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Dreaming Reality: How Neuroscience and Mysticism Can Unlock the Secrets of Consciousness
A cutting-edge neuroscientist and a leading clinical psychologist look to religious, mystical, and mind-altering experience to challenge scientific orthodoxies concerning consciousness.
We are nothing but a pack of neurons, Francis Crick once said. Vladimir Miskovic and Steven Jay Lynn show that this way of thinking is both limited and an obstacle to understanding consciousness. In Dreaming Reality, Miskovic and Lynn connect the latest findings from neuroscience—which studies the brain from the outside in, as a purely physical object—to the insights of the world’s mystical traditions, which chart elaborate cartographies of the mind from inside out through experiences of meditation, prayer, and ecstasy. We can tackle the biggest questions surrounding the nature of consciousness when we place objective scientific research alongside the phenomenology of “altered” states.
Dreaming Reality offers a rich synthesis of brains and minds, new and old, that challenges many cherished notions of how we experience our worlds and selves. Instead of privileging the experience of waking life, Miskovic and Lynn take this only as the starting point of a progressive disentanglement of consciousness. Delving into Buddhism, Vedanta, and Christian mysticism, they find that we have much to learn from dreams, hallucinations, visionary states, ego death, mind wandering, sensory deprivation, psychedelic experimentation, meditation, and minimal phenomenal experiences of consciousness.
Each chapter brings us closer to understanding how we dream reality into existence and how we might transcend impoverished materialist models, whose unacknowledged effect is to drive us toward nihilism. Instead, we arrive at a model of consciousness that is more capacious and compassionate than biological sciences alone can imagine.
We are nothing but a pack of neurons, Francis Crick once said. Vladimir Miskovic and Steven Jay Lynn show that this way of thinking is both limited and an obstacle to understanding consciousness. In Dreaming Reality, Miskovic and Lynn connect the latest findings from neuroscience—which studies the brain from the outside in, as a purely physical object—to the insights of the world’s mystical traditions, which chart elaborate cartographies of the mind from inside out through experiences of meditation, prayer, and ecstasy. We can tackle the biggest questions surrounding the nature of consciousness when we place objective scientific research alongside the phenomenology of “altered” states.
Dreaming Reality offers a rich synthesis of brains and minds, new and old, that challenges many cherished notions of how we experience our worlds and selves. Instead of privileging the experience of waking life, Miskovic and Lynn take this only as the starting point of a progressive disentanglement of consciousness. Delving into Buddhism, Vedanta, and Christian mysticism, they find that we have much to learn from dreams, hallucinations, visionary states, ego death, mind wandering, sensory deprivation, psychedelic experimentation, meditation, and minimal phenomenal experiences of consciousness.
Each chapter brings us closer to understanding how we dream reality into existence and how we might transcend impoverished materialist models, whose unacknowledged effect is to drive us toward nihilism. Instead, we arrive at a model of consciousness that is more capacious and compassionate than biological sciences alone can imagine.
382 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 4, 2025
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236 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 16, 2025
Taking as their (meta)physical starting point a dual-aspect monism, which posits a unitary psychophysical reality that appears to us in distinct subjective and objective dimensions, Miskovic and Lynn undertake a remarkable dual-aspect examination of the mind/brain across the vast spectrum of conscious experience, combining the outside-in approach of contemporary neuroscience with the phenomenological, inside-out cartographies of the mind developed by some of the world’s great contemplative and mystical traditions. Exploring a litany of conscious states and influences—waking, dreaming, sensory deprivation, psychedelics, meditation, and Minimal Phenomenal Experience (MPEs)—the authors plumb the depths of neurophenomenology in both of its modalities, towards that mysterious point where subject and object, mind and brain, converge: the First-Order reality which one can only know—according to Vedanta, Buddhism, Christian mysticism, Sufism, and other contemplative movements—by becoming.
Miskovic and Lynn dispel two misunderstandings about the nature of the brain and its relationship to the so-called external world typical of what they call “naïve realism,” the prevailing “common sense” view: first, that the exterior world impresses itself upon the brain like a seal on wax, with the brain receiving and responding to the world more-or-less as it is “out there”; and relatedly, that the brain is in more direct contact with the reality “out there” when we are awake and presumably interacting with an objective environment outside of ourselves than it is when we are dreaming or fantasizing. In fact, most neural activity is spontaneous or intrinsic; the overwhelming majority of what the brain is doing at any given moment is part of a multitiered conversation with itself rather than a direct response to external stimuli. The projection areas of the cortex involved in the immediate reception of sense data are like small islands in the midst of vast association areas, wherein multiple modes of sensory data are integrated and a more elaborate model of a self in a world (the two are co-originate) is developed. 95 to 98 percent of white matter fibers, the brain’s synaptic wiring, connect the cortex to itself rather than to the outside world.
