Dreamtime and the Global Consciousness Project

Dream Research: Dreamtime and the Global Consciousness Project  

The origins of language are unknown. Most likely human communication began sometime in the darkness of proto-history. According to the monogenetic hypothesis of language acquisition, all languages have descended from one form of speech. The Bible tells us that this Adamic language was lost when humans attempted to build the Tower of Babel. Humanity lost the translation matrix that had allowed it to commune with God, nature, and the cosmos. The catastrophe of confusion told in Genesis 11:1-9 involves the Tower of Babel. For George Steiner in After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation, Part 1 Part 2 (see videos) restoring a unitary language, a new myth, a "new key" for humanity is possible, a forum in which our minds can join a dialogue about private and public problems. In The Library of Babel, Jorge Luis Borges imagines a library that encompasses the metaphors of all minds, people, languages, places, and times in which a guide to its labyrinth seems to be nearly impossible. Yet Borges insists that such a guide and map exists. The guide and the map are of course what this story has been about. Dream Vision is the guide, and it provides a map for the mind to follow. It is a program that envisions the minds ability to move among the world's dreamers, and also connects us to the dreamers in the past and future. 

Steiner believes that each language (cognitively) maps the world onto the words it uses to locate and describe it. For Steiner, communication = translation. Each generation creates new topologies and landscapes of culture. Steiner tells us that a day will come when "translation will no longer be necessary. All mother tongues will have re-entered the translucent immediacy of that primal, lost tongue and speech shared by God and Adam." Dream Vision is that primal oracular language, the primal tongue that has been lost, and which we can all re-enter. It is the language that connects humanity to its past and to its future. The dream washed over the planet before humans acquired the tools of language. When talking to people about a dream, someone invariably asks, "What does it mean?" We no longer understand dream language. The conscious mind no longer communicates with the unconscious. Yet truly it is not the dream that is confusing; the fact is that our conscious minds has difficulty or cannot translate the universal mythological language of the dreaming mind. 

Stuart Moulthrop has designed a hypertextual program called Dreamtime that creates a kind of virtual cybermontage of dreams and memories. It suggests that dreams are what connect us on a higher level of consciousness and reality, much like the  Australian aboriginal Dreamtime (see video) which provides one vision of how this consciousness operates. Although such programs as the Global Consciousness Project attempts to understand the dynamic effects of global consciousness as it relates to such  events as 9/11, the death of Princess Diana, or World Cup soccer, they do not provide sufficient answers as to how this process operates. As we know, Bin Laden and his cohorts literally dreamt of carrying out the 9/11 attack. In the aftermath of the attack, many people suffered traumatic nightmares. Princess Diana has influenced many people's dreams, one of the reasons that the Queen as portrayed in the film The Queen could not understand the British public's overwhelming grief at Diana's death. Rita Francis has compiled and edited the dreams of men and women in Dreaming of Diana: The Dreams Diana, Princess of Wales, Inspired

What can a dream research program on a global scale do? 

I believe that a baseline of social indicators of Dream Vision on the planet will be revealed. I believe that research will show the underlying processes and architecture of the mind, and provide a new philosophy of mind and nature. Dream Vision can provide a peaceful stage for global citizens, and a mental health movement that aims for a peaceful world. Acting as feedback, the research results can affect how we look at all the areas of life touched by the arts, sciences, and humanities. I believe it will expose a noir genealogy of mind control, oppression, censorship, corruption, prejudice, abuse, schadenfreude, and hatred. It will provide a guide for seeking material wealth, ideal romantic adventures and, for those with a theological bent, the Kingdom of Heaven.  

Dream research can provide a sociological baseline and literary thread for understanding dreaming. All aspects of the philosophy of mind and nature can be quantitatively and qualitatively revealed and evaluated. Most important, research can ask: What is the future of Dream Vision? As an oracle, the dream can help us understand how to achieve a better brighter future. The temples at Delphi and Jerusalem have fallen into disrepair. An instauration of the dream is necessary to restore the utopian foundations of Western civilization, and reach a rapprochement with dreams and oracles found in Eastern traditions like those of the I Ching and Feng Shui.  

The dreams of the public, find little or no expression in almanacs or newspapers or newscasts, yet they play an extraordinary role in everyday life. In the future, we will need to examine large samples of dreams, not for the purpose of political-economic surveillance - instead, the opposite can be true - as a biopsy to detect the abuses of our rights and freedoms, to promote growth and maturation, and to help guide us towards a peaceful and loving orientation free of pathological deceptions, bullshit, hatreds, and destructiveness. As the philosopher Harry Frankfurt On Bullshit Part 1 Part 2 (view videos) has shown us that there is a great deal of bullshit (about dreams) is circulating in the public's consciousness (Global Village). It is imperative to inform an ill-informed public about the nature of dreams and dreaming, so they can plug into the nightly mentations of humanity and understand and contribute to making the world, this spaceship Earth a better place. 

I hope that you will listen to the dream conversation of the 6.8-billion inhabitants living in the Global Village, dance to the tribal drum, hear the calls of laughter and joy of elation and the weeping and sorrow of misery and suffering. These calls are calls to action. The IIDR advocates an end to nightmares, Weltschmerz, the Tragedy of the Commons. The business of restoring our collective public memory and Dream Vision to health is paramount in creating a Global Village that is free, peaceful, and loving. I echo what Martin Luther King Jr. had in mind when voicing the words: "I Have A Dream!" (see video). We all have the right to dream, it is an inalienable human right which embodies and encompasses the values of hope, freedom, peace and justice.

All material Copyright 2006 International Institute for Dream Research. All rights reserved.