Just as everything we see in our environment is an image formed in our brain, so is our own body an image in the brain.

     One of the reasons that prevent people from understanding that the images seen are actually sensed in the brain, is that people see their body in the image. They come to this wrong conclusion that "since I am in this room, the room does not occur in my brain." Their mistake is to forget that their body is an image too. Just like everything we see around us is an image which exists in the brain, so does our body also exist as an image in the brain. For example, while sitting on an armchair, you can see the rest of your body below your neck. This image too is produced by the same perceptual system. When you put your hand on your leg, you sense a kinesthetic feeling in the brain. This means that you see your body in the brain, and you feel yourself touching your body in the brain.

     If the body is an image in the brain, is the room inside of you or are you in the room? The obvious answer to this is "the room is inside of you". And you see the image of your body inside the room, which in turn is in the brain.

     Let us explain this with an example. Let us suppose that you call a lift. When it comes, your neighbor, who lives upstairs from you, is in it. You get into the lift. In reality, are you in the lift or is it in you? The truth is: the lift with the images of the neighbor and your body all occurs in your brain.

     In conclusion, we are not "inside" anything. Everything is inside us; everything occurs in the brain. The sun, the moon, stars or an airplane flying in the sky many miles away cannot change this truth. The sun and the moon, like the book that you hold are only images which occur in a very small sight center in the brain.

Since your body is an image seen in your brain, the question is this: are you inside the room that you are in, or is the room inside you? The answer is clear: Of course, the room is inside you, in the vision center of your brain.

     The World Of Senses Can Occur Without Outside World's Existence

     One factor which invalidates the claim that the world of senses that we see has a material equivalent is that we do not need an outside world for senses to occur in the brain. Many technological developments such as simulators and also dreams are the most important evidences of this truth.

In an experiment, blind people were made to see some visions by a device. Through the device, these blind people could see some very realistic visions not belonging to the outside world but produced artificially. They were under the impression that something was coming towards them, so they stepped back to protect themselves.

     Science writer, Rita Carter, states in her book, Mapping The Mind, that "there's no need for eyes to see" and describes at length an experiment carried out by scientists. In the experiment, blind patients were fitted with a device that transformed video pictures into vibrating pulses. A camera mounted next to the subjects' eyes spread the pulses over their backs so they had continuous sensory input from the visual world. The patients started to behave as if they could really see, after a while. For example, there was a zoom lens in one of the devices so as to move closer the image. When the zoom is operated without informing the patient beforehand, the patient had an urge to protect himself with two arms because the image on the subject's back expanded suddenly as though the world was looming in.15

     As it is seen from this experiment, we can form sensations even when they are not caused by material equivalents in the outside world. All stimuli can be created artificially.

     "The world of senses" that we experience in dreams

     A person can experience all senses vividly without the presence of the outside world. The most obvious example of this is dreams. A person lies on his bed with closed eyes while dreaming. However, in spite of this, that person senses many things which he or she experiences in real life, and experiences them so realistically that the dreams are indistinguishable from the real life experience.

When a person has a dream of being in a garden on a bitingly cold morning in the winter, he can feel the cold and start shaking. However, there is neither wind nor cold in his particular location. He might be even sleeping in a very warm room. Nevertheless, he feels the cold in all its reality. There is no difference between the cold he feels in the real world and the cold he is feeling in his dream.

     Everyone who reads this book will often bear witness to this truth in their own dreams. For example, a person lying down alone on a bed in a calm and quiet atmosphere at night might, in his dream, see himself in danger in a very crowded place. He could experience the event as if it were real, fleeing from danger in desperation and hiding behind a wall. Moreover, the images in his dreams are so realistic that he feels fear and panic as if he really was in danger. He has his heart in his mouth with every noise, is shaken with fear, his heart beats fast, he sweats and demonstrates the other physical affects that the human body undergoes in a dangerous situation. However, there is no external equivalent of the events in his dream. They exist only in his mind.

     A person who falls from a high place in his dream feels it with all his body, even though he is lying in bed without moving. Alternatively, one might see oneself slipping into a puddle, getting soaked and feeling cold because of a cold wind.