Instead of operating through a simple input-output mechanism, as would a machine, the human cortex, being more evolutionarily recent and internally oriented, offset from the immediacy of sense impressions and free from sensorimotor demands, functions more like what the authors call a “vast Imaginarium,” conjuring up by its own lights an array of forms that we experience subjectively as thoughts, memories, fantasies, counterfactuals, and the very psychic components we habitually take to be constitutive of an autobiographical self, a discrete individual personality which unites past, present, and future. Neurologically, this interior array of conscious contents corresponds to the Default Mode Network (DMN), so-named because its activity is most salient during the majority of our waking (and sleeping) hours when the mind is at rest and consciousness is inwardly withdrawn. What’s more, this Imaginarium is not only responsible for our inner worlds; it also accounts for virtually all of what we experience “out there” in what we take to be external reality.
Our brains did not evolve to give us access to reality as it is, the Kantian noumenon, but rather to simulate a model of reality conducive to our survival and reproductive success. The content of everything we perceive—all the shapes, colors, textures, tastes, sounds, and smells—are not primarily impressions from the outside in, but projections from the inside out: the world as we know it is constructed by the brain and given the illusion of exteriority; a phenomenon called projicience, which remains little understood. The brain is a “self-evidencing system,” referring to an exterior reality by rearranging its interior components. It is an index of symbols which mediate our entire experience of reality. The basic constituents or building blocks of this simulation—a catalogue which the authors refer to as our “neuro-mental dictionary”—are the product of an evolutionary history stretching back 500 million years to the Cambrian explosion, a period of rapid diversification in which the phyla of nearly all the animals that have ever lived first appeared, and which saw an increase in the complexity of neural organization that likely corresponded to the earliest rudiments of conscious experience; and beyond that, to the primordial emergence of interiority with the appearance of cell membranes some 3.7 billion years ago. We are the inheritors of a “500-million-year-old virtual reality simulator.”
The contents of this neuro-mental dictionary form the common substrate of both waking and dreaming consciousness. The brain uses the same elements to build the dreamworlds we enter while asleep, the “common world” we inhabit while awake—the κοινος κοσμος of Heraclitus—and the private imaginings we entertain at all times. The only difference between waking and dreaming perception is that in the former state the predictive models conjured by higher-order systems like the aforementioned Default Mode Network are refined by sense data, while in the latter they are given freer reign.*
While the proposition that we are virtual selves inhabiting a virtual world simulated by the brain/mind can potentially open the door to solipsism and nihilism, Miskovic and Lynn point out that the ancient contemplative traditions complement the insight provided by the objective standpoint of neuroscience and supply what is lacking in it. Many traditional cultures have long held that the taxonomies of being and consciousness are one and the same; that the world and self of our naïve perception is, if not wholly illusory, something relative and conditional, arising from what Dzogchen Buddhism describes as the Base of manifestation which transcends all distinction, and thus all language and discursion; that the edifice of thoughts, emotions, memories, desires, and fears to which we habitually cling, and which typically form our conception of our own identity, can become a prison that cuts us off from First-Order reality in its simplicity, presence, and ever-newness.
It is curious that the same awareness of the ephemerality of the perceptual world that induces in many modern people a pervasive sense of futility and unreality has more often fostered in contemplatives a deep sense of peace and universal compassion. I suppose this is because contemplative practice entails ascending from apparent separativity and unreality to an absolute reality from which all things emerge and in which all things are united. Rather than stopping with the objective mode of perception which sees only insurmountable distinction and disconnection, both from one another and from reality, the contemplative goes one level deeper down the rabbit hole and intuits the ultimate coincidence between the distinctive property of the object and the unitive property of the subject; a deeper subjectivity which, unlike the conventional, autobiographical model of the self, does not exclude the objective dimension from itself and thereby reintroduce duality.
Mystics know that there is a reality “beyond the skull,” to which we can be united and in which we are already united with each other; hence the conjoinment in the Mahayana between the bodhisattva’s personal liberation and that of all beings, and the biblical insight that love of God and neighbor are inseparable. But this knowledge cannot be of a cognitive kind; language and concepts presuppose a distinction between subject and object. Even the gnosis of the ancient communities retrospectively labeled as “gnostic” connotes knowledge as something akin to “acquaintanceship” rather than knowledge of a fact. The apogee of contemplative practice is mystical union: a knowing-through-identity. Whatever one’s metaphysical beliefs or lack thereof, I think our culture would do well to recover an appreciation for mysticism and the mystery to which it bears witness today as it has for millennia.
