Dealing with New Energy while Asleep, a Different View of Dreams

A  General Theory of Dreams

By Bruce McKeithan

brucemckeithan@ymail.com

Latest Changes as of March 27, 2024

The Foundation

In the past people have removed the mystery and strangeness from dreams by claiming that dreams help us to deal with life better. They have at different times assumed that dreams contain messages from deities, foretell future disasters or problems, enhance learning, suppress our desires so that we may sleep sounder, or provide insight as to our desires and wishes. Still today we want dreams to be constructive and to provide us with direction.

Perhaps though there is a simpler, more general explanation of dreams, one which does not provide us with any particular action to take upon waking. After years of reviewing dreams and trying to make sense of them, I believe the following substantially states the case. We merely want to deal with the energy that the base of the brain releases and flows into the brain’s central area. This energy creates a disturbance and produces heat which can damage the brain. 

The central nervous system has two ways of handling this. One is to combine memories or chemical elements in the brain into a large group of objects or people, or a single large structure, to reduce the new energy. The other is to engage internally in some activity which dissipates the new energy, or somehow eliminates the heat coming from internal energy. We are not always altogether successful at the latter, as we see some representations of the harmful effects, or damage, or illness which the new energy causes. 

It will be up to neuroscientists to discuss, and give us more insight into, the underlying brain functions and mechanisms during the transition from sleeping to waking. We can say though that these functions seem to occur in the limbic system in the central area of the brain. The limbic system contains the amygdala, whose stimulation provides a defensive reaction, the hippocampus, which recalls people and objects from the past, and other essential parts.

Thermodynamics refers to the large entities and the reorganization, which help prevent internal energy from becoming excessive, as a decrease in “entropy”. It uses the term “work” to reflect one’s personal activity which uses energy internally or reduces the heat from internal energy. During the course of a dream, the former is the principal or primary method of dealing with internal energy, making the latter secondary.

Over time, the objects or groups of objects or people become larger and better able than our personal efforts to reduce or offset internal energy. In thermodynamics terms, entropy further decreases. For example, we may see large hills, or many automobiles lined up, or many people in an auditorium or a stadium. As a result, the large items become predominate and block our persistent personal efforts.

Eventually the growth in items reaches a peak and will release the stored energy, again threatening us with internal energy. This indicates that energy is about to go from potential to kinetic, from being stationary to having troublesome velocity. To avoid this danger an expansion of energy into the upper reaches of the brain must occur, awakening us. Again we can use the thermodynamic term entropy: Its increase encapsulates what will happen without such an expansion of energy. We may still try “to kill” a crystallized image, or show some form of resistance, to avoid accepting the new situation. But ultimately waking and undertaking real activities becomes absolutely necessary.

 The Process

Initially, as mentioned, the base of the brain generates energy, and we relieve the ensuing pressure by transferring energy into the lower, central part of the brain where memory and emotion exists. As a result, we see ourselves at a location away from home. We may be at the beach or some other resort or in the mountains, or in another region of the country, or even in another country or on another planet. We are no longer in deep sleep.

This in turn this creates a new disturbance which the mind must modulate. To offset this disconcerting atmosphere various large objects or groups of people form to contain and store the new energy. We may be among large crowds or gatherings of people in various venues. A number of houses or other buildings, or a single large structure, or a large number of tables or desks in some setting, or some natural phenomenon such as a forest or high hills, may appear. We may even see a large display and variety of food set before us.

The disturbance having been reduced to some degree, we may sometimes want and try to return home  presumably to avoid any further entanglement, but the large images block our way. We are unable to get our belongings together, or the route home out of the mountains is unclear, or there is difficulty in getting an airplane flight, or we cannot find our room in a hotel which has become larger and has many more hallways and elevators.

At other times, we want to work locally to reduce the heat from internal energy further. We can imagine putting out a fire. We may try to fix anyone of a number of things. We may also imagine some activity that we have enjoyed when awake, such as sports, or a card tournament, or a job, or school. We may see ourselves visiting people or places that we have known. Sexual activity becomes necessary near the end of a dream when further neutralizing internal energy proves difficult. Sometimes we are merely observing an image as a large group of buildings or other objects.

Sometimes we are able to fix something being harmed by heat such as an overheated computer, or the mind can do this , but not always. We may see a sick parent or another relative, or other figures from the past. An old car may need repair, or a coal burning furnace needs fixing, or there is an overgrown garden. So in the long run, failing to awake in a timely fashion may be detrimental to one’s health.

As an item grows, it generally passively predominates over and blocks our actions. For example. in golf there are too many trees, hills or rocks to achieve success. In tennis the court is too large to hit a ball satisfactorily; or the indoor tennis club has moved to a busy downtown, and there is a long line to get in, or a crowd of people may watch us lose a tennis match after winning a few points. We may not know how to drive to a certain destination and get lost in heavy traffic and several roads. Another image is one ship colliding with a larger one at sea, or two ships at harbor, one smaller than the other.

We may indeed find success at some endeavor, but it is short-lived and set aside. We may be able to hit a golf ball up a steep hill and have it go in the hole. We may be able to help an item up to a point by organizing something. The whole self may sometimes combine or entwine the two methods of dealing with internal energy. Usually though we fail at something amid a growing and large item.

At the end of a dream the size of an item reaches a peak or maximum. The storage of energy then threatens to act like a large waterfall spilling over a dam, or a stream rushing down a mountain towards a town, or water going rapidly through a culvert, or a flood. A large group of objects or people, or a single large object or thing, may pose an obvious or a hidden danger. So we awake to avoid this powerful discharge of gathered energy. Sometimes sexual desire or hunger may appear in support of an image in waking us up.

We may resist this change, wanting to avoid another round of internal energy, but then the inner environment can become very hostile to one and even cause a nightmare. Some police or military force or an enemy may threaten us with execution or death. Some release of energy may actually occur in the process, e.g. a hard baseball line drive passing close to one, or a large wave of water passing over us.

By this time, there is certainly enough energy to overcome our resistance and force us to extend energy into the brain’s upper and outer regions. This wakes us up and allows us to expend energy and return home. In complying with this inner need, we become committed and determined to doing various things.

Hopefully, in time, this mechanistic and biological view of dreams will become accepted.

Much thanks to Dr. John P. Ralston, professor of physics at Kansas University, for helping me in various ways in the writing of this article.