Quantum Consciousness

I was sitting in my flat and contemplating two things: the recent full mapping of the neurons in a slice of human brain, and the soon-to-be-launched new Google quantum computer.

I recall reading that, due to our brain being organic, it’s impossible for us to know its true memory capacity, but that it’s estimated to be around several petabytes.

At the same time, I’m considering quantum computers and AI and what effect and influence that will have on the human race.
I’m familiar, as a layman, with wave/particle duality, superposition, and entanglement.

For years I’ve been reading psychology, philosophy, various religions, belief systems and the more esoteric and occult, along with physics, quantum physics and neuroscience.
I’ve long believed that quantum physics holds the answers to much of the supernatural and preternatural.

During this rare break in my teaching schedule, I relaxed and was thinking about these recent events.

Then a wave of thoughts began crashing through my brain.
I’m not sure that I remember the exact order—if there was one—but it was something along the lines of this:

David Eagleman (Neuroscientist (Self) at Stanford University) mentioned in one of his many incredible books that one of the working theories is that when someone is close to a dramatic, life-ending accident, their life flashes before their eyes.
It’s thought that this could be because we actually remember every second of our life but can’t access it all, due to a potential system overload.
But in an emergency situation, our brain whizzes through it all to see if we have ever been in a similar situation and, more importantly, how we survived.

Other interesting things he has mentioned and researched:
How our entire world is created inside our head and it’s made out of biochemical signals, and we create our reality—not to say that certain things don’t exist “out there”, but that our direct experience of them is created through our interpretation of various signals, or more accurately, vibrations.

Added to this, for example, our vision is created in our visual cortex, and it sits in complete darkness inside our skull. It’s never seen light/a photon, and in fact, all of our vision is created there, including our dreams, hallucinations, and “reality”—and our brain doesn’t know the difference.

It’s also been proven that if we imagine that we are exercising, we will actually get physically fitter. Granted, it’s only a small percentage of what we would achieve if we actually did the exercise, but still, our imagination has a direct impact on our physical body.

Also of note, regarding this: our brain becomes lazy when we watch TV or films, internet videos, etc., because it has nothing to do. Everything is there—the monster, the lover, the action sequence or comedic relief has already been imagined and delivered.

For those of you into fitness, we burn fewer calories watching something than when we sleep.

Actually, the monster is more scary, the girl/guy more beautiful, the action more exciting, and the joke more funny when we read, because our brains create the best versions for us.

Reading is also excellent exercise for our brains, and specifically our imagination—and imagination is something we all need, no matter our job, hobby, or whatever else. We need it in all our relationships: work, social, platonic and romantic.
(Eagleman is an engaging and charismatic man. I don’t yet detect any “spiritual” elements from him—his books, documentaries, or podcast… but you can see how his science crosses over into those realms.)

This had me wondering if it would be possible that nature had already achieved sentient quantum computing in humans and other animals—perhaps even plants.
I began to realise that it would even be possible for our memory and—even in whole or part—for consciousness to be in the quantum world.

I then recalled a documentary I saw with Jameel Sadik (Jim) Al-Khalili (Theoretical Physicist at Surrey University), where he discussed quantum biology.
He went into the likelihood of photons being in superposition until they find the chlorophyll, so as not to expend energy during photosynthesis (as mentioned in the article in my previous post). He also went on to explain how quantum tunnelling was likely involved for both the speed and efficiency of a tadpole turning into a frog, where a body and therefore super strong chemical bonds are “untied”, reformed and “re-tied”.

Finally, he mentioned scent—
Explaining how it’s long been considered a lock-and-key system: a chemical compound of a certain shape enters our nasal cavity and fits into the correct receptor or keyhole.

The problem with this model is that almonds and cyanide smell the same, but their chemical compositions are very different.
So it’s theorised—and almost accepted—that a quantum element plays a part, where the lock-and-key system still exists but that the vibrations of the bonds vibrate, like guitar strings, and that’s the defining element to the actual scent.

Perhaps not directly related to the quantum consciousness topic, but from other sources including David Eagleman and a documentary “Super Natural – National Geographic” and another titled “Bio Engineering”—
Here are some interesting and possibly relevant facts about nature:

Bees can detect positive/negative charge in their body when they approach flowers, letting them know if another bee has already taken the pollen.

If a bat and a bird were to fly past each other and say “hello”, they wouldn’t hear each other, as they operate—and therefore exist—on different frequencies.

