PROCESSES OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND DREAMING IN THE MIND

The Mind is described in terms of our individual and collective experiences. The role of observation by Mind is supported by empirical data that quantum states can be created and changed by the process of repeated observation, and is described by a classical equation, which defines the genesis of information from reduction of uncertainty. This uncertainty is then generalized to the uncertainty of quantum processes. The state of consciousness is always “now,” with a unitary movement forward of Mind in time. This movement involves irreversible processes, which produce mixture of states, such that choices of states are enabled to occur. Such processes appear nowhere in physics, but rather reflect the role of the observer. Within the duration of the mental state, experience arises by repeated observation of the mind/brain state. The processes of conscious experience involve movement from the uncertain unconscious to the certain consciousness, the outgoing process, and vice-versa in dreaming, the inward-going process. Psychopathology is the result of an imbalance and/or dysfunction of one or both processes. In dreaming, in the absence of consciousness, subjective time moves equitably forward and backward in time. This kind of temporal movement is discussed in relation to the Dreamtime of the Australian Aborigines.