DREAMS

1. Sleep is a sort of half-death, in which a partially in-turned id achieves imperfect redemption in a soul which plays host to both the ego and, especially, the mind.

2. For, with sleep, consciousness slides down into unconsciousness, which projects itself onto subconsciousness via the superconscious, thereby both creating and perpetuating the dream.

3. In such fashion, sleep resembles cinema, in that the unconscious acts like a film projector projecting light onto the blank screen of the subconscious, while the dream images of the superconscious are displayed on this screen as from a roll of film - the contents, originally, of consciousness.

4. Thus do the unconscious, the subconscious, and the superconscious play host to the images, and even sounds, of consciousness, a spiritualized rather than an intellectualized account of life being more congenial to the self (as id/soul) once the ego departs the scene with sleep.

5. But the ego never entirely departs the scene with sleep, and judgemental evaluations of the dream remain possible to it even under duress of unconsciousness, as and when one wakes oneself up in consequence of self-conscious opposition to the content of certain dreams, whatever their nature. Would the id, the unconscious, do this? Hardly, for that which is unconscious would be unlikely to champion consciousness, like the ego.

6. The id simply projects itself, its instinctive energies, inwards, achieving a degree of soul which, however, is far from pure in view of the extent to which mind intervenes in consequence of the continuance of normal bodily functions, including respiration.

7. Were one dead, there would be nothing in the way of the id from achieving pure soul for itself, as though on a blank screen of subconsciousness. But, set free of conscious constraints with sleep, the superconscious dances to its own tune on the screen of the unconscious/subconscious self. Or, rather, it dances to the tune of the self, whose instinctive energies animate mind in the absence of conscious control.

8. Thus do we see ourselves, in the dream, from the standpoint of the unconscious/subconscious self, some aspects of which may be anything but flattering to our ego and consequently tend to provoke an egocentric reaction of the sort that returns us to consciousness.

9. In general, however, we are not unduly provoked by the id/soul but, rather, diverted and even amused, if not baffled or enthralled by it. We see the mind, the contents of consciousness, not as the ego sees it but as the deeper self sees it - not logically or rationally but instinctually and even emotionally.

10. This is a pre-conscious view of superconsciousness, and one day it will be superseded by a post-conscious view of subconsciousness, as both the ego and the mind depart the scene for good, leaving us 'face-to-face' with the soul as with a redeemed self, a self that does not dream because there is nothing between itself and the fulfilment of its instinctive drives toward self-illumination (soul) on the psychic pyre of its own self-overcoming (id).

11. Either the Devil-Self will achieve Hell-Self or the woman-self achieve purgatory-self; either the man-self achieve earth-self or the God-Self achieve Heaven-Self, depending on the type of self to which, in life as in death, the ego/mind and body/spirit was attached.

12. For the Afterlife is no more the same for everybody and everyone than is the self, and we may believe that even in life people dream on different levels according to the nature, if applicable, of the self with which they were born and with which they will eventually die, be it metachemical, chemical, physical, or metaphysical in relation to both gender and genetic distinctions.