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This is a five-part series exploring a subject that has occupied my thoughts for several decades: dreams, the human mind and the many unanswered questions surrounding human consciousness. I have often wondered how much of what we think, believe and experience is shaped by our upbringing, religious teachings, culture and the environment in which we grow up. I have also been interested in understanding why certain dreams appear to connect with events in our waking lives, sometimes in ways that leave us searching for explanations.
Following a brief conversation with my co-writer, Onyia Melissa Chidera, she developed this wonderful piece, which takes us into some of these fascinating and often difficult questions. Rather than approaching the subject from only one perspective, the series examines the relationship between inherited beliefs, religion, karma, Scientology, neuroscience and the mysteries of human consciousness. It invites us to look beyond familiar explanations and consider questions that we may not always have stopped to examine.
What happens when the beliefs we are taught while growing up begin to shape not only the way we understand the world around us but also the experiences we have when we sleep? Across cultures, religions and philosophies, human beings have continued to search for answers to questions that remain difficult to resolve. Are our thoughts truly our own or have they been shaped by ideas we absorbed before we were old enough to question them? Do our actions create consequences that extend beyond the present moment, as the concept of karma suggests? Is the human being merely a physical body governed by the brain, or is there a spiritual self beyond the physical, as Scientology teaches? And when dreams appear to reveal something before it happens, are we witnessing the brain’s ability to recognise patterns and process memories, or are there aspects of consciousness that remain beyond our present understanding? Religion, karma, Scientology and the study of dreams approach these questions from different directions, yet they all lead us towards a
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common mystery: how much of the reality we experience is shaped by what we have been taught, and how much of the human mind remains beyond our control?
I would say that the human being is, to a considerable extent, a programmed creature, although the word “programmed” does not necessarily mean that we are incapable of independent thought or that everything we believe has been imposed on us deliberately. A child is not born knowing what is sacred, sinful, shameful, beautiful, acceptable or forbidden. These ideas are gradually introduced by parents, relatives, teachers, religious leaders and the society into which the child is born. Someone teaches the child what God is, explains death and gives meaning to suffering, while others introduce concepts such as heaven and hell, angels and demons, ancestors and spirits, karma, punishment, reward and salvation. Long before the child develops the ability to examine these beliefs independently, many of them have already become part of the foundation upon which the child understands life. We do not simply enter the world and discover it entirely for ourselves; we also inherit interpretations of it, and those interpretations can influence our thinking long after we have become adults.
Culture, family, religion, tradition, fear and personal experience all contribute to the way we understand reality. As we grow older, we begin to question some of what we have been taught, accept other parts and develop opinions of our own, but the process is not always as independent as we imagine. Some beliefs become so deeply rooted that we no longer remember where they originated or why we accepted them in the first place. They become part of our conscience, our habits, our expectations and even the way we judge ourselves. The person who originally introduced an idea may no longer be present, yet the idea continues to influence our behaviour. This is one of the most powerful forms of human influence: when an external instruction becomes an internal voice, and the individual begins to regulate their own thoughts and actions without needing anyone else to intervene. It raises a difficult question about the relationship between belief and personal freedom: when we obey a rule that has become part of our conscience, are we making a completely independent decision, or are we continuing to follow an instruction that was planted in us many years earlier?
When I was about thirteen, I asked a question that frightened me more than I had expected. I wondered, “If God is a spirit that cannot feel flesh, how can He protect us from physical harm?” To me, it was a genuine question, the kind a curious child might ask when trying to understand something that appears difficult to reconcile. Instead of receiving an explanation, however, I was told that I was blaspheming. In that moment, my curiosity became a source of fear. I began to worry that I had offended God and found myself begging Him to forgive me. Looking back at that experience, I have often wondered about the distinction between being controlled by another person and being taught to control oneself. A child may repeatedly hear that God is watching, that God knows everything the child does, that wrongdoing will be punished and that certain actions may lead to eternal suffering. Initially, these warnings come from adults who explain what is right and wrong, but as the child grows, the adults do not always need to be present for the warnings to remain effective. The child may eventually avoid stealing or engaging in another prohibited act because the fear of being watched or punished has become internalized. The observer, in effect, has become part of the child’s own thinking.
This does not mean that religion is inherently harmful or that faith exists only to control people. Religious belief can provide comfort, moral direction, a sense of belonging and hope during difficult periods of life. It can encourage compassion, generosity, discipline and responsibility. The concern arises when fear becomes the principal means through which belief is taught, particularly when children are discouraged from asking questions or made to believe that curiosity itself is a moral offence. A person may grow into adulthood still carrying fears whose origins they no longer remember, feel guilty without fully understanding why, or avoid examining an idea because they were once taught that questioning it was dangerous. These experiences can influence not only how people behave while awake, but also how they interpret events they cannot easily explain. Someone who has been taught to associate dreams with divine warnings, for example, may wake from a frightening dream and immediately assume that it is a message about something terrible that will happen. The dream may have arisen from stress, memory or emotion, but the meaning attached to it may come from the beliefs the person inherited during childhood.
To Be Continued…….
