Right now, as you’re reading this, you are dreaming. Our brains dream twenty-four hours a day. During the day, when we are awake, our brains are limited by the frame of reality, which makes us perceive everything in a linear way. But as we go to sleep, we are no longer limited by that frame. Yet, even as we are awake, we are still dreaming.

All the people who have existed before us have created the so-called dream of the planet. It consists of millions and billions of smaller individual dreams. Our dream is a tiny part of society’s dream. This big dream includes laws, beliefs, norms, and so on. Basically, everything that enables society to function is a part of its dream.

The thing about this kind of dream is that it’s not really our own. Ever since childhood, our parents, our teachers, and other people in our lives have taught us about what is right and what is wrong. They did it by hooking our attention and making us learn new things through repetition. As kids, we didn’t really have a choice about what was being taught to us. We could only believe what adults were teaching us and unconditionally agree with it. Sometimes, we rebelled against those things — as teenagers, for example. But in the end, we had to surrender. That surrender meant our agreement.

Let’s call this the domestication of humans. We train children the same way we train stray dogs – by reward and punishment. As we grow up, we get used to this kind of system. In fact, now we no longer need someone else to punish and reward us. We can do it ourselves. We use punishment and rewards according to our beliefs — according to our agreements.

Think of our belief system like our own personal Book of Law. We base our opinion on this book. Inside every single one of us, there is a Judge who judges our actions according to the Book of Law. Every time we go against this book, the inner Judge punishes us. When that happens, we feel guilt and fear. That is why challenging our beliefs is so tricky. Following the Book of Law makes us feel on the safe side.