Most of us assume that the world around us is made of solid, physical things—matter, atoms, and forces interacting in space. But what if that assumption is wrong? What if the world is not physical at all, but entirely mental in nature?

This is the bold claim of philosopher Bernardo Kastrup, who argues for analytic idealism, a worldview that challenges the materialist assumptions we take for granted. Instead of seeing the world as a vast collection of physical objects, he suggests that everything—our thoughts, our experiences, and even the universe itself—is fundamentally mental.

The World is Qualitative, Not Quantitative

To understand Kastrup’s argument, we must begin with a simple but profound insight: our direct experience of reality is always qualitative, not quantitative. We don’t experience “atoms” or “fields” directly; we experience colors, sounds, textures, emotions, and sensations.

These qualities—what it feels like to see red, to hear music, or to taste chocolate—are the raw data of experience. The idea that these experiences somehow emerge from a purely material, non-experiential world is, in Kastrup’s view, an unnecessary assumption. Instead, he argues that qualities precede theories—they are the foundation of reality itself.

So, if everything we know is qualitative, what does that mean about the nature of the world?

Is There an Objective World? Yes, But It’s Not Material

Kastrup acknowledges that we all seem to inhabit the same world. If you were standing where he is, you would describe the room similarly to how he does. That suggests an objective reality beyond our individual minds. But here’s the crucial twist: just because this world exists beyond our own minds doesn’t mean it is non-mental.

Think about another person’s emotions or thoughts. They exist outside of your mind, but they are still mental. In the same way, the world exists outside of our individual minds, yet it may still be fundamentally mental in nature.

This is the core idea of analytic idealism: the universe is made of vast, transpersonal mental processes—mental activity beyond any single individual. What we call “matter” is simply how these mental processes appear to us, much like a user interface on a computer screen.

Matter is Like a Dashboard, Not a Fundamental Reality

Imagine you’re flying a plane. You don’t perceive the real-world environment directly; instead, you rely on the dashboard, which presents altitude, speed, and other information in a simplified way. The dashboard isn’t the reality—it’s a representation of it.

Kastrup argues that what we call the “physical world” is just a dashboard representation of deeper mental processes. Our senses—eyes, ears, skin, nose, tongue—are like the airplane’s sensors, detecting certain patterns of reality. But what they detect isn’t “matter” in the strictest sense. Instead, it’s transpersonal mental activity, which our minds interpret as the physical world.

This shifts our understanding of reality entirely. What we take to be solid, external, and material is actually a representation within a vast field of consciousness.

Why Can’t We Read Each Other’s Thoughts? The Role of Dissociation

If the world is mental and we are mental beings within it, why don’t we have access to everything? Why can’t we read each other’s thoughts or know what’s happening across the universe?

Kastrup’s answer lies in a well-known psychiatric phenomenon called dissociation. This occurs when a single mind splits into multiple, isolated streams of consciousness. The most extreme form of dissociation is Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), where one person has multiple distinct personalities (called alters), each with its own thoughts, memories, and even sensory abilities.

In a striking study from 2015, neuroscientists observed a woman with DID whose different alters had different levels of vision. Some of her alters were “blind,” even though her eyes and visual system were perfectly healthy. When these blind alters were in control, activity in her visual cortex shut down—she literally couldn’t see, even though her eyes were open. When another alter took over, her vision returned.

Kastrup takes this as a metaphor for our own condition: We are dissociated fragments of the mind of nature. Each of us is an alter of the universal consciousness. Just as the woman’s different alters couldn’t access each other’s experiences, we are unable to directly experience the thoughts of others or the broader universe.

This explains why we perceive ourselves as isolated individuals, trapped within our own minds. In reality, we are all expressions of a single, vast consciousness that has split into many parts.

Life Itself is a Sign of Dissociation

If we take this idea seriously, then what would dissociation within the mind of nature look like? According to Kastrup, it looks like life itself.

In the same way that neuroscientists can diagnose DID by looking at brain activity, Kastrup suggests that what we call biology—metabolism, organic processes, the distinction between living and non-living things—is actually what dissociation looks like in the universal mind.

In other words, our bodies are not causing our consciousness. Instead, they are what consciousness looks like when viewed from an external perspective. The brain isn’t generating thoughts—it is simply the appearance of a dissociated mental process.

Why Psychedelics, Trance, and Near-Death Experiences Matter

This model also explains why certain altered states of consciousness—psychedelics, deep meditation, trance, or even near-death experiences—seem to expand awareness.

When people take psychedelics, their brain activity doesn’t increase in a chaotic way. Instead, it becomes less constrained. The usual barriers that keep our thoughts separate begin to dissolve, and people often report feeling a sense of unity with everything.

Kastrup argues that this happens because psychedelics temporarily reduce dissociation. Just like the blind alter in the DID study regained vision when dissociation was lowered, people who take psychedelics may temporarily reconnect with the broader field of consciousness.

Death is Not the End—It’s the End of Dissociation

If life is a form of dissociation within the mind of nature, then what happens at death?

Kastrup suggests that death is simply the end of dissociation. When an alter in a DID patient fades, its memories, thoughts, and feelings don’t “vanish”—they reintegrate into the whole. In the same way, when we die, our individual consciousness dissolves back into the larger field of subjectivity.

This doesn’t mean our personal memories persist as they are. Instead, the core of our being—the “I” that experiences—merges back into the greater whole. Death, then, is not an annihilation but a return to the true nature of reality.

Final Thoughts: Why This Matters

Kastrup’s philosophy challenges us to rethink everything we assume about reality. Instead of seeing ourselves as isolated creatures in a meaningless physical world, analytic idealism suggests that we are all part of a vast, conscious universe.

Does this mean we can be absolutely certain of this view? No. As Kastrup humorously puts it, we are just monkeys running around on a rock in space, trying to make sense of existence. But the real question is not whether we can be certain—it’s whether we have good reasons to take this idea seriously.

Materialism, he argues, has no compelling reason to be true—it simply assumes matter exists without explaining how subjective experience arises. Analytic idealism, on the other hand, provides a coherent, logical, and empirically supported framework for understanding consciousness.

At the very least, it’s an idea worth considering. After all, if the universe is mental, then our lives, our thoughts, and our experiences are not just accidents of physics—they are intrinsic, essential aspects of reality itself. And that, in itself, is a reason to wonder.