Is the mind in the body
or the body in the mind?
It sounds like a silly question
so go on, laugh.
Everyone “knows”
the mind sits neatly in the brain,
like a tenant who pays its rent in thoughts.
But what if it’s the other way around?
What if the brain
floats inside the mind
like a small idea
pretending to be the source?
Stop laughing.
When you dream,
aren’t you nowhere physical,
no bed, no room, no world,
and yet it all feels perfectly,
dangerously real?
You fall, you run, you love, you fear
inside something with no edges.
So tell me again,
where the body ends
and the mind begins.
Maybe this, all of this
is just a wider dream,
a slow, shared imagining,
a stream of consciousness
wearing bones for structure.
A body as a container.
And what of the beginning?
Babies arrive
without names,
without genders,
without stories
only awareness,
raw and unlabelled,
like light before it learns color.
And what of everything else?
Trees lean toward decisions,
roots negotiating in silence,
leaves choosing light
a different kind of knowing,
but knowing still.
So don’t ask me
about chickens or eggs.
Ask instead:
what dreamed first
the body
or the mind?
Go on.
Laugh if you need to.
I’m not entirely convinced
you’re awake.
You’re not the body.
Not even the mind.
Powerfully penned, Peter. Excellent write with clever wordplay my friend. Nicely done as always. Appreciate you.
Damian