Evolution only continues a process over long periods of time if it is serving a useful and important function.  So why do we continue to dream at night? This essay will cover: The physiological reason we need to dream; Dreams and the Right Hemisphere; How dreams have inspired music, art and science; The value of nightmares; Some useful principles to enhance your dream work. “The Magic Mirror” that never lies.   Before diving into the immense creative/liberating force that dreams provide, since this website is devoted to whole-brain thinking and an understanding of the distinction between the two hemispheres of our brains, let’s start with the important practical physiological/emotional function dreaming provides. The “Safety Pressure Valve” Every one of us dreams 4-6 times every night.  Obviously, we don’t remember the vast majority, so what is the biological function of the dream?  Turns out if we didn’t dream frequently every night, we’d probably go insane. Thanks to 21st century computer-driven technology (EEG, MRI), sleep laboratories can now see inside the brains of volunteers while they are dreaming.   The dream state is associated with rapid eye movement (REM), so, researchers know that when a volunteer’s sleep pattern stimulates the eyes to move […]

    One of the most brilliant, insightful integral thinkers I ever had the chance to converse with was William Irwin Thompson.  He was gracious enough to be a guest on my radio program for two hours back in 2002. Bill Thompson was a philosopher, cultural historian and founder of the Lindisfarne Association, a network of scientists, artists and religious scholars who got together to discuss what Bill called “Planetary Culture.”  Listening to Bill or reading his work, one gets the sense he has not only read virtually every important book in the humanities and general sciences, but integrated them into a unique, wholistic vision. What I remember most about radio our conversation was not the content of what he said, but his style which he himself described as “poetic, philosophical mind-jazz” (clearly a right-hemisphere style of thinking). For this essay I focus one of his essays, “It’s Already Begun, The Planetary Age is an unacknowledged daily reality.” Written in 1985, it’s relevant for global shifts going on right now and serves as a good view of Bill’s integral mind.   “We live in a culture that we do not see.  We don’t live in industrial civilization; we live in […]