It has been said that we are a bridge between two worlds, often described as the upper and the lower worlds. That is derived from the believe that if we are created by G-d, then we are born from the upper or divine world. What if we did not refer to it that way, but simply, for now as this world, and that world. This world being the familiar world, and that world being the "other" world. And as a bridge between the two we actually live in them both.

As the Zen monk is purported to have said: "I woke up this morning, having dreamt of being a butterfly. Am I now a butterfly having a dream of being a man?" In the same vein, could it not be that when I am "awake" in this world, I am asleep in the other? That this world is as much dream as the other, and that my consciousness flits from one to the other?

This does not necessarily come from some deep meditation or reading on the matter (though I have done both), but simply by the fact that in the last while I have become aware of the fact that upon awakening into this world (the world of present consciousness, one which Arthur Mindell refers to as the world of "consensus reality"), the snippets of my dreams that I remember feel completely "real". That is, while I was in that dream, it was very real. There was no part of me, nor any part of that so called dream, that was not utterly and completely real while it was unfolding. It felt very much like I was having an alternative experience, as real as this one is.

There are certain aspects in that other world that are missing, in comparison to that world - some of which is personal, some of which is general. I realise that the one major criticism of this idea would be that no-one but I am experiencing my dream during the dream—in contrast to our ability to share common experiences which we can recall long after these experiences have occurred in this reality. Though, to play somewhat of a devil's advocate here, there are reports of people who can participate in such dreams, and who have the ability to walk into other's dreams, but we will leave that in the realm of the extra-sensory or "inexplicable". Though I cannot but wonder if such subjects were taught more generally, how many abilities connected with the dream world might be revealed.

That we can all recall certain shared events will place them firmly in the shared reality that we are in agreement regarding. However, there are also cases of shared—dare I say mystical, or non-empirical experiences on record as well. Though no one can "prove" that such a sharing actually occurred or whether it was just in the minds of those who shared it. Well, nowadays&mdays;and in the ancient religious texts as well—there is much question of what comprises reality, and how much of it is illusion and unreal.

There are other differences, one of which, in my experience, I have never seen what I look like in my dreams. There is no mirror, or reflection of myself that I have ever seen. Nor has anyone ever told me what I look like. Am I tall or short, dark haired or blonde? I assume that I am male, but except in a number of erotic dreams in my youth, I have not had proof of that.

Another point that might be raised is our inability to remember our dreams—though again that might be as a result of lack of training as much as our innate abilities. Instead of diving deeper into that debate, I rather ask the question of how much of what happens to you on a daily basis can you actually remember. If I had to stop you in the middle of your day, and ask what had transpired in the previous hours, how much would you remember? And if I asked you what had happened yesterday, how much would you remember? Last week?

Again, may I ask how much of your day to you spend dreaming, thinking about things, remembering things. How much of what you experience in your real life is actually occurring in your "dream" world, the world of your thoughts, and how much is actually happening out there in the real world. How much of your life do you live on auto pilot, while in the world of your waking dreams? When reading a book or watching a movie, how present are you really?

So, I challenge you to spend 30 days writing down your dreams each morning upon awakening. Two things will occur. Firstly you will be amazed at the details that will begin to come through in your reports, and how much had actually occurred. The second is that you will realise as well, how extensive your dream world experiences actually are.

However, this is not the reason that I wanted to speak of this. Let us return to the beginning of this dialogue, and let us assume that we do live in these two worlds, the real world and the dream world.

I will propose that the dreams you will have will be affected (even perhaps directed) by the thoughts you have been having. The closer the thoughts to the time of dreaming, the greater will they affect that dream. This is a direct correlate to your waking life—in that your thoughts will affect your "real" life too.

So, if you watch a romantic movie or a violent one, before bed, they will affect your dreams. If you meditate and pray before going to sleep, it will affect your dreams. If you have a fight with your partner, if you think about your debts... all this will affect that space of that dream world. In fact, I believe that if you watch movies, it will restrict the expressions of the occurrances in your dreams, and often they will be overlaid with images, or versions thereof that come from these movies. Just as the reading of a book will do the same, but the images are more personal, and self-induced, allowing for a greater range of creativity.