Dreaming the World: What’s Your State of Mind?

What Type of World Shall “We” Dream into Existence?

“We have . . . dreamed the world. We have dreamed it as enduring, mysterious, visible, omnipresent in space and stable in time.” Jorge Luis Borges, Other Inquisitions, quoted by Michael Talbot in Mysticism and The New Physics (Bantam Books, 1981)

“We have dreamed a world,” writes Michael Talbot in his book Mysticism and The New Physics, (1981). One definition of the word dream is “a state of mind.” Our Native Ancestors’ state of mind created and maintained their free and independent existence as Original Peoples, with pristine lands (e.g. forests), air, water, skies, a region of the planet with an extraordinary number of plant and animal species, etc. (albeit without certain signs of “progress,” such as glyphosate, terminator seeds, mRNA technology, chem-trails, etc.).

The state of mind (mental activities) of western europe had created a world of domination there by the time they sailed by ship to our part of the planet (“North America”). France is indicative. William Brandon, in his New Worlds for Old (Ohio University Press, 1986) quotes Lord Acton: “Richelieu held that it would be impossible to keep the [French] people down if they were suffered [allowed] to be well off.”

The intention to “keep the people down” exemplified by Louis XIV’s reign during the seventeenth and early 18^th centuries (1638-1715), and throughout Europe generally, calls to mind the same kind of pattern noted by Orwell in his novel 1984:

“The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized by the directing brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the machine [of domination] without raising the general standard of living. . . . It is also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the destruction—indeed, in some sense was the destruction—of a hierarchical society. . . For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance.” (note: my thanks to Peter d’Errico for this quote)

Returning now to Brandon’s illustration by way of Lord Acton: “With half the present [1870s] population, he [Louis XIV] maintained an army of 450,000 men. . . Meanwhile, the people starved on grass . . . French historians believe that in a single generation six million [French] people died of want.”

Acton identifies the patterns of domination with this statement: “It would be easy to find tyrants more violent, more malignant, more odious than Louis XIV, but there was not one who ever used his power to inflict greater suffering or greater wrong.” Acton notes how all of this is reflective of “mass slaughter, pestilence . . . and starvation.” (Brandon, pp. 74-75). We now know these types of examples are the result of a system of domination that was carried by ship across the ocean to this Turtle Island continent (“north America”) during the so-called Age of Discovery.

The colonizing christian europeans created “new” versions of their systems of domination here on this Turtle Island continent. Those versions were called “New Spain,” “New Britannia,” “New Holland,” “New Sweden,” “New England,” “New York” (“the Empire State”) etc. The resulting global order of domination continues in its contemporary form today on this continent, throughout this hemisphere, and across the planet.

We are now able to see that the processes of our contemporary minds, individually and collectively, create the chaotic world we inhabit and experience daily. Together, “we” as homo sapiens are collectively compelled and directed by systems of domination to use the power of the mind and our “human” behavior to create and co-create the world of domination we experience.

We ought to also factor into the mix a key point made by physicist Roger Jones in Physics As Metaphor (1987): Our mental concepts of “space,” “time,” “matter,” and “number” are part of the metaphorical framing that we use in an ongoing manner to create and maintain our sense of “the universe” and “reality.” Those also happen to be the four cardinal and metaphorical concepts of physics, says Jones.

When Talbot frames the concepts of “time” and “space” (two metaphors created by human language and consciousness) as being part of “the very structure of the universe,” people might assume that he is referring to the physical universe. However, what he is also referring to is the mental and metaphorical universe that we experience as if it were merely physical.

Our sense of the “universe” is the result of the perceptual and mental processes of our lives as homo sapiens. Our experience of “reality” is a result of the energy of our “human” mind and consciousness as well as our embodiment.

Let’s assume for a moment, as physicist Roger Jones has surmised, that “space,” “time,” “matter,” and “number” are concepts that “we” create by mental “acts of consciousness.” As English language speakers and thinkers, these are mental and linguistic activities we engage in by means of English language words and ideas.

