A friend of mine posed an interesting question: do dreams create karma?On the one hand, the workings of the subconscious mind are not acted upon, are not acts of volition, and no one else is affected, so why would there be karma?
On the other hand, dreams can affect our moods, our attitude and our whole approach toward our waking day. Isn't that the karma of dreams?
Or is there a Middle Way between these two positions?
2 comments:
That is interesting. And I have no idea what the answer might be. In fact, I only have another question. One objective of meditation is to gain or develop the ability to become a detached observer of ones own mentation. If this power of unjudging observation carries over into the activities of one's life other than time spent meditating, we may say that those activities are being conducted more mindfully. If such a development generates changes of behavior patterns [mechism of such change is a topic in its own right ]it would seem to have ["positive", we hope;)]karmic consequences. The question here, if I haven't made utter mincemeat of the concepts: is dumb action and reflex of less karmic consequence than intentional and aware actions?
And then, finally, is mindfullness a state antithetical to a dreaming state of mind?
[I have earned no license to ask. Frank exposure of any ways in which I have not got the concepts will be welcomed]
I can't add anything in relation to karma to your & Tenzo's stew, but the mental visualization literature suggests that images can be vital as a goal that the brain can actualize. (Similarly for beliefs.)
In relation to volition, it's also interesting to note that there were experiments involving decisions to move that show our conscious 'decision' actually significantly lags the neurophysiological activation of our brain's motor areas. I think the same is true for our consciousness of sensory perceptions. Moreover, experiments with "split-brain" subjects and clinical neglect patients suggest that our conscious explanations for what we're doing may be a rationalized construction that's independent/can be divorced from the reality.
So our consciousness is probably not quite as it seems, although we are making judgements & decisions and directing our imaginations. We couldn't play ball games (or walk) if we were making fully conscious choices.
Therefore perhaps we should be cautious about the idea that "the workings of the subconscious mind are not acted upon, are not acts of volition".
Importantly those faculties enable corrective feedback through which we decide to retrain our less conscious responses. So if/how we do that is then a matter of intention, and perhaps karmic consequence. (Having low thresholds to 'comfort eating' or drug taking or habitually becoming aggressive definitely have consequences.)
My impression is that i have emotional reactions while dreaming, so it seems natural they can "affect our moods, our attitude and our whole approach toward our waking day" (and perception governs our behaviour).
Similarly my feeling is that i am judgemental rather than mindful when dreaming. I don't know if it is possible to dream mindfully, but that doesn't seem antithetical.
My thinking then would be those were two aspects of the loops of our "mind-machine".
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