Dreaming of Reality

I was talking with a friend the other day about Arny Mindell’s trinitarian model of reality. He says there are three levels of reality that are operating all the time. I’ve heard these levels referred to with different names, but the ones that stick with me are consensual reality, the dream world, and the source world.

The first level is consensual reality. This refers to all the stuff we can see, touch, measure, and agree on. The green couch, your to-do list, bank account, and what you ate for breakfast are all on this list. Consensual reality is the world of rational thought, analysis, and problem-solving.

The second level is the dream world. This includes everything present that is amorphous, intuitive, and what cannot be precisely pinned down. Your hopes and dreams, the odd thought that flits through your head, the glance that passes between you and a friend, all this is included. The dream world is not rational and cannot be measured or precisely pinned down.

The source world is the third level. This is the unspeakable source of all that happens. We might also call this the Tao, the cosmic origin, or the Prime Mover. It is the origin of everything—before language and thought. We can point toward and perhaps even follow the movement of the source world, but we can never fully describe, name, or comprehend this realm.

Mindell’s teaching is that everything that happens is happening at all these levels, but it can be useful, in working with persistent or important problems, to consider which levels are being ignored. Usually, we get stuck in consensual reality. Anyone who has tried to reason through a recurring problem with a partner or a parent can verify how little success this approach yields. A discussion of the persistence of crumbs on the counter that focuses on the crumbs themselves is unlikely to lead anywhere productive.

Our western-rational-analytic bias often undervalues the dream-like quality of our lives. From consensual reality, I am here and you are there, but in the dream world, things are much more fluid and provisional. You are a part of me and I am a part of you. The issue we are dealing with is not just the content, but also includes the history of our relationship and many people and events that are not physically present.

The Buddha also taught that our lives have a dream-like quality. In the Diamond Sutra, he encourages us to ‘view this fleeting world’ as ‘a phantom and a dream.’ While life is certainly not a dream (if you jump off the top of a tall building, you will certainly end up in a crumpled heap on the ground), this teaching points to the co-existing truth of the evanescence of life.

We can talk about yesterday afternoon when it was mild and the sun was shining—or reminisce about a year ago, before the pandemic—or tell stories of things that happened decades ago. But where are all these events and conditions now? And have you ever spent a single moment in the future? All our planning and worrying never leads anywhere but to this ever-changing moment.

So perhaps today, while you honor the many demands and plans of your life, you might try going a little dreamy. Let your gaze soften and your focus go fuzzy. What if the tree branch moving in the morning wind is dancing or waving to you–signaling something or singing a song? What if you are the tree? Or you are the wind? What if you jumped up so high that you could see the whole world and could spend the day gazing down on the beautiful and intricate patterns of everyday life? What if the whole world is your dream and you are the dream of the whole world?

I think of the lovely small song attributed to the Ojibwe Indigenous American tribe:
Why do I go about pitying myself, when all the time I am being carried on great winds across the sky?