To which “we” am I referring? In a sense, (because I am writing this in English) that “we” is the collective identity of English speakers traced back centuries to the languages of western europe (such as Greek and Latin). This includes the socio-economic-political offshoots that ended up invading and colonizing other areas of the globe such as this “western” hemisphere (so-called because of it is located west of europe).

However, for those of us who are descended from and still identify with our original Native nations and peoples of Turtle Island (“north america”), we have available to us a different “we” orientation than non-Native English speakers. We have the potential to develop a heightened sense of a view-from-the-shore that “we” as Native people are able to use as an insightful framework of analysis.

Accordingly, when we as Native people use the word “we,” we mean those of us who trace our lineage back to our Native ancestors of this Turtle Island continent as contrasted with those who trace their lineage to western europe, or western christendom.

People of a western european lineage are able to trace their lineage back to the christian europeans’ claim of a “right” to dominate all Life. Patricia Seed in Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest [Domination] of the New World 1492-1640 (Cambridge University Press, 1995) repeatedly illustrates this attitude with phrases such as “instituting Spanish authority over the New World,” and “Portuguese possession was initiated not by dirt or earth, but by the stars above.” (emphasis added) It is a metaphorical use of language that the mind mistakenly construes as a statement of physical fact.

Metaphorically (meaning “figuratively” and “symbolically”) the invaders purported to “take possession” of the physical land. By doing so, they were using metaphors and other mental activities to dream a world of domination into existence, while using plenty of deadly elbow grease, along with the enslavement and servitude of others, to “get ‘er done.”

They were using “space” (e.g. the vast geographical space of “the Americas”) “time” (e.g. 1492), “matter” (e.g. “matters or affairs of state”) and “number” (using numbers for mapping and for the measurement of the stars) to assert a right of domination (“rule”) over the very existence of our Native Ancestors and our original nations and peoples.

Because we have been conditioned to believe that “space” and “matter” are physically real, it is difficult to think of those terms as being in any sense metaphorical or figurative.

Seed writes as if her form of metaphorical framing were an unquestionable physical fact, “Colonial rule over the New World was initiated through largely ceremonial practices—planting crosses, standards, banners, and coats of arms—marching in processions, picking up dirt, measuring the stars, drawing maps, speaking certain words, or remaining silent.” The word “rule” is a euphemism for “government,” “to reign,” “to exercise supreme authority;” “often used with the word ‘over’, as in “to rule over,” which are patterns of domination.

When the invading colonizers used their concepts of space, time, matter, and number as the mental and linguistic means by which they maintained their system of domination for adventure, commodification, exploitation, and profit.

Today the mental and linguistic use of space, time, matter, and number has resulted in the “electronic universe” as well as the development of algorithms (i.e. patterning) and other forms of computer coding, which has in turn resulted in AI (artificial intelligence) and digital forms of identity and imprisonment now being constructed, rolled out, and implemented across the planet.

Automated domination by means of drones, robotics, and the digitalization of the planet is becoming “all the rage” (extremely popular as a profit center for the investor class so they can “make a killing”).

As Original Native Nations and Peoples, our traditional languages and mental worlds are oriented toward dreaming and bringing into existence a world that is designed to work with and assist the Life-Force-of-the Universe to Continue Creating and Sustaining the Beauty of Life.

The language and mental world of the dominators are oriented toward and dedicated to permanently dreaming a hierarchical world into existence, a world of deprivation, a world which dominates, and destroys Life, thereby resulting in massive death and destruction, while enabling and intensifying massive profit-taking by The Elite in the process, “no matter how ruthlessly” to quote Elon Musk.

This being the case, isn’t it about time for the billions of us who have been and continue to be on the receiving end of the madness to begin explicitly calling for, and working toward, ending the organization of life on this beautiful planet based on a claim of a right of domination?

Steven Newcomb (Shawnee/Lenape) is the founder and director of the Indigenous Law Institute and Original Nations Advocates. He is the author of Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery (Fulcrum, 2008) (Chicago Review Press), and co-producer of “The Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking the Domination Code” (2015).