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Very simple: because there is no difference from the mind's point of viewbetween the physical and
mental. If you've got the slightest acquaintance with any theory of the mind, you would know that
physical objects are percepts to the mind, which means that they become residents of the mind as
representations.In dreams (but also when you remember or hallucinate) these representations are
recalled for your apprehension.
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To understand this, you only need to ask yourself: how can a tennis ball be a visual object for me?
Obviously the ball is not flying into your eye; therefore what you see is the reflected light from the ball,
which strikes the retina and is then conducted by a rather complicated electrochemical transformation
along the optical nerve strands into your visual cortex, where an appropriate evaluation takes place.
At some point in this process (no-one knows when) you "see" the ball, and part of the mind's
interpretation of this event is to class that object as "physical" on the strength of certain
characteristics displayed by it. (This depends on millions of years of "calibration"). Now if this is the
first time you've seen a tennis ball, then a memory of the event is formed, for the absolutely essential
reason that in future you will more quickly and efficiently recognise the object as a tennis ball. If
you've seen one before, then the event is compared by the mind with your previous memories and a
sort of composite constructed, and it is this composite which you actually "see". From this you might
begin to grasp that "seeing" is not a simple issue at all, but in reality one of the most complex things
the brain is called upon to perform. And thus to return to your question: you will now also understand
why I said that from the mind's point of view there is no distinction. Both your "live" visual experience
and the dream image are constructed from the same set of data. Both are representations.
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