In the past—and even for most people today—belief in gods, spirits, and souls was likely influenced by misunderstandings about the brain, especially during sleep. People assumed the brain largely shut down while sleeping, yet vivid dreams and powerful visions still occurred. These experiences demanded an explanation. If the brain was thought to be nearly inactive, then something else had to be responsible. The most obvious conclusion was that the soul was at work, perhaps even traveling or communicating with a spiritual realm.
POINTS
Perception of brain inactivity: Before modern neuroscience, people had no idea the brain remains active during sleep. It seemed “shut down,” making dreams mysterious.
Vivid and inexplicable experiences: Dreams, nightmares, and visions were often intense, sometimes feeling more real than waking life, which suggested an external or spiritual source.
Need for explanation: Human brains naturally look for causes. If the brain was assumed inactive, the soul or spirit offered a convenient explanation for conscious experiences during sleep.
Cultural reinforcement: Many ancient cultures linked dreams to divine messages, the soul leaving the body, or communication with gods and spirits, reinforcing the belief.
Consistency with religious frameworks: Belief in gods, spirits, and souls helped make sense of life events, morality, and death, especially when dreams appeared to carry guidance or warnings.
Psychological comfort: Attributing dreams to the soul or spirit world gave people a sense of meaning and continuity beyond the apparent inactivity of the body. People enjoyed the euphoria during dreams.
People didn’t just see things in dreams and visions—they believed they interacted with them physically, touching tables, chairs, houses, and landscapes that felt solid and real.
These objects seemed to have no direct relationship to the waking physical world, yet they behaved like physical things in their own domain.
Because of this, early belief systems often did not sharply separate “matter” from “spirit.” A thing could be real without belonging to the everyday physical world.
While modern discussions focus on souls as conscious entities, many religions and spiritual systems treated objects seen in visions as spiritual realities too—not conscious, but still “ensouled” in some sense.
Houses, tools, and landscapes in visions were often understood as spiritual counterparts to physical objects, existing in another layer of reality rather than as mere hallucinations.
This made spiritual worlds feel complete and self-consistent, populated not only by gods or spirits but by environments and objects that followed their own rules.
From that perspective, the soul wasn’t the only non-physical thing—entire worlds were, with conscious and non-conscious elements alike.
A THOUGHT
While religion and philosophers today say the soul is a reality with no parts or physical components, for most, it does have parts and physical components but not ones of this world. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stresses that.