The Unpretenders - Chapter 10

Sleep did not come easily, that night, as my mind relentlessly cogitated over everything that had happened. For despite Julian's insistence that there was nothing to learn, I couldn't help but feel that I was somehow enmeshed in a cosmic mystery, of epic proportions, and that my freedom may ultimately depend upon my intellectual ability to solve it.

As it was, all that I had managed to piece together was an apparent connection between the power of words, divinity and liberation. God, after all, is described as having created light by simply commanding it to be, just as I had done in the chamber. Moreover, the Bible states: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

It could also be translated: "In the beginning was Thought, and the Thought was in Consciousness, and the Thought was conscious." In other words, God became identified with Thought (mind). A situation that continues to this day, according to Julian; the One being identified with the conditioned thoughts of each apparent individual. Which also implied that any apparent limitations that human beings had were directly proportional to their belief in the separate self. 

Jesus certainly didn't appear to have any limitations. And yet he insisted that his so-called miracles were little more than a preview of what was possible, for all of us: "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the same works I have been doing, and even greater works than these will he do." In other words, whoever believes in and aligns with the One, rather than the egoic personality construct, will no longer be bound by the apparent limitations of matter.

Even so, I couldn't help but wonder whether I had perhaps chosen this reality, with the intention of never returning to the boredom and meaninglessness of my own omnipotence. Was I really involved in a conspiracy against myself, therefore? And, if so, how much faith and trust could I put in the conclusions of my own mind?

When I finally fell asleep, I dreamt - perhaps not surprisingly - of being back at the Intronium, happily conducting reality with my words. Only now the landscapes that I created were tangible, interactive and truly vast. I could literally fly through them, in fact, and modify the scenes at will. "Add barn," I'd say, and a barn would instantly appear. Or "reduce the population of this village by fifty percent." And so it would be. Not, this time, due to the Intronium, but simply because that's what my mind had been conditioned to expect, as a direct consequence of using the Intronium.

In that sense, it wasn't a particularly remarkable dream. Anybody, after all, who had used the Intronium, would likely have gone on to dream about their experience, sooner or later. Just as taking up a new sport or hobby tends to provoke associated dreams, which one wouldn't have had otherwise.

As I awoke, in the early hours, I began to think about the negative impact that our physical conditioning invariably had on our nightly sojourns. Imagination was not ultimately limited, after all, any more than God was. Yet both could appear to be, through nothing more sinister than thought.

Somebody who drove a Mini, for example, would not likely dream (in the literal sense) about driving a Ferrari. Somebody who lived in a small flat would not likely dream about living in a mansion. Somebody who worked as a toilet cleaner would not likely dream about working as a lifeguard. Somebody who lived on Earth would not likely dream about living on another planet. Somebody who felt shy and inadequate would not likely dream about being the beloved and mighty ruler of a powerful nation. Somebody who was identified with their everyday ego, or body-mind, would not likely dream about being God.

And yet I just had done - at least in the sense of having been able to control my environment, which was normally only possible in lucid dreams. Just two hours in the Intronium, it seemed, had conditioned me to experience my godhood. And so, rather than negative conditioning, I felt it to be an example of positive conditioning. Or, more precisely, deconditioning, since the technology effectively erased my programmed sense of limitation and restored my innate power of creation, which I had never truly lost in the first place. Nice one, Julian! 

All of which begged the question: To what extent could we empower our dreams by changing the way that we lived our waking lives? Or, the other way around: To what extent could we empower our waking lives by changing the way that we lived our dreams?

Certainly the entire dream environment was really nothing more than one's own imagination, even though objects and people appeared to have an independent existence of their own. Even dream enemies, therefore, could only ever be oneself, in disguise. Could the same be true of waking enemies, I wondered.

A new day beckoned...