How We Dream

As I gain in age and experience, I find myself getting more polite in dreams. Do you? Why is that?

Above is a Normaphoto of a sunbeam entering our garden. What is a sunbeam, really? It is a visible wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is made of photons, irreducible packets (quanta) of electromagnetic energy that carry a kick. They kick leaves and cause them to make plant food. They kick solar cells and make them produce electricity. Photons with a big kick defy the static idea (Law) of Matter-Energy Conservation and don't last long. Photons with a little kick can travel real far, which is why we see distant stars. Photons are what we see when light subtends the eye and kicks electrons in our retinas.

We receive no information  about the universe smaller than a photon.

This is not a subject upon which I can deliver a professorial lecture with a closed mind. Nobody can talk about atoms with a closed mind. So I won't. I will doodle:

I doodle a sunbeam of visible light above. It has a wavelength of about 10 centimeters peak to peak. It arrives at the eye after about 7 minutes travel --big kick-- and kicks atoms in our retinas, which send electrical cascades up optic nerves to the brain and we see things.

But here's the enigma: we are what we are --omnivores who eat plants and animals that eat plants-- and see what we see because of photons, photons in the visible light part of the spectrum. What  about when we're asleep and our eyes are closed? Visible light can barely get through a piece of paper, much less closed eyelids. What are we seeing when we dream of light? When we dream of anything, it is as though we see it in light. Is dreamed light light, and if not, what? Observe doodle:

There are light wavelengths that pass through paper, eyelids --like x-rays-- but I shall go for something stronger, quanta that pass through bone, roofing, Tupperware --if you sleep in Tupperware for its preservative qualities like I do-- and even lead. Our grandchildren all went through a stage of calling Norma "Gamma Namma" --which not only evokes memories of 1950's giant city-destroying-monster movies but also suggests Gamma Rays. Gamma rays go through everything, especially our brains at night. Compare upper and lower doodles:

Gamma rays have a much tighter wavelength and travel any old distance pushing themselves to a mighty kick. They get in your head at night and your brain perceives them as light. Why? Because they bypass retinas, bones and kick off electrons in your visual cortex. These are some badass photons. The sleeping brain processes them as light.

Light.

They induce an electromagnetic charge which, like all charges, is surrounded by virtual photons. These are photons that exist for a short time after virtualization, unreality. Your brain responds by navigating the images they create, and that is your dream self --accommodating the disturbed verges of reality.  Is it real? I can only quote Mr. Spock from Star Trek [season3, episode6, "Spectre Of The Gun"]: "Physical reality is consistent with universal laws. Where the laws do not apply, there is no reality." This, of course, forces us into accountability even in the virtual photons of dreams*. Another enigma for another time, possibly when I am awake.
              ____________________________________________________________

                 *Click for further discussion on the OK corral on prior post.