Page 36 - The Little Man in the Tower

The Little Man in the Tower

However, the fact is that, like other objects, we can only interact with our
body’s perception in the brain. All the information regarding your body—in
other words, the visual images of it and all the other perceptions which reach
your brain, are perceptions in the relevant centers inside your skull.

We can understand this better by considering dreams. When dreaming,
you see yourself in entirely imaginary worlds. Objects and people you see
around you have no reality. The earth you walk on, the sky overhead, the
houses, trees, cars and everything else are all totally imaginary. They have
no material originals. They are all located within your brain or, rather,
within your mind, and nowhere else.

On further reflection, the same thing applies to our bodies. When you
look down in a dream, just as you do now, you perceive a body with hands
and arms, one that walks, breathes and experiences sensations of touch. This
body you see in your dream could be very different to the one you actually
possess. You might dream of yourself as a three-armed, four-legged
monster. You may feel sensations of touch from all three arms. In another
dream, you might see yourself as a winged, flying creature, and you might
feel these wings flapping in a most convincing manner. All of these bodies
which can be experienced while dreaming are merely virtual–illusions in
your mind. But you perceive them as if they lay outside your brain.

This example demonstrates that even if you perceive your bodies in a
most realistic manner, it doesn’t follow that you actually possess any such
body in the physical sense. In the absence of any such physical body, still we
experience physical and bodily perceptions that exist entirely in our minds.

What, then, is the difference between dreaming and real life? True,
dreams are less continuous, less logically consistent and ordered, than the
perceptions we refer to as real life. Technically speaking, however, there is

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