Common sense won’t ‘cut the mustard’

More than three hundred years ago Isaac Newton introduced a theory of mechanics that fit beautifully within our common sense intuition and understanding. Newton’s mechanics, the theory of force acting upon objects, uses such common sense parameters as velocity, mass, force, distance, acceleration, and momentum. The student of physics could “feel� the correctness of Isaac’s formulas.

Quantum mechanics was another problem completely. The physicists seeking to intuit and understand the inner world of the atom were faced with trying to understand something that was beyond the world of human intuition. The inner world of the atom was a world incongruent with common sense.

Early in the twentieth century Freud discovered the psychic unconscious; the inner world of human reality that was somewhat like the inner world of the atom in that it was not easily understood by common sense intuition. Freud’s theory of repression represents itself as a means for comprehending this psychic phenomenon.

The Freudian theory of repression was a revolutionary idea originally discovered in the attempt to comprehend human nature as it develops within civilized society. Civilization demands that the individual repress many natural urges. “In the new Freudian perspective, the essence of society is repression of the individual, and the essence of the individual is repression of himself.�

Feud made this breakthrough discovery of human unconsciousness as a result of his attempt to understand and possibly relieve certain “mad� symptoms of the mentally deranged. Freud found meaningfulness within the psychopathology of everyday life, including slips of the tongue, errors, dreams, and random thoughts.

“Meaningfulness means expression of a purpose or an intention.� The expressions contained in dreams were Freud’s principal means for discovering the presence of the unconscious. These dream expressions uncovered an existence that drove Freud “to embrace the paradox that there are in the human being purposes of which he knows nothing, involuntary purposes, or, in more technical Freudian language, “unconscious� ideas.�

The dynamic conflict between the unconscious and the conscious, i.e. neurosis, is not easily recognized as such by the untutored self.

SGCS (Second Generation Cognitive Science) has recently discovered the importance of the cognitive unconsciousness. Utilizing new brain scanning technology and computer modeling, cognitive science has, in the last three to four decades, introduced us to a new concept; “the unconscious cognitive mind�. This new theory of cognition has made us conscious of the fact that most of our conscious life is dictated by our unconscious cognitive processes. Conservatively speaking 95% of cognitive thought is unconscious.

Comprehension of even the most basic human tendencies is no longer available to the common sense intuition. To grasp the essential elements of living successfully within a high tech society we must find ways to supplement our meager formal education that seems to prepare us only for a life of production and consumption; without the necessary understanding needed to be satisfied and successful in that new world where common sense is no longer sufficient for comprehending the vicissitudes of living.

Have you checked on your unconscious life lately? How does one check on their unconscious life?

Quotes from “Life Against Death� by Norman O Brown

I wonder if Freud ever studied Eastern philosophy in relation to spiritual sciences.
The Vedic principles regarding the conscious and unconscious mind are thousands of years old.

Does Eastern philosophy/religion have anything of value to say about dreams. It is upon dreams that Freud discovered repression and the unconscious.

Govinda Yogindra, also known as Patanjali wrote the Yoga Sutras some 5000 years ago detailing the 7 known states of consciousness.
The Science of Yoga details the subjective and objective experiences of each of the states of consciousness.

Dreams can be intuitive to the nature of an individual in his or her purpose and goals in relationship to personality or to the universe.

Dreams often reveal stress that is not always apparent in the waking state because of self control or programs engaged in belief of reality.
We as individuals formulate ideas of right and wrong, reason, righteousness, truth, etc, and by our own efforts suppress intuitive innocence with fear and dogma.
Because of the mechanical process of our own nervous systems what we repress is stored as energy to be released by the body when the mind and body settle into rest. Sleeping is for most the best rest that is achieved naturally and when the mind and body settle into rest the body begins to release stress.
Because the mind and body work together when the body begins to release stress the mind translates it into images such as in memories or dreams.

Being that the nature of Yoga is about the spirit and the manifest it goes into great depths to describe the intuitive nature of the mind and its ability to self realize or be cognizant or self aware.
Separating the dreams that are the product of stress release and intuition is not about living naturally in a stress filled environment. But living naturally in any environment stress free.

What Eastern Philosophy teaches is that there is no guesswork needed to try and unravel the subconscious mind from the conscious mind when they commune so naturally together. It is only by our own efforts to divide them that we become separated from our own experience of the union that exists in the conscious and subconscious.
It is in recognizing the fact that we have created the divisions and separations of states of consciousness, awareness of the known and unknown and by our own efforts maintain the divisions that we can simply stop believing in the ideas of separation to reverse the effects.

Dreams can reveal anything, they most often reveal hopes and ideals mixed with fear and doubt, repressed love and freedom buried under the stress and pressure of societal dogma and rules of belief.
What eastern philosophy Teaches is not Psychic intervention to pick out the good from the bad but in understanding how to clear the nervous system sufficiently to allow it to work naturally.

Unfortunately some have mistaken eastern philosophy for a regimental discipline similar to the twisting of Western religion and spiritual Teaching.
Both Jesus and Patanjali spoke of the exaltation of dreams and the mechanics of clear intuition.

So how do you explain dreams in animals like the domesticated dog?

You're comparing the consciousness of a human with a dog?

OK then. dogs have dog dreams....