72 Nick Atlas
conception yet contradicts naïve realism—“has shown that matter is
essentially empty and that all boundaries in the universe are illusory”
(Bohm, 1980; Grof, 2002, p. 49). In other words, we may perceive
ourselves as separate from one another, but at the quantum level, there is
no separation between us or anything else, including our bodies and minds.
Though it is not our explicit intention to lobby for a paradigm shift in
physics and related disciplines (virtually all of the natural sciences), it is
important to point out that many Eastern and indigenous spiritual
philosophies suggest consciousness—and not matter—is the fundamental
principle of the universe, or that the two co-arise from emptiness (Wallace,
2007). Likewise, panpsychic and animist traditions posit that all objects are
imbued with consciousness (Skrbina, 2005), and that awareness itself is the
fabric of existence inextricably woven through everything and out of which
matter emerges. These views coincide more closely with the emerging
quantum paradigm than they do the existing, physicalist one.
Ultimately, we may never know for certain whether these and similarly
marginalized perspectives on consciousness are fundamentally correct.
Ferrer’s participatory philosophy (2000, 2011), which has gained favor in
transpersonal circles since its publication, proposes that the potential
accuracy of a particular ontological stance, insofar as it may be ineffable, is
less important than its “emancipatory and transformative power on self,
community, and world” (2001, p. 1). Still, as contemporary psychology
textbooks make no mention of these alternative theories, there is no ground
for exploring them or their efficacy at the level of the individual, and the
distinctly Euro-American presuppositions of mainstream psychology are
perpetually reinforced. Such wholesale adoption is more akin to a faith-
based religion than a pure science founded upon falsifiability (Popper,
2002).
Consciousness and Dreaming
Take, for example, our complicated relationship with dreams, which
neither neuroscience nor psychology understands well. Around the 4th