We're all aware of how our senses form our input, how we can be walking down the street minding our own business, and we see or hear the unexpected, and how this unplanned event triggers a raft of thoughts, feelings, and actions. Our diverted reaction to such external stimulus is the basis for advertising and influence peddlers of all stripes.

Missing is the concept that our senses are not our only conduits from the outside. Consider three additional pipes flooding us with what is outside, which then become part of who we are:

dreams,
thoughts, and
feelings.

Freud and friends will argue that much of our dreams are not outside influences as much as our internal selves repackaging the day's turmoil. Clearly some truth to that, but I have evidence to support the ability of dreams to be original in themselves. Not long ago, I was in a dream expecting to see a lion when a tiger appeared. What I clearly remember was my surprise at the tiger, not some faked astonishment, but a sincere shock causing all the proper fight-or-flight chemicals to course through my snoozing body. I awoke with a question, "If I was truly on the receiving end of that dream, then who was producing and directing it?"

Some section of my brain may be walled off from the rest, charged with producing dreams in such a way that the rest of my brain is excluded and therefore surprised. Just as possible, some external force could be sending me these dreams. The possibility of one creature with two minds is just as freaky as some outside dream network beaming nightly shows at me, but it theoretically needs to be one or the other. Although that would be an interesting path to explore, the take-away for now is that dreams are the work of something or someone other than the familiar fellow in the mirror. If so, we are not morally or ethically responsible for a dream. We may wake in a cold sweat from a nightmare, but even a good Catholic rarely feels guilty for the perverted, vicious, or downright impolite acts committed.

An interesting insight may come our way if we follow this logic to our thoughts and feelings. Most of our thoughts do not come from the outside. We're just working our neurons to deal with the situations that come our way, rearranging pre-existing thoughts to solve new problems. But a few times, we have the creative idea, even the rare epiphany. These just pop into our head. Is this yet a third part of our brain, also walled off from the rest so it can surprise us, or is there some external, possibly spiritual, fountain of inspiration from where we can receive a transmission if we tune to just the right frequency?

Yet another fertile path to wander, as I did with an article on the subject, but for now, suffice it to say that some of our thoughts just pop into our heads, not as the result of logical deductions, indeed without our permission. Some unpleasant thoughts, for example, those involving anxiety, obsessions, and stress, arrive even over our objections.

The same can be said about feelings. Most of my feelings are reactions I produce in predictable ways. I feel love for my daughter when she smiles at me. But every rare once in a while, an emotion pops into our heart that we do not see coming. We fall in love with someone for no apparent reason, perhaps against our judgement and intentions. We say this is the business of the heart to distinguish it from the logical workings of our brains, but what we are really implying is that such a feeling happened to us rather than that we produced it. The question resurfaces as to whether such feelings are produced by yet another walled-off corner of ourselves, concocting these sneak attacks to amuse itself, or is this yet another conduit from the outside?

From a spiritual perspective, the question would be moot since the author would be God, kharma, or my favorite, the Great Spirit. Whether the Great Spirit does her job by reclaiming some section of our brain or posting blogs from the outside, the mechanics would be beyond our understanding anyway. The morsel of discernment to keep hold of is that these kinds of dreams, thoughts, and feelings seem to originate outside of who we are. They arrive into who we are, either as accidents, for someone's amusement, or to add meaning to our lives, and then we are to do something about their arrival.

As risk-averse creatures, we are skeptical of such uninvited visitors to our conscious heads and hearts. We often look for the logical reasons to discard the interlopers, to send them packing to wherever they came from, and to stay focused on the thoughts and feelings that we produce. Those we can trace to our needs and wants. They are familiar and safe. The problem is what we reject, messages from the other side of who we are, or seeds planted by the Great Spirit. Therein lies the greatest risk of all, that our fears persuade us to die with invitations buried inside us.

With dreams, thoughts, and feelings as aliens arriving into our consciousness, we are not responsible for the offensive ones nor can we take credit for the agreeable ones, even if once arrived they become our property. They are left on our doorstep, and our credit or condemnation depends on what we do with them afterward. We are no more responsible for them than a sailor is responsible for the wind, though he is responsible for how he adjusts his sails.

I realize this goes against a great deal of Catholic morality. Verses like "anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery" (John 3:16) does wonders for a guilt-driven tradition, but ignores who put the lust there in the first place. My problem is the dilution of responsibility. As soon as I agree to a measure of guilt for the lust that popped into my head as well as the rape I commit thereafter, I've got wiggle room for the rape. My lust made me do it, my evil, sinful thoughts and feelings, put there by some unnamed villain.

A clear demarcation between input and output also does wonders for the stress-free enjoyment of my dreams, thoughts, and feelings. I can enjoy robbing a bank or the love of a mistress as long as I treat my bank and wife with kindness and respect. My dreams, thoughts, and feelings are my unencumbered property, regardless of who else may be part of them, but my actions are also my complete responsibility, regardless of what dreams, thoughts, or feelings may be driving me.

Labeling such things an obsession buys nothing. The dreams, thoughts, and feelings are more compelling, but we are to rise to the occasion with a strength of character that compels actions of integrity. A man finding himself with an obsession to have sex with a child, as offensive an obsession as I could imagine, has nothing to be ashamed of. He has done nothing wrong -- yet. But then comes the actions to follow. They can be to ignore and pretend, or they can be to reveal his repressed thoughts and feelings and present himself to a shrink or the authorities before molesting a child. Detached and isolated, his actions alone are to be judged as cowardly or courageous.

Coming up with the right action is hard enough. The world is full of so many truths, many in conflict with one another, that finding the greatest truth among them and acting accordingly is perhaps our utmost challenge. By separating what drifts into our heads and hearts from what we do may shed some black-and-white clarity to what is right and wrong.

Our dreams, thoughts, and feelings we take with us, but our actions we leave behind.

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