Dreamscape

Taking a break from Fall from the Zenith series, this topic cannot wait to get out of my mind. Dreams. Last weekend I saw a superb movie called Inception directed by Christopher Nolan and who doesn't know him. To be honest, if had to make a film, it would be on dreams. Dreams are most powerful creations of human mind. They redefine your thinking in so many ways, take you to another world of your own. The power of dreams is so much that they can decide your destiny or make you invincible.

Although, I am not in the mood to discuss serious things now.

Here are few dreams that I have had and never forgotten. Most of them are nightmares but, the thing is, only bad dreams are interesting.

Ghosts of the Caribbean

Now, this dream was the first that I remember and that too because it won me an award in the school for writing competition. The theme was nightmares. I will tell you exactly what I wrote in that competition.

This day, my grandmother was in a mischievous mood. She was trying to scare us, the kids. She told us a story in which a man died in his dream and never woke up. She compelled everyone of us that it was true. That if you die in a dream, you really die. So, never die in a dream.

The following night, well it was bound to happen, I had a dream. I was on a ship. This ship could be ancient, very old indeed. I was on the main deck. There was fog everywhere. Not even a single thing was visible. I started to walk, in search of an exit. The mist was so thick that I could have bumped into many things but, I didn't. After walking some distance, I saw something moving beyond the thick veil of mist. Actually, there were a lot of things. White wispy creatures, swaying all over, from ground to sky. The very presence of them seemed to take out the very warmth of my breath. The chill was unnerving. Then my foot hit something, it made a loud noise.

It was like a commotion. The white ghosts saw me. There was fire in their eyes. All of them headed for me. I was so scared that I ran away from them. It was like an invisible brick on the ground and I tripped. All the ghosts were surrounding me. The chill was driving me mad. I got up and ran through them. The feeling of running through them was like being trapped in sheets. I toppled and before I knew, I was flying. The flight was very short and it ended in a splash. There were sharks in the water. Maybe around hundred or maybe a thousand. All surrounded me. They faced up, all hungry, as if they were smiling.

I woke up, all sweaty, as if I was really in the water. But I was still alive. I did die in my dream. Most often grandmothers are right but, not this time.

My Worst Nightmare

The above dream was a fantasy. Considering, the age I had that dream, it was bound to be. Now, the dream I am going to describe you now is very real. It may or may not sound scary to you but, when I had it, it was.

I am at home. My mental condition is unfit. Truthfully saying, I am totally mad. I need a mental asylum but, I don't know why they have kept me at home. I am lying on my bed, mouth open. Everything is dark. Its still not night but still everything is gloomy, even the lights are switched off. Suddenly, the door bell rings. I get up and run towards the door. The thing is, I don't run normally. I run like an animal, on both my hands and legs, much like Gollum from Lord of the Rings movies. I open the wooded door. What I see through the metal door with metal net, scares the shiver out of me.

At first glance, it seemed like a monster. It was a big dog, almost the size of a tiger. It had big teeth. Although, the dog was standing still. It did nothing but stared at me. I got mad. I started beating the metal door with my big hands in order to shoo it away but, it wont move, not even twitch. The feeling I was experiencing at that time is unexplainable. I was so scared that I would have died. I started barking like a dog. Somehow, the door opened and the animal jumped at me.

After that I don't know what happened but, I must have died. My sister told me that I was making a barking noise in my sleep which was not like a normal bark. It was more of a crass. I was really scared that day.

Mars Attacks

This dream falls in the category of weird and funny dreams. Apparently, I was playing cricket with my friends in the field. There is an attack there. Big machines come out of nowhere, much like the ones in War of the Worlds movie, or maybe Crysis. They start throwing huge red balls of lava at us. We run.

We are in the mountains, so the backdrop is drop dead beautiful. I am a savior in this dream so, I am pretty much indestructible. On the run, I save my friends from the big red lava balls. They land just in front of me, at my back, some of them even hit me. Finally, we reach a safe house. This is an abandoned hotel. The windows provide us the view of the war scene. The humans are getting wiped out by these big machines. There is trauma everywhere. Everyone in the room is scared.

After few long minutes, there is boredom in the room. So, my friends plan to continue the game. We start playing cricket in the hotel room with big windows. After few hours, we get tired and go to sleep as though nothing has happened.

Next morning we see that the machines are lying vacant in the ground and people are dancing. We go to the ground, climb up the machines, and examine their structure. I listen a few jokes from a sardarji too. The dream ends here.

See, the dreams can be as weird as that.

Me and My Experiments with Human Understanding

Part 2 - The Instinct

I tried driving with my eyes closed, not much of a risk, since I was driving in early morning traffic. I closed my eyes because the weather was very pleasant, just to get the feel. Suddenly something tells me to open my eyes and I see a child crossing the road. Brakes! The day was saved by none other but, the thing that told me to open my eyes. My Instinct.

The thing is so difficult to catch and experiment, that even Einstein could not find answers to his instinct, which told him the greatest theory till date. Yes, his theories were not derived from any experiment. The thing is that science has not got even an iota of idea about instinct. You can see Wikipedia and its ambiguous definitions, you won't find the answer you need.

As discussed above, this instinct can enable man to achieve huge things.The question is how? How can we know that something is going to happen? And how this thing almost always happens? They say that till date no machine can predict the future correctly. I will tell them that they are wrong! There is a machine in your body that gives you the exact future and almost instantly. Have you ever felt, while doing something, you don't feel all right or you feel extremely confident? This is a response that your body gives to a particular thought or an external stimuli. Your body cannot act alone. It has to be controlled by your mind. So, the answer lies in your mind. But, where in your mind?

You know, that there exists a machine or rather a computer that can predict events? This machine, called the Random Event Generator, can predict events that can happen in the future. It predicted the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars etc. It was found after 9/11 that it had predicted it, so, they could not be avoided and same with other cases. Without going into details, I would like to emphasis on how this machine works and I can tell you that its damn interesting. To say in simple words, REGs measures your mood and as explained earlier your mood or mind can predict the future. Ever seen a government official coming to your home and giving you a survey form to fill which has questions like these:

How is your mood currently?   Very Good    Good    Bad    Worse
How was your mood last night?
How was your mood today morning?

No, you haven't! That would be just plain hypocrisy. So, how does this machine measure your sentiments? The answer is internet. 
You surely would have tweeted about this or updated your status or even through mail. Even the sites you visit tells your mood. A REG measures the sentiment of the world i.e. several internet users combined, and gives you a random event based on the combined sentiment of the world. REG works as a subconscious mind and generates dreams. These dreams might be true or not.

I am sure you would have got the answer to the instinct problem by now. It is the subconscious mind that generates instinct. The subconscious mind cannot be accessed by you voluntarily. It is like the protected part of your mind. Everything which you hear but not listen or see but not notice goes into your subconscious mind. When you sleep, your conscious mind recollects everything that has happened over the day. In this process of recollecting, it accesses your subconscious mind which provides only some random thoughts. Mix these with conscious thoughts and boom, dreams! Instinct is nothing but a dream. It is generated by your random thoughts. You may notice, instinct is not always right.

So, another mind-ly mystery solved, another myth blasted. I hope you understand this deep and grueling topic. The most difficult topic to experiment and understand.