Humanity balances between two paths: self-destruction or self-revelation. In this rebroadcast from a popular episode from April 2024, Christine Barrington describes this critical inflection point and argues that dreams awaken us to the realm of purpose and meaning, arguing that every one of us has much to contribute to the path of humanity.
Christine begins with James Braid then outlines the complicated history of science and consciousness including how they got separated in the first place, culminating with the philosophy of positivism which is the belief nothing exists that cannot be verified. She notes in contrast that most of the giants of quantum theory were also mystics including Planck (mentioning his book Where Science is Going) and also Einstein, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Bohr, and Pauli. On the thread of consciousness, she quotes Carl Jung and his work on the tension of the opposites and synchronicity, also Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ken Wilbur, and Joe Dispenza and the birth of neurophysiology and mindfulness.
Christine brings it all together talking about Thomas Campbell and his book My Big TOE and his “theory of everything,” which argues that consciousness is the basis for everything and that we are here on this planet to learn and evolve that consciousness, one person at a time. She plays a quote of Campbell’s about how dreaming gives us information about our selves in that how we react in dreams is how we are. As we learn to be more living and present, then our dreams evolve too. Christine ends by sharing information about Thomas Campbell’s organization, the Center for the Unification of Science and Consciousness CUSAC.org.
BIO: Christine Barrington has worked as a psychotherapist and transformational coach and is a seeker who has invested years searching for answers underlying the challenges of human existence.
Here are links to Christine’s previous Dream Journal shows: https://ksqd.org/dreaming-a-new-future-through-conscious-evolution-with-christine-barrington/ and https://ksqd.org/transformational-dreamwork-with-christine-barrington/
You can listen to a summary of Tom Campbell’s ideas here: https://youtu.be/uEuOGCEmiTg?si=tpp-ekVYiGwfR1I0 and listen to much more on his YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@twcjr44
This show, episode number 307, was broadcast on April 25, 2025 at KSQD.org, community radio of Santa Cruz. It is a replay of a show originally recorded April 27, 2024.
Intro and outro music by Mood Science. Ambient music new every week by Rick Kleffel. Archived music can be found at Pandemiad.com. Many thanks to Rick for also engineering the show and to Tony Russomano for the answering the phones.
The Santa Cruz Festival of Dreams is coming October 10-12, 2025! Mark your calendars now. Check our landing page at FestivalofDream.net and FB group page HERE or follow #KeepSantaCruzDreaming on FB and IG.
SHARE A DREAM FOR THE SHOW or a question or enquire about being a guest on the podcast by emailing Katherine Bell at katherine@ksqd.org. Follow on FB, IG, LI, & YT @ExperientialDreamwork #thedreamjournal. To learn more or to inquire about exploring your own dreams go to ExperientialDreamwork.com.
The Dream Journal aims to:
Increase awareness of and appreciation for nightly dreams.
Inspire dream sharing and other kinds of dream exploration as a way of adding depth and meaningfulness to lives and relationships.
Improve society by the increased empathy, emotional balance, and sense of wonder which dream exploration invites.
A dream can be meaningful even if you don’t know what it means.
The Dream Journal is produced at and airs on KSQD Santa Cruz, 90.7 FM. Catch it streaming LIVE at KSQD.org 10-11am Pacific Time on Saturdays. Call or text with your dreams or questions at 831-900-5773 or email at onair@ksqd.org. Podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms the Monday following the live show. The complete KSQD Dream Journal podcast page can be found at ksqd.org/the-dream-journal/.
Closed captioning is available on the YouTube version of this podcast and an automatically generated transcript is available at Apple Podcasts.
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I was glued to my car radio while hearing this outstandingly informative program–so much so that I had to pull off the mountain road to maintain the signal–with the ever erudite Christine Barrington. I plan to listen to it again in order to be able to concentrate without being driving distracted and to process all the insights Christine threw out over the hour.
However, I register my serious reservations concerning the hoped for prospect of AI becoming fully aware or so-called “conscious” all baed upon the computer-model of the brain. This wet dream of futurists, like Ray Kurzweil. In my humble opinion, the idea of a machine having “consciousness” just like a human being is woefully delusional. I believe that only reason that this kind of ideal can be seriously considered as an evolutionary advance is because of what the Existentialists of the ’50s and ’60s warned about–“dehumanization.” (Dramatized in Ionesco’s 1959 play Rhinoceros.) In short, it’s only because of our ever-diminishing humanity that what the whole project of “AI becoming conscious” sounds hopeful. It is my contention that what it represents is the measure of our on-going “dehumanization.”
In any case, I thank you for this invaluable program.
(Comment continued from above)
I wanted to express more about the notion of “consciousness” as applied to future AI robots.
I feel that it’s important that those of us educated in the humanities (beleaguered as they are in our universities while science departments get all the funding, and while science students get less and less exposed to the humanities) push back against all the uncritical whoopla about the exciting future of fully “conscious” machines or robots.
First off, we need to counteract the main scientific theory driving all this whoopla; i.e., the computer model of the mind (the computational theory of mind holds that the mind is a computational system that is realized by neural activity in the brain). Both dissenting neurologists and philosophers of consciousness have criticized this theory, pointing out how that at the very least it’s a very inaccurate model for the human brain. (Not to mention how much neurological science is still in the dark about the brain, with its billions of interconnected neurons. The fact is that the human brain remains a largely unknown realm. While significant progress has been made in understanding its functions, many mysteries persist regarding how the brain processes information and manages emotions.)
In the program we heard about the new scientific paradigm where “consciousness” is primary and not a by-product of chemical precesses in the brain, as with the outdated mechanistic-materialist paradigm. Well, it’s my contention that the entire AI Consciousness project, which some want us to believe is part and parcel of the new scientific paradigm of “consciousness” (al la quantum physics), is actually the old mechanistic-materialist paradigm in disguise. Another case in point: the techno-futuristic project of “downloading consciousness” at death into a robot to achieve immortality. (What does this say about the techno-futurist understanding of the nature of “consciousness”?) Don’t be fooled. I have personally experienced acquaintances who give lip service to “the new scientific paradigm” and yet are so exited about this future possibility.
Therefore, It seems to me that the AI Consciousness project is the height of hubris–man playing G-d pure and simple. So what could possibly go wrong? Well, consult the 18th and 19th-century Romantics, who we experiencing the first onslaught of scientism and so set their minds against what William Blake called “Newton’s Sleep” (and it seems that he’s still snoring away in the scientism of today). Indeed, Mary Shelley saw what was coming and gave us her dire warning with her novel Frankenstein. The coming AI robot fully loaded with “consciousness”? A techno-futuristic Frankenstein monster anyone? Too bad graduates in the sciences aren’t exposed the Mary Shelley’s prophetic novel!