A Teacher’s Dream On the Nature of Time After enduring an intense and startling dream about a difficult personal experience, upon rising it was apparent to me that during the dream, I had acknowledged an important aspect of my own way of being, which has occasionally created challenges for others, due to my … Continue reading A Teacher’s Dream
By coincidence, all day today, I was working at my part-time job, which places me in a position of interacting with a large number of random people, and as I am naturally inclined to be social, as the opportunity presents itself, I try to engage each one in a brief conversation, mostly as a polite … Continue reading Celebrating Life and Love
A few years ago, I wrote a book review of David Gelernter’s book, “The Tides of Mind,” which opened new avenues of thought, and in particular, I appreciated his use of the imagery of a “spectrum of consciousness,” with descending and ascending layers from being wide awake and alert to dreams and unconsciousness. Although interesting … Continue reading Consciousness and Dreaming
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.—Ralph Waldo Emerson Many times, when I am fully engaged in stillness and practicing my own personal version of mindfulness—giving up my normal attention to the present living moment—it’s almost like drifting back through time; with eyes … Continue reading The Universe Is Alive
"At the turn of the last century, people's hope was in science, technology, and modern progress. As we approached this millennium, we realized the extent of that progress, and that it hasn't taken us far enough. There is a part of us that still has a spiritual hunger. We have spent the past century looking … Continue reading A Spiritual Hunger
After a tumultuous series of experiences in late 1973 and early 1974, and after a sufficient amount of time had passed to regain my bearings, I was able to complete my advanced training in Massachusetts, and was reassigned to a duty station in Monterey, California for training as a linguist. I didn’t know it at … Continue reading Tumultuous Transitions
After decades of research and contemplation by a host of experts in the fields of neuroscience and cognitive studies, as well as the intense efforts of many philosophers and scientists from various schools of thought, coming to terms with and attempting to fully comprehend the complex nature of human consciousness still engages some of the … Continue reading The Brain is not the Mind
When I began this blog in earnest back in January of 2011, my general goals were to share my decades-long journey of personal development, to express what I had learned while researching the nature of the events which occurred in my youth, and to invite my readers to join me in considering some of the … Continue reading Looking Back and Looking Forward
“Millennium Run,” showing the distribution of dark matter in the local universe created by the Max Planck Institute in Germany. “The dilemma of modern society is that we seek to understand the world, not in terms of archaic inner consciousness, but by quantifying and qualifying what we perceive to be the external world by using … Continue reading Inner Worlds; Outer Worlds
As we begin to consider the role that “non-physical components” might play in coming to terms with the nature of consciousness, a good place to begin is with our own very human emotions. In spite of having a clear and powerful biological foundation in brain physiology, our emotional responses are highly subjective in nature and … Continue reading A Developing Inner Life
John's Consciousness 