevertheless answers the ultimate question: That of life, the universe and everything. There really is an even simpler answer.