the language of thought

this post is about dreams & thoughts.

but don't worry, its not about your 'aspirations'. nor is it about the contents of your dreams which i propose to analyse. and i am definitely not going to share the details of my dreams and scandalise you in the bargain! :-)



have you noticed that, irrespective of what we dream about, we dream in a particular language? and we normally dream in the language we think in.

now you might say that dreams don't have any language. its only a series of images passing through our sub-conscious mind. but by that logic everything we see in our waking state is also only a series of images. in fact, if we think about it, everything we think about in our waking and dream states are composed of nothing but thoughts. our dreams are also, therefore, a series of thoughts. (for more about thoughts read 'bundle of thoughts')



and we think our thoughts in a chosen language. and for some, this is not necessarily the language you speak in. some of us think in one language and then translate these thoughts into another language before we speak. and therefore, the language we speak most comfortably in is the language we think in. even if you are a multi-lingual person, you would still be thinking in one default language.

and the most amazing thing is that we even see objects in a particular language! because whenever we see anything we always label it and then use these labels to relate, recognise, understand and experience the objects and events revolving around those objects.



imagine watching a 'rose'. in your mind you see a 'rose', if your default language of thought is english. alternately your mind would see a 'gulab' or a 'roja-pu' or a 'rosa-pu' or any other such name depending on your own language of thought!

but then, these are all my own random thoughts (in english :-) ). how about you? what's your language of thought? what language do you dream in?

bundle of thoughts!

what if you were told you were nothing but a bundle of thoughts?

and thoughts are nothing more than just energy in a modified form. all the food we eat transforms into energy (and also blood and bone and tissue, of course). so food is the source of our thoughts.

and why then are our thoughts so different from the thoughts of all the others we know? we'll discuss this in another posting some other day.

now, coming back to our discussion about us being thoughts.

now let's follow this chain of thought :-)

everything i know about myself is nothing but a vast reservoir of thoughts. every idea, notion, belief and bias i entertain is nothing but a thought stored away in that massive memory bank of ours. in fact, that's it. our sense of identity is nothing but a cumulative effect of all our past memories that we access in a very complex way at every waking moment.

imagine you woke up one day and lost all your memory, just like they show in the movies. you would have no clue of who you were, who your family/friends/relatives were, what job you did, what likes/dislikes you had, your hobbies, your favorite movie/book/song .... nothing.

and suddenly you realise that everything you are, everything you believe yourself to be, every characteristic, every habit, every aspect of your ego is nothing but thoughts in your memory bank.

you, the person you believe you are, are nothing but a bundle of thoughts!

think about it! and i'd like to hear your thoughts in this regard.