Dreamtime

The Aboriginals of Australia speak of Dreamtime, an everywhen from which all things were created. When they speak of their lives, they speak of their "dreaming" their current lives as a subjective experience. This is in direct oppositions to western philosophical thought, which describes our linear waking consciousness as an experience of "objective" reality. Basically, we here in the west are brought to believe we exist in a reality and a universe that exists independent of our experience of it and if we did not exist it would continue without us. In opposition to that, we have the aboriginal concept of reality, which basically asserts that the universe and reality is a product of our consciousness. This radical and often heretical interpretation of reality finds a scientific foothold in the recent discoveries by quantum physicists relating to the nature of phenomena under observation ( that it alters the outcome of experiments), and the seemingly random behavior of subatomic particles and irrational composition and functioning of the universe at its most minute and detectable levels. This brings up many new associations, such as the influence that Taoism and other Asian mystical systems have had on the expression of these new ground breaking ideas in quantum physics, the seeming overlap of systems of thought that have existed for over three thousand years and the most recent efforts by the comparatively youthful western scientific inquiry is astounding, if not unnerving.
As we learn more about the "nuts and bolts" of our universe, experience , and reality, we come to see that isn't as objective as we once held it to be, and that we "the observers" have a much more important or at least influential role to play, at least from the vantage point of our own experience. I for one find it comforting, that we do not exist in the cold logical laboratory universe that the science of my father's generation had told me I did. To find that there is still a great deal unknown, and even more that is unknowable, gives me hope and in many ways a reason to keep exploring and keep searching this life for clues, answers, and experiences that may broaden my perceptions, deepen my knowledge ,and lead to a greater understanding of my own dreaming. It always rang true for me, the idea of Dreamtime, it always seemed right. Dreams are a wondrous and joyful thing, devoid of the anxiety and terror of nightmares, the word dream only conjures that fluid and boundless place, beyond rationality and logic, less substantial but more honest. If ever there was a place that such a thing as "this" could be imagined and born, the realm of dream, the Dreamtime would be such a place.