Karen struggles with a nightmare

"Why do we have nightmares? Isn't the brain on your side?"

[Karen, Outnumbered]

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While funny this is a SRH Godel statement that blows apart the concept of a self. This argument suggests that the brain produces dreams that we as a separate entity then view. When the brain produces a nightmare that we do not like it feels like the brain has done something against us.

But how messed up is this.

Who for instance decides if a dream is good or bad? Is that not the brain also? Or are we saying that the brain does all the stuff up to the point of judging and then there is a separate entity that feels, judges, makes choices and decides that is not the brain? Wow that is quite a metaphysics.

So one way is to have a loop. We do all this stuff, then present the results back to the brain so it can see what is going on. Then the brain can be both the computer generating the image, and the computer that is getting the image. This is actually kind of true. But important to realise that the "image" of everything that we "see" that lets us know what is going on, is just an image. The actual going on is present in the existence itself. So if we want to know what is going on see the existence of the image, not the content. So Karen is noting that the brain is creating a nightmare and then in review is deciding it doesn't like this.

Now this is quite a complex misunderstanding. Karen is noting that the true self is present Now and is the one doing the viewing. She separates this from what is seen, and so the nightmare looks separate from me. That is correct. And she correctly notes that a nightmare comes from the brain and not from reality. But then she asks whether the brain is on "my" side. So there is the creation here of a "my" which is neither the brain nor the Now. That is the subtle mistake.

The brain is the "thing" here. There is no second thing which owns things as "my." The Now is just what is happening right now, there is no "my" there. So what Karen experiences is a memory of a nightmare that she realises is not real but made by the brain, and she realises that brain is herself. But she then confuses the experience of this as belonging to a "my" which is not the brain. Now actually this is the brain misunderstanding its own activity, but worst of all assuming it has powers that it does not have. The brain can generate nightmares, memories, like and dislike, thoughts, feelings the entire lot. But in the moment when she is feeling alienated from all this, what she thinks is herself is really manufactured by the brain. There is no trace of self in the actual activity of the brain and all its manufacturing because the self itself is manufactured. So the sense of the nightmare being hers, but the brain opposing her because she dislikes it is all the brain working hard. But the moment in which it all happens; that is not generated by the brain. The brain only has the power to process and perceive. And the sense of self is part of the brain's activity. The rest is outside the realm of brain and self. "Karen" is actually a very small part of the experience, smaller even than the nightmare itself.