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 May 14, 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. The former is not completely successful so that we see some representations of the harmful effects, or damage, or illness, which the heat from the new energy causes. Thus we can regard our efforts to fix or improve matters as supplemental.

Thermodynamics refers to the large entities and the reorganization that 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. Over time, the objects or groups of objects or people become larger with entropy further decreasing. For example, we may see large hills, or many automobiles lined up, or many people in an auditorium, or a stadium, or many buildings. These large images seem to predominate over and, by virtue of their sheer size and presence, block or frustrate our personal efforts, but we still to try to mitigate the residual internal energy and stay asleep.

Eventually the growth in images reaches a peak and releases the stored energy, threatening us anew with internal energy. Energy goes from potential to kinetic, from being stationary to having troublesome velocity. To avoid or counteract 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 in order to perpetuate our current efforts, but ultimately waking and undertaking external activities becomes absolutely necessary.

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.

 The Process

Initially, as mentioned, the base of the brain generates energy, and we relieve the ensuing pressure by transferring energy into the 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 and a disorganization 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.

This decrease in entropy is not completely successful. We can say that it is not quite sufficient to take care of the internal energy fully. We may see this in 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. Sometime we want and try to return home to escape the disturbance, but the large images by their very existence 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 the residual internal energy. We can imagine putting out a fire. 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 a large group of buildings or other objects.

As the images grow, they generally passively predominate over and block 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.

Occasionally, we may find success at some endeavor, or overcome the large images, 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 organize something. The whole self may sometimes combine or entwine the two methods of dealing with internal energy. Usually though we fail at something amid the growing and large images.

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 seem to resist this change in order 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.

Certainly by now we must realize that it is time that we extend energy into the brain’s upper and outer regions to prevent further internal disturbance. Doing so means wakeing up and expending energy, which allows us to return home.

Hopefully, in time, this mechanistic and biological view of dreams will become accepted. Neurobiologist may be able to translate this theory into their terms, too.

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.