* We still incorporate some sensory input into our dreams, for instance when we dream of a monster growling at us and wake up to the sound of a dog barking.
Miskovic and Lynn dispel two misunderstandings about the nature of the brain and its relationship to the so-called external world typical of what they call “naïve realism,” the prevailing “common sense” view: first, that the exterior world impresses itself upon the brain like a seal on wax, with the brain receiving and responding to the world more-or-less as it is “out there”; and relatedly, that the brain is in more direct contact with the reality “out there” when we are awake and presumably interacting with an objective environment outside of ourselves than it is when we are dreaming or fantasizing. In fact, most neural activity is spontaneous or intrinsic; the overwhelming majority of what the brain is doing at any given moment is part of a multitiered conversation with itself rather than a direct response to external stimuli. The projection areas of the cortex involved in the immediate reception of sense data are like small islands in the midst of vast association areas, wherein multiple modes of sensory data are integrated and a more elaborate model of a self in a world (the two are co-originate) is developed. 95 to 98 percent of white matter fibers, the brain’s synaptic wiring, connect the cortex to itself rather than to the outside world.
Instead of operating through a simple input-output mechanism, as would a machine, the human cortex, being more evolutionarily recent and internally oriented, offset from the immediacy of sense impressions and free from sensorimotor demands, functions more like what the authors call a “vast Imaginarium,” conjuring up by its own lights an array of forms that we experience subjectively as thoughts, memories, fantasies, counterfactuals, and the very psychic components we habitually take to be constitutive of an autobiographical self, a discrete individual personality which unites past, present, and future. Neurologically, this interior array of conscious contents corresponds to the Default Mode Network (DMN), so-named because its activity is most salient during the majority of our waking (and sleeping) hours when the mind is at rest and consciousness is inwardly withdrawn. What’s more, this Imaginarium is not only responsible for our inner worlds; it also accounts for virtually all of what we experience “out there” in what we take to be external reality.
Our brains did not evolve to give us access to reality as it is, the Kantian noumenon, but rather to simulate a model of reality conducive to our survival and reproductive success. The content of everything we perceive—all the shapes, colors, textures, tastes, sounds, and smells—are not primarily impressions from the outside in, but projections from the inside out: the world as we know it is constructed by the brain and given the illusion of exteriority; a phenomenon called projicience, which remains little understood. The brain is a “self-evidencing system,” referring to an exterior reality by rearranging its interior components. It is an index of symbols which mediate our entire experience of reality. The basic constituents or building blocks of this simulation—a catalogue which the authors refer to as our “neuro-mental dictionary”—are the product of an evolutionary history stretching back 500 million years to the Cambrian explosion, a period of rapid diversification in which the phyla of nearly all the animals that have ever lived first appeared, and which saw an increase in the complexity of neural organization that likely corresponded to the earliest rudiments of conscious experience; and beyond that, to the primordial emergence of interiority with the appearance of cell membranes some 3.7 billion years ago. We are the inheritors of a “500-million-year-old virtual reality simulator.”
The contents of this neuro-mental dictionary form the common substrate of both waking and dreaming consciousness. The brain uses the same elements to build the dreamworlds we enter while asleep, the “common world” we inhabit while awake—the κοινος κοσμος of Heraclitus—and the private imaginings we entertain at all times. The only difference between waking and dreaming perception is that in the former state the predictive models conjured by higher-order systems like the aforementioned Default Mode Network are refined by sense data, while in the latter they are given freer reign.*
While the proposition that we are virtual selves inhabiting a virtual world simulated by the brain/mind can potentially open the door to solipsism and nihilism, Miskovic and Lynn point out that the ancient contemplative traditions complement the insight provided by the objective standpoint of neuroscience and supply what is lacking in it. Many traditional cultures have long held that the taxonomies of being and consciousness are one and the same; that the world and self of our naïve perception is, if not wholly illusory, something relative and conditional, arising from what Dzogchen Buddhism describes as the Base of manifestation which transcends all distinction, and thus all language and discursion; that the edifice of thoughts, emotions, memories, desires, and fears to which we habitually cling, and which typically form our conception of our own identity, can become a prison that cuts us off from First-Order reality in its simplicity, presence, and ever-newness.
