Do we ever stop dreaming?

Is it possible that we dream all the time, even when we are awake? That we don’t just dream in our sleep, but that we dream as a natural part of being alive. That we become aware of our dreams only in that state between sleeping and awake? If this is true, dreams do not punctuate our sleep, but it is sleep that interrupts our dreams.

Is it really possible that we are dreaming all the time? Well, let's look at why there could be a dream that runs in our mind all the time. It is generally accepted that the conventional notion of the brain as a file cabinet is flawed. The brain is alive and constantly processing the barrage of information we are bombarded with everyday. Our conscious mind cannot really make sense of all the information it receives, as there's simply too much. So how much of this information are we really conscious of? It is generally accepted that consciousness is a very tiny sliver of the whole. So is it possible that our dreams are a filter to the world of our senses. Do our dreams allow us to reduce what we see, hear and touch, to an amount we can handle? And is this the same process we get a peek into, when we 'dream'?

So if there is such a process, let's call it the 'dream process' - what is it made of? It seems the only logical answer is: our sensory experiences. It's the overload of our sensory world, especially vision, that provides the content for this process. The dream process is not different from the conscious process, it’s just the submerged part. It makes sense of the world by making us focus on what will keep us alive. The part we ignore continues to churn inside. It keeps looking to extract anything of relevance, that we may have missed in what we ignored. This churning is really a process of twisting, turning and mixing up of these experiences in every way possible. It is an attempt to see if they make sense or become relevant if looked at differently and in different contexts.

There seem to be three essential qualities to this dream process. One, that it is unconscious. The conscious mind is generally unaware of it. This way we can live without being constantly distracted by it. Two, that it does not form memories. When you remember a dream, you extract a strand from your dream process and make it conscious. In doing so it becomes a memory, one that you can now recall. Three, it does not have any beginning or an end. A dream is really a randomly extracted part of the continuous dream process, we just go in and out of it. While it goes on and on in the background.

I find this understanding of my dream both comforting and disappointing. It makes sense of my dream experience and I am less worried about the question “why did I dream that?”. At the same time it makes me wonder if I will ever know what else I am dreaming, especially while I am awake.