Roger Cliffe-Thompson
’The Nightmare of Sleep’ is part one of the ’Evolution of Imagination’ which attempts to define what imagination is, how it functions, and trace its unique biological development in us, the Universe’s first Time Lords. Every time you touch your forehead you are less than seven millimetres away from a biological computer with more processing power than all the world’s computers linked together. Its main function is to run a unique application called ’Imagination’ which allows us, Homo sapiens, to live in two coexisting worlds, both the physical and the virtual, simultaneously. Imagination is the hidden force that controls every aspect of our life, for we are all inseparably bound to our very own ’multi-dimensional virtual-reality processor’. On the face of it Imagination is a simple combination of two processes - the first is the ability to select a memory ’before’ an event and the second is to be able to ’manipulate’ it together with other memories, into a logical sequence, to predict an outcome. Yet this simple ability allows each of us to become a Time Lord, constantly travelling between the past, the present and the future, in less than the blink of an eye. Imagination is our very own subliminal problem solver, constantly running in the background to provide answers to ’what if’ scenarios enabling us to mentally assess consequences, without having to hurt ourselves in the physical world, something no other member of the animal kingdom can do. Imagination feeds on Imagination growing exponentially so who knows where it will lead, are we at the dawn of virtual telepathy? Will Imagination physically change us again as it has already? Will it prove to be the saviour of our species or open a Pandora’s Box of seismic proportions? Time will eventually tell but for now perhaps the only hope we have of unravelling the future is if we start by tracing the incredible evolutionary steps which led us to acquire this wonderful gift.