A person sleeping in a comfortable bed in his home may dream that he is in the middle of a war. And he might also feel the fear, tension and the panic of the war as if it were taking place in the real world. Yet at that time he is sleeping in a comfortable bed by himself. The realistic noises and visions he sees in his dream occur in his mind.

     However, in such a case, there is neither a puddle, nor is there wind. Furthermore, despite sleeping in a very hot room, one experiences the wetness and the cold, as if one were awake.

A person sleeping in his house can see himself on a rapidly turning wagon in a fair ground while dreaming. He can realistically sense the wind that he would experience on a fast moving wagon in the real world.

     Someone who believes he is dealing with the original of the material world in his dream can be very sure of himself. He can put his hand on his friend's shoulder when the friend tells him that "matter is an image; it isn't possible to deal with the original of the world", and then ask "Am I an image now? Don't you feel my hand on your shoulder?

     If so, how can you be an image? What makes you think in this way? Let's take a trip up the Bosphorus; we can have a chat about it and you'll explain to me why you believe this." The dream that he sees in his deep sleep is so clear that he turns on the engine with pleasure and accelerates slowly, almost jumping the car by pressing the pedal suddenly. While going on the road, trees and road lines seem solid because of the speed. In addition, he breathes clean Bosphorus air. But suppose he is woken up by his ringing alarm clock just when he's getting ready to tell his friend that what he's living at that moment isn't a dream. Wouldn't he object in the same manner regardless of whether he was asleep or awake?

Someone could dream that he is arguing with a friend who is claiming that matter is just a dream. This person can put his arm on the shoulder of his friend and ask him "Am I a dream now? Don't you feel my hand on your shoulder? So, how can you be a dream?"

He then invites his friend into his car for a ride: "Come on, let's go for a ride by the sea, and you'll tell me what makes you think of all these things."

The dream he sees is so realistic that he can sense herself starting the car, pushing the accelerator and almost jumping the car, just as he would in a car in the real world.

     When people wake up they understand that what they've seen until that moment is a dream. But for some reason they are not suspicious that the life that starts with a "waking" image (what they call "real life") can also be a dream. However, the way we perceive images in "real life" is exactly the same as the way we perceive our dreams. We see both of them in the mind. We cannot understand they are images until we are woken up. Only then do we say "what I have just seen was a dream". So, how can we prove that what we see at any given moment is not a dream? We could be assuming that the moment in which we are living is real just because we haven't yet woken up. It is possible that we will discover this fact when we are woken up from this "waking dream" which takes longer than dreams we see everyday. We do not have any evidence that proves otherwise.

While he is driving with his friend in the car, he can smell the sea, hear the noise of the waves and feel the blowing of the wind, as in the real world.

While he drives faster, he can see the trees disappearing past him on the side of the road. All of these visions in his dream have no difference from the reality.

At the moment he is trying to convince his friend that all of these things are real, he is woken up by his alarm clock. And when he gets up, he realizes that everything he saw, the reality of which he was so sure of, was just a dream. But what if he is now in a different dream, from which he will soon wake up?

   Many Islamic scholars have also proclaimed that the life around us is only a dream, and that only when we are awakened from that dream with "a big awakening", will people be able to understand that they live in a dreamlike world. A great Islamic scholar, Muhyiddin Ibn al-'Arabi, referred to as Sheikh Akbar (The greatest Sheikh) due to his superior knowledge, likens the world to our dreams by quoting a saying of the Prophet Muhammad:

     The Prophet Muhammad said that "people are asleep and wake up when they die." This is to say that the objects seen in the world when alive are similar to those seen when asleep while dreaming, meaning that they exist in the imagination.16

     They will say, "Alas for us! Who has raised us from our sleeping-place? This is what the All-Merciful promised us. The Messengers were telling the truth." (The Koran, 36:52)

     As the verse demonstrates, people wake up on doomsday as if waking from a dream. Like someone woken from the middle of a dream in deep sleep, such people will similarly ask who has woken them up. As the verse points out, the world around us is like a dream and everybody will be woken up from this dream, and will begin to see images of the afterlife, which is the real life.

15- Rita Carter, Mapping The Mind, p. 113
16- Muhyiddin Ibn al-'Arabi, Fusus al-Hikam, p. 220

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