“Flying” squirrels can do two incredible things: they can call out to each other at a frequency that birds of prey cannot hear, and they can also flash different colours (invisible to the human eye) so that they know which exact nest is their home.

Cheetahs are the fastest land animal and so have thin bones to make them nimble and fast. This obviously makes them more susceptible to fractures, but when they lie down and purr, they purr at 160 Hz (I think I recall the frequency correctly), which promotes bone growth.

Many insects can see ultraviolet—something humans cannot. Many animals (sharks, birds, etc.) have senses that are beyond our own, for their specific environments.

Undoubtedly, the “tools” (eyes, ears, taste buds, skin/nerves, scent receptors) that the human physical body has are in many ways extremely limited… It makes you wonder if we have somehow evolved… other senses, or in other ways.

Anyway, it dawned on me, as I was remembering this, that it would be ludicrous and practically impossible for a god, alien master, or evolution to have us only develop certain particular “real life” senses that operate in the quantum field.

At this point, I am becoming certain of quantum consciousness as a part of our reality.

From my formative teenage years, I have been reading everything from Jung to Robert Anton Wilson, fully embracing the idea of the collective unconscious and, as Jung coined it, synchronicity.
For those who don’t know, this is a coincidence that has meaning—two unconnected events that contain a meaning for you, the causality being the least important.

This coming from one of the most influential psychologists and psychiatrists of his time.

The other being Freud who, while he was slightly focused on every mental health disorder being some kind of sexual repression (perhaps a sign of the times and culture), even Freud himself said that if he had his time over again, he would devote his study to telepathy, as he believed it to be a true phenomenon.
(There has been a recent study—I saw the headline in passing on mainstream media, but have yet to read it—about autistic people having telepathic powers? Perhaps I misread?)

Back to Jung—one of the things that Carl Jung is well known for is dream analysis (NB this doesn’t mean looking something up on Google), and the lesser-known part is called “active imagination”, which is essentially actively engaging in conversation with “dream” characters.
(There are rules about this—the most important being: not to hold conversation or collaboration with someone from your dreams if you know that person in real life.
The reason being that the person in your dream represents a part of you and not them (in most cases, excluding prophetic dreaming perhaps). And the other reason being that it will blur the lines of your reality, potentially leading to psychosis.)

This piqued my interest early on in my life. It sounded almost shamanic, occult, esoteric… and yet proved to be immensely helpful, in the right hands, when helping people with mental health problems—both mild and severe.
(There’s plenty more to say on Jung, his work, and his studies—too much, even for this long post.)

If you are of my “generation” (Gen X), the average life expectancy is around 80 years.
That means that you will spend about 27 years of your life sleeping—roughly a third—and then I would estimate around 8–12 of those years, you are dreaming (even if you don’t remember them).
That’s a significant amount of time for them to be irrelevant.

Personally, my dreams are vivid, immersive, and often with varying degrees of lucidity (from observation, to limited control, to full control).
But I do actively “practise” dreaming.

(Again, there are a million more things to say on dreams and dreaming and how they have shaped—and indeed have been necessary—for our species to survive. While chiefs led the community… when to move, farm, fight, have children… those decisions were often consulted with the shaman, witch, witch doctor, et al—and here we are… I guess one could argue, the very reason that we are here, as a species, is because of dreams, daydreams, manifestation, intent.)

How does this all tie in with quantum consciousness?
It all does.

If Penrose and Hameroff are correct in their theory that the microtubules within our neurons operate in some way on a quantum level, that would change our understanding, idea, and perception of reality.

We are a step closer to this with the recent study and paper of December 2024.

As always, these questions come with more questions.
But I can’t help thinking of the Ancient Greeks formulating the idea that physical matter was created from smaller “building” blocks, hence the term “atom”, which we still use today for the very thing that we have scientifically proven to exist.

It reminds me of the popular Zen Koan:
Who is the divine creator who makes the grass green?

Quantum consciousness would go a long way to explaining phenomena such as intuition, manifestation, intent, premonition, ghosts, spirits, senses and even beings beyond our regular physical perception—extraterrestrials, interdimensionals, NHI, demons, angels, fairies… all just labels, words, semantics…

It’s extremely likely that there are beings around us that we can’t always see or touch—and I don’t just mean microbes… bacteria, viruses, and fungi spores…

One of the tools that we have is a prefrontal cortex. It’s an incredible piece of hardware—it can do amazing things—but it’s easily programmable… it’s us, ourselves, me, you.

But where does that programming come from?

A country, culture, politics, religion, social media… they’re all great teachers—until you want to be… you.