{"id":13519,"date":"2020-04-03T22:13:07","date_gmt":"2020-04-04T02:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=13519"},"modified":"2020-04-03T22:13:07","modified_gmt":"2020-04-04T02:13:07","slug":"if-sickness-is-a-dream-who-needs-to-wake-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=13519","title":{"rendered":"If Sickness Is a Dream, Who Needs to Wake Up?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pro Tip: If you need to adjust your stove eye, do it while the eye is off. Turning it on before adjusting it will only complicate the task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I was able to watch <em>Inception <\/em>recently, because it came on Netflix. I enjoy that kind of thing, a deep dive into a single sci-fi concept. Not that it was a deep film or that it even touched on a deep idea. It was just fun&#8211;a heist film set in the dream world.<br><br>I gather some people took it to be a thoughtful reflection on the possibility that what we call reality is merely a dream or some massive deception. Descartes rejected that idea, preferring to believe he existed and could actually know something. Actually knowing something is kind of a big deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In <em>Inception<\/em>, characters constantly reviewed the rules of how the dreamscape worked: paradoxes, mental defenses, and how to invoke a dreamer to dream a new and deeper dream. Our dreams aren&#8217;t made like that. When I realize I&#8217;m dreaming, I also realize I can control things. If I see that I&#8217;m out in public and have left something, I can decide that I have it and there it is. In the movie, if they imagined they have bigger guns, they could use them. But tell the target he&#8217;s dreaming, and he can&#8217;t just slip down a rabbit hole and sit by the river until he wakes up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a dream, only what I perceive exists, and then, of course, there&#8217;s you. How are we all dreaming coherently together? But let&#8217;s stick with perception for a moment; many unperceived, even imperceivable, things have rearranged our lives for centuries. Shall we just roll over and wonder how this dream will end? That&#8217;s all we&#8217;re left with, if everything is a dream. We can&#8217;t study medicine, engineering, farming, or anything that produces something outside of our preferences if nothing is real. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The eye of my stove burned my fingers because the electric coil producing the heat is a reality outside of my perception. Had I turned the wrong switch I would have had heat in another eye and possibly wondered why my pan wasn&#8217;t warming up. That&#8217;s my perception at play in a real world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Try to stay healthy, friends. And for the kids at home, remember the Lord who made you; that&#8217;s the start of good perception.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pro Tip: If you need to adjust your stove eye, do it while the eye is off. Turning it on before adjusting it will only complicate the task. I was able to watch Inception recently, because it came on Netflix. I enjoy that kind of thing, a deep dive into a single sci-fi concept. Not &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=13519\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">If Sickness Is a Dream, Who Needs to Wake Up?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[1288,2206],"class_list":["post-13519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","tag-inception","tag-philosophy"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}