It is curious that the same awareness of the ephemerality of the perceptual world that induces in many modern people a pervasive sense of futility and unreality has more often fostered in contemplatives a deep sense of peace and universal compassion. I suppose this is because contemplative practice entails ascending from apparent separativity and unreality to an absolute reality from which all things emerge and in which all things are united. Rather than stopping with the objective mode of perception which sees only insurmountable distinction and disconnection, both from one another and from reality, the contemplative goes one level deeper down the rabbit hole and intuits the ultimate coincidence between the distinctive property of the object and the unitive property of the subject; a deeper subjectivity which, unlike the conventional, autobiographical model of the self, does not exclude the objective dimension from itself and thereby reintroduce duality.
Mystics know that there is a reality “beyond the skull,” to which we can be united and in which we are already united with each other; hence the conjoinment in the Mahayana between the bodhisattva’s personal liberation and that of all beings, and the biblical insight that love of God and neighbor are inseparable. But this knowledge cannot be of a cognitive kind; language and concepts presuppose a distinction between subject and object. Even the gnosis of the ancient communities retrospectively labeled as “gnostic” connotes knowledge as something akin to “acquaintanceship” rather than knowledge of a fact. The apogee of contemplative practice is mystical union: a knowing-through-identity. Whatever one’s metaphysical beliefs or lack thereof, I think our culture would do well to recover an appreciation for mysticism and the mystery to which it bears witness today as it has for millennia.
* We still incorporate some sensory input into our dreams, for instance when we dream of a monster growling at us and wake up to the sound of a dog barking.
June 27, 2025
Incredible masterpiece that beautifully weaves the studies of the mind from the outside (neuroscience) and the inside (meditation).
As a neuroscientist myself, this was a poetic and fascinating rendition of a literature that is near and dear to me, written in accessible language. Integrating what’s known from the meditation world was new to me and I learned a lot!
If you want to learn all that humanity has unlocked regarding the secrets of consciousness, this is the most cutting-edge and comprehensive piece of literature to date!
As a neuroscientist myself, this was a poetic and fascinating rendition of a literature that is near and dear to me, written in accessible language. Integrating what’s known from the meditation world was new to me and I learned a lot!
If you want to learn all that humanity has unlocked regarding the secrets of consciousness, this is the most cutting-edge and comprehensive piece of literature to date!
May 9, 2025
My biggest mistake was listening to the audiobook, because this was the kind of book to read, underline and look at the pictures. Very interesting in some ways, questionable in others and hopeful in still others but also boring at times. Not everyone is that interested in the various states of enlightenment according to Buddhist tradition. I plan to get the paper copy anyway as soon as possible and read it again.
Il mio piú grande errore é stato ascoltare l'audiolibro, perché questo era il tipo di libro da leggere, sottolineare e guardare le figure. Molto interessante per alcuni versi, opinabile per altri e speranzoso per altri ancora ma a volte anche noioso. Non tutti sono poi così interessati ai vari stati dell'illuminazione secondo la tradizione buddista. Conto di procurarmi comunque il cartaceo quanto prima e di rimetterci le mani.
Il mio piú grande errore é stato ascoltare l'audiolibro, perché questo era il tipo di libro da leggere, sottolineare e guardare le figure. Molto interessante per alcuni versi, opinabile per altri e speranzoso per altri ancora ma a volte anche noioso. Non tutti sono poi così interessati ai vari stati dell'illuminazione secondo la tradizione buddista. Conto di procurarmi comunque il cartaceo quanto prima e di rimetterci le mani.
December 2, 2025
This book's fundamental premise, rooted in Tibetan Buddhist tradition, is that what you encounter is something akin to a very convincing, fully immersive, virtual reality simulation.
With more than 500 relevant research papers referenced, Dreaming Reality is the one neurophenomenology book to rule them all. Psychedelics and dream states are discussed with prose that leans towards a graduate-level text. The content focuses on the visual building blocks of our phenomenal world.
Dreaming Reality, written by two professors of psychology, one of whom devoted his life to monasticism to study the interiority of consciousness shortly before co-authoring this book, is the best experience I have had reading nonfiction.
With more than 500 relevant research papers referenced, Dreaming Reality is the one neurophenomenology book to rule them all. Psychedelics and dream states are discussed with prose that leans towards a graduate-level text. The content focuses on the visual building blocks of our phenomenal world.
Dreaming Reality, written by two professors of psychology, one of whom devoted his life to monasticism to study the interiority of consciousness shortly before co-authoring this book, is the best experience I have had reading nonfiction.
June 1, 2025
Dreaming Reality offers a compelling exploration of consciousness by weaving together insights from neuroscience and ancient mysticism. The authors argue that a purely materialistic or scientific approach to the mind is insufficient, and they propose a broader, integrative understanding—one that embraces subjective experiences such as dreaming, meditation, and altered states.
