“Despite this advancing scientific knowledge,
there is much that remains unknown about both sleep
and dreams.
Even the most fundamental question
— why do we dream at all? —
is still subject to significant debate.”

“Dreaming is normal and healthy, but frequent nightmares can interfere with sleep.“

So.
We’ve figured out that dreams are something which happen inside our heads. When sleeping.
Then called them names. ‘Dreams’ if they were OK, ‘nightmares’ if not.
Interesting, isn’t it?
Then we have hallucinations. A sort of daydreaming – if you think of it – only less pleasant.

My point being that our consciousness – “our ability to observe ourselves observing” – opens up a new realm inside what we call ‘reality’.
That we live, in fact, inside a world of our own making.

‘But this is valid for all living things, right?’

In the sense that all living things collaborate – albeit involuntarily – towards the continuous reshaping of what we call ‘biosphere’… yes! Life does indeed reshape the portion of space/time where it happens.

The way I see it, life is responsible for the ‘second layer’ of what we call reality.
While we, the conscious observing cum living inhabitants, are responsible for the ‘third layer’ of what we call reality.

‘You keep saying “what we call reality”.
Would you care to elaborate?’

You see, we have developed two concepts.
‘God’ and ‘Reality’.
God is something which had suposedly made us. According to those who believe in God, we have been brought to life – along with the world we inhabit, in a voluntary manner, by the agent we call God.
On the other hand, reality – according to those who believe in ‘science’ – is the ‘place’ where we have happened to ‘evolve’.

God is something we are told about by others. Something the ‘worthy among us’ might experience first hand through ‘rapture’.
Those who believe in God consider that the original information about God had been delivered, through divine inspiration, to ‘prophets’. Or had been acquired one way or another by ‘elders’.
Those who believe in God consider that God – and his will – are inaccessible to humans. That we, ordinary human beings, are only meant to simply experience ‘God’s will’. And adapt our behaviour accordingly.

Reality is something we, the present ones, are told about by our predecessors. And something we experience through observation.
Those who believe in science consider that nobody – individually and collectively – will ever be able to know everything. Basically, those who believe in science are also convinced that reality is ultimately inaccessible to us.
Those who believe in science consider that it’s our job, as conscious human beings, to find out as much as we can about ‘reality’ and adapt our behaviour accordingly.

For somebody unwilling to take sides, there’s not much practical difference between the two sides mentioned above.
Both are states of mind. Convictions. Weltanschauungs which shape human action.
Furthermore, both mandate us to do the very same thing. Adapt our behavior to what we ‘see’!
Does it really matter whether what we ‘see’ was handed out to us by somebody or is the consequence of happenstance? Would our reaction be different? Why?

‘But God has handed out a series of commandments! For us to follow in order to be saved.
Science doesn’t provide any ‘spiritual guidance”!

I beg to differ.
The Bible – and all other sacred texts – have been written by people. Taught by people to other people.
Science – everything we know about things, including what we call ‘best practices’ – has been put together by people. And taught by people to other people.
Furthermore, technology – the manner in which we have put in practice what we know about the world, regardless of how we have acquired the information – has been put together by us. We’ve designed each and every tool we have used to transform our world into what it is today.
And it was still us who have use those tools according to our own goals.

So it is us, collectively, who are responsible for the world we live in.
For the dream we live.
And for the nightmares experienced by some of us.