Dreams, Innate Ideas, and Perception

One baseline of normality our brain has created is a temporal relation between creation and perception, with perception coming after creation.  Dreams illustrate the ability of our mind to do both simultaneously (unless there is no free will in dreams, implying a deterministic layout planned before the dream occurs, in which case the entire dream is created first and our perception follows its layout - similar to reality, except that reality doesn’t require that there be preconceived determinism because our mind does not have to create the physical nature of the reality, only perceive what is already there).  However, it is possible for the brain to inaccurately perceive temporal events that violate causality if there are marked deviations in reality from the brain’s equilibrated baseline of normality. 

For example, one’s brain becomes accustomed to the time elapsed between the switching of a light switch and the visual perception of the resulting light. This time is incomprehensible, but nonetheless, not instantaneous. Over time, the brain calibrates itself to remove the extremely short delay entirely from perception, resulting in an instantaneous perception of the light upon activating the switch.  If one were to move to a house where light moved faster than in normal experience - perhaps because the house is a vacuum – because the brain is still calibrated to remove the delay of perception of slower-moving light, applying this removal to the unexpected faster-moving light would actually cause the brain to trick itself into perceiving the light before the switch is flipped.  In the context of creation and perception of ideas, this misconstruing of causal events is also possible.  Everyday experience tells our brain that for someone to perceive an idea it must have already been created.  Person B cannot perceive Person A’s idea if Person A has not created the idea.  Creation precedes perception.  This is the baseline normality conjured up by our brain that is analogous to the brain’s standardization of the time elapsed between flipping a light switch and perceiving the light.  Even though light travels at different speeds through different mediums, the brain is almost exclusively familiar with its speed through air and thus mistakenly uses one aspect of reality to render description to all of reality.

Even though creation and perception can occur simultaneously in dreams, a person unaware of this fact precludes its possibility.  Thus, what should become apparent is that experiencing what appears to be a baseless inspiration – a reversal of causality that puts the perception of an idea before its creation, commonly referred to as an “innate idea”- is really the equivalent of experiencing light that appears to materialize without flipping the switch.  It is a trick of the mind.  This feeling of an idea materializing itself for our perception before we have consciously created it is actually the result of the simultaneous interaction of creation and perception that also occurs during a dream.  In this context, there are no “innate ideas”.