Strengths:
Interdisciplinary Approach:
One of the book’s greatest strengths is its ability to bridge two traditionally opposing domains—science and mysticism. By drawing from both neuroscience and spiritual traditions like Buddhism, Vedanta, and Christian mysticism, the authors present a holistic framework that is both thought-provoking and innovative.
Thoughtful Reflections and Exercises:
The inclusion of “In-Sights”—reflective practices at the end of each chapter—encourages readers to engage personally with the material. These exercises enhance the book’s accessibility and experiential depth.
Engaging Narrative Style:
The writing is engaging and often poetic, making complex ideas about consciousness and perception feel more approachable. The authors balance theoretical discussion with relatable anecdotes and philosophical insight.
Challenging the Status Quo:
Miskovic and Lynn are not afraid to question the limitations of conventional scientific paradigms. Their call for a more compassionate and expanded understanding of human experience is timely and relevant.
Weaknesses:
Dense and Technical Language:
At times, the book leans heavily on jargon from neuroscience and philosophy, which may be challenging for general readers without a background in those fields.
Speculative Elements:
Some of the claims—particularly those linking mystical experiences to brain function—may come across as speculative or insufficiently supported by empirical evidence. Critics might argue that the book occasionally blurs the line between metaphor and measurable science.
Lack of Clear Methodology:
While the book is rich in ideas, it lacks a clear scientific methodology or empirical framework for testing its central claims. Readers looking for data-driven arguments may find it wanting in this regard.
Conclusion:
Dreaming Reality is a bold and imaginative contribution to the growing literature on consciousness. It appeals to readers who are open to transcending disciplinary boundaries and exploring the interplay between mind, brain, and spirit. While it may not satisfy all scientific skeptics, it succeeds in provoking deep questions and offering a fresh, integrative vision of what it means to be conscious.
Recommended for:
Readers interested in consciousness studies, neuroscience, mysticism, or the intersection of science and spirituality.
Strengths:
Interdisciplinary Approach:
One of the book’s greatest strengths is its ability to bridge two traditionally opposing domains—science and mysticism. By drawing from both neuroscience and spiritual traditions like Buddhism, Vedanta, and Christian mysticism, the authors present a holistic framework that is both thought-provoking and innovative.
Thoughtful Reflections and Exercises:
The inclusion of “In-Sights”—reflective practices at the end of each chapter—encourages readers to engage personally with the material. These exercises enhance the book’s accessibility and experiential depth.
Engaging Narrative Style:
The writing is engaging and often poetic, making complex ideas about consciousness and perception feel more approachable. The authors balance theoretical discussion with relatable anecdotes and philosophical insight.
Challenging the Status Quo:
Miskovic and Lynn are not afraid to question the limitations of conventional scientific paradigms. Their call for a more compassionate and expanded understanding of human experience is timely and relevant.
Weaknesses:
Dense and Technical Language:
At times, the book leans heavily on jargon from neuroscience and philosophy, which may be challenging for general readers without a background in those fields.
Speculative Elements:
Some of the claims—particularly those linking mystical experiences to brain function—may come across as speculative or insufficiently supported by empirical evidence. Critics might argue that the book occasionally blurs the line between metaphor and measurable science.
Lack of Clear Methodology:
While the book is rich in ideas, it lacks a clear scientific methodology or empirical framework for testing its central claims. Readers looking for data-driven arguments may find it wanting in this regard.
Conclusion:
Dreaming Reality is a bold and imaginative contribution to the growing literature on consciousness. It appeals to readers who are open to transcending disciplinary boundaries and exploring the interplay between mind, brain, and spirit. While it may not satisfy all scientific skeptics, it succeeds in provoking deep questions and offering a fresh, integrative vision of what it means to be conscious.
Recommended for:
Readers interested in consciousness studies, neuroscience, mysticism, or the intersection of science and spirituality.
January 2, 2026
4 1/2 stars. Kind of technical, this.
August 15, 2025
What an amazing book this is. Chapter 2 is my favorite segment of neuroscience I've ever read. I was worried it might be too inter-disciplinarian, but it absolutely delivered on all topics in full. Not for the weak-minded, this book requires focus. But it truly has had a profound impact on the way I view life, and it has improved my mental clarity and my approach to meditation, sleep, and recovery. A must-read for anyone interested in philosophy or neuroscience or religion or meditation, to name just a few.
December 14, 2025
This work demonstrates the unique power at the convergence of mind and matter. By resurrecting neuroscience from the constraints of scientific materialism, the authors open wide the windows of humanity to the vast landscapes of the inner world and draw forth the transformative potential hidden therein. This is a very important work that invites the reader to embark on a journey that is at once deeply human and deeply divine.
June 13, 2025
3.5/5
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews