The Reality of Imagination

Science has proven that if a person sits down and imagines themselves in a heated argument, that the exact same centers of the brain are activated as when a person is actually in a heated argument. While the flow of neuron interactions may be different between real and imagined events as this article indicates,:

https://www.livescience.com/49244-imagination-reality-brain-flow-direction.html

...the same neurological networks within the brain are engaged. Indeed, anyone who has found themselves thinking of any kind of emotionally-charged interaction after the fact, can confirm that the exact same emotions that they experienced during the interaction will surface while simply thinking about it. On a similar note, all of the incredible, very real inventions that make our lives so good have been discovered by way of the imagination of the inventor. In both instances, imagination becomes reality. 

My experience has been that my consciousness does not differentiate between ‘real’ and ‘imagined’. Both seem to occur with equal reality to my mind. If I think about an upsetting event (real or imagined), I get upset. If I think about playing with my favorite pet, I get all warm and happy inside. So it kinda makes me wonder, when I leave my physical body at night and have experiences in the subtle world (i.e. dreaming), just how real are these experiences? However bizarre the circumstances, however strange the juxtaposition of events or things, my mind perceives and experiences them as being real. 

What does that mean for me in a practical sense? After giving this some thought, I think this question is best answered with a question: what do I want in life? Like most people, my answer involves the goal of happiness. So how do I get this happiness in my life?

The way I see it, the quality of my dreams - good or bad - just like the quality of my life in the physical world, depends wholly upon me. When my thoughts tend toward the positive, and I genuinely feel drawn to goodness, be it beauty, truth, benevolence, I will find myself attracted to people, things, and situations that reflect these qualities. On the other hand, if my thoughts are drawn to things such as addictions, hate, or anger, then I find myself being drawn to other people, things, and situations that reflect those qualities. I have been able to actually observe this in my life. 

For instance, I used to have a fascination for news stories about people who did crazy stuff while on drugs. I would be browsing the news and find a bizarre headline with a couple of weird pictures that I couldn’t resist clicking on, and I’d read the story and marvel at whatever the story had to offer. Then at night, I would quite often find myself (in my dreams) hanging out with people who were doing drugs. So I tried a thought-experiment - I stopped clicking on and reading stories of that nature. And you guessed it - I stopped having dreams about being around those kinds of folks. In fact, I found myself having a much broader variety of experiences that included some pretty amazing things! 

Suddenly my thoughts became far more important than they used to be. And I guess I finally, really accepted that I am “the captain of my own ship” when it comes to what kinds of thoughts I have. If I’m after happiness in the physical or subtle worlds, then I need to go to where I want to be - with my mind. Simple as that.