In some of my big dreams, I’ve encountered a second self, who has knowledge and skills that are lacking in my waking self. He inhabits a different kind of time. He does not suffer from the illusion that the rules of Newtonian physics apply to him. He can survey events and situations in my life – and in the fortunes of countries – from a place above, as a boy might inspect the layout of a model train, or a girl might open the back of a doll’s house and peek at the rooms inside. He travels ahead of me on the roads of the possible future.He steps in and out of time, and moved between parallel worlds, the way you and I might get in or get out of an elevator. He shares knowledge with me that is not available to me from any other self.
Sometimes I make it my goal, in conscious dreaming, to sit down with him and have a candid discussion about life, and lives. Our most frequent place of rendezvous is a table on the terrace of a pleasant cafe. From up here, it is possible to look across both time and space.
I am excited by the discovery that a French scientist, Jean-Pierre Garnier Malet, reached the conclusion that engagement with this kind of double, in dreams, is crucial to our understanding of reality and our ability to lead fulfilled and conscious lives. In his Théorie du dédoublement, Garnier Malet offered a scientific theory that the “doubling” of time and space is a “law of physics” that offers us “temporal openings” – opportunities to step in and out of time and by so doing, change our possible future for the better. These opportunities are enhanced when we become conscious of the existence of our doubles and draw on their superior knowledge. The best way to engage with the double is by approaching sleep and dreams in the right way, Garnier Malet argues in a recent popular book Le double… comment ça marche? edited and co-authored by his wife Lucile.
“Your double can take care of you during your dreams. Your way of approaching sleep permits him to come to counsel you and arrange what is possible for you in the future.”
We must learn to “drink time”, as a thirsty animal drinks from a stream, without hesitation or excessive reflection. This means “drinking information from the past and the future during sleep. Dreams are there to allow us to do this. Haven’t you noticed that dreams put us in a different kind of time?.”
Through dreams, we learn that “there are two different time streams going on at once.” When we learn to step back and forth between them, we can create a better future before we live it in this world.
I’ll have more to say about Garnier Malet’s work. I am always excited when I find a scientific model that begins to approximate the experience of dreaming in the multiverse, and a scientist who recognizes explicitly that active dreaming is the source of vital data on the nature of the larger universe.
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