The next time you lay down to sleep, but before you drift off, ask yourself to try and visualize a scene - any scene - and then just relax. As your inner dialog ceases and begins to give into the darkness, your mind usually begins to visualize.

You may imagine yourself walking through a house with a family member, meeting with people in an office or perhaps just standing on the corner of a small mountain town. You may even find yourself watching an entire scene play out like a movie as if you had suddenly materialized into another place and time.

The last time I did this, I found myself observing dozens of sailors on a dock at a small port, loading and unloading sailing ships.

The scene appeared to be some time in the 17th century, complete with period clothing and sailing ships fully rigged, swaying in the water. The people did not appear to be acting according to any specific plot, but instead captured in the middle of whatever they were doing. When I became aware of what was happening, I regained ordinary consciousness and immediately wondered what had just happened.

As I lay there in bed staring into the inky blackness, I asked myself two things. First, why had I visualized that particular scene? It seemed to be quite ordinary, apart from the fact that it was a scene out of the past, and seemed to have no possible connection to anything I had experienced or watched in a movie or on TV. Furthermore, it did not seem metaphorical like a dream in any way I could discern.

The second thing I wondered was how could my brain visualize and animate such a complex scene so complete and perfect in every detail? How could the neurons in my brain suddenly fire in such a coherent way as to construct such a detailed scene - an entire world, really - that was not a memory of anything I could recall ever experiencing. More perplexing than this - I had not consciously worked to visualize this scene or will it to happen in any way. I had just relaxed when it appeared instantly and completely, playing out in time with physics so convincing it was as real as anything I had ever experienced in real life. What was going on?

The only answer that made any sense to me was I had not manufactured it at all. Instead, my brain had somehow tuned into the scene.

While there is no way to know if the scene had been an actual event from the past, an event from some other world or even an event manufactured in some archetypal realm or dimension, I was sure that the hardware of my brain was not creating this. How could random neurons fire to create such a scene and what part of 'me' could be orchestrating it? No, my brain must have received the scene something like an analog TV tuning into a VHF broadcast.

The only way I can rationally explain any of this is the liquid crystal of my brain had to have resonated at just the right frequency to 'couple' with this scene much like those old crystal radio sets tuning into a radio station. The electrons that trigger my thoughts must have 'quantum tunneled' through and into another spacetime dimension, resonating with that realm and opening up a pathway by which this particular 'vision' could be received. The only reasonable explanation for it was I was remote viewing some other place and time through the quantum lattice of space!

Now, I know this may sound farfetched to most people, but if my hypothesis is correct and such visions are not the product of our 'imagination' (which seems tied to waking consciousness in any case), then conscious awareness is not something that requires sensory input of any kind. More than this, random firing or some kind of memory response in our brain cannot define it either. It can only be defined as an electromagnetic resonance coupling (similar to wireless electricity between two Tesla coils) that entrains body and brain with some non-physical and non-temporal realm. This means that our 'mind' extends beyond the brain into something we might call spirit.

From the perspective of physics, the definition of spirit then becomes the entrainment of electrons through the quantum chromodynamic lattice of space into our body and brain. Consciousness becomes a tuning process. Change the tuning and you change the reception from the physical realm to another realm beyond the body. Consciousness is then a process independent of the body, but which focuses and connects to the body. The brain itself becomes a quantum antenna resonating with our original conscious self something like a musical instrument vibrating sympathetically with outside frequencies.

My vision of the shipyard was simply my brain resonating through spacetime. I don't know where or when this scene occurred or even if it ever actually did in a physical form, but I do feel sure it was not the result of the neurons in my brain suddenly deciding to work together to create such a magnificent and realistic scene for my mind's eye (whatever that is).

For me, it is proof positive that I am a spiritual being first and a physical being second. No institution of religion is needed to convince me of this. Nor do I need an institution of science or education to tell me that it is only my mind 'playing tricks' on me (this only avoids the subject). For me, I know without a doubt that spirit exists and that it is free to play every time I dream.