I really enjoyed your article Frank. We seem to be singing from the same hymn sheet on this.

It is such a simple and elegant idea, partly because it ‘gets in’ right from the ‘start’. It’s a great viewpoint to extrapolate from and can lead to quite interesting insights. Of course it’s only a model/ map/ lens from which to navigate our own lives. The task is still at hand!

I was struck by your section: Why would we dream of pain and suffering?; The ‘small-screen’ version of the ‘main feature’, ‘Why does god allow pain and suffering?’

We can have a stab at answering the small question and then, fractal/ Russian doll like, it may provide us with a flavour of the bigger answers.

Why would we, a fully cogent, awake entity, inflict pain, suffering and nightmares upon our dream avatar, when weaving our nightly dream reality?

The first point we realise is that this nightly ‘dream world’ creation is a natural outpouring; We do not will it, we are just the vehicle for it’s creation. It would appear some higher ‘process’ is in charge. We might even come to the conclusion that it is some sort of symbolic communication from that ‘higher process’. Jung thought of dreams as compensatory in nature. A natural balancing mechanism.

Quite interesting to blow this up, onto a larger scale. A cut-off, separated, lesser god is dreaming our universe. This universe is a compensatory communication from the ‘higher power’ that the lesser god is partitioned off from. The higher power wants the lesser god to take heed and learn from the communication to eventually dispel the dream and wake up, back into ‘reality’.

Ah! the stuff of fantasy and science fiction.

Here are some of my 'mootings' :

https://goat777.medium.com/merrily-merrily-merrily-merrily-life-is-but-a-dream-423fc7634de6

https://goat777.medium.com/the-clue-of-the-silver-key-9168536b8557