Is life a dream?
You ever have a dream that you wake up from, and you just wanna go back to sleep and return to it?
But you're awake, you remember a few details, but it mostly fades.
I wonder if that's what death might be like. I kinda doubt it, but how would I know?
When I'm in a dream, everything feels so real. I usually don't know I'm dreaming. And there are "dream facts" (as I call them) that represent things I know about the world.
Like, I'm at "my house", even though it looks different than my IRL house. Or just other random shit in the dream that I know to be true.
I believe there is continuity in real life, and I believe there is a material world here. But I don't really know.
In a dream, when I see a wall, I don't think it's representative of a material reality, I think it's a representation of crazy shit going on in my head.
In real life, when I see a wall, I believe there is a structure there, and light is reflecting on it, and my brain is creating an image of a material world that is actually there, and I am experiencing that image.
Either way, what I'm actually experiencing in real life IS sort-of a dream. Sure, I believe in the material reality that I'm observing, but I don't believe I'm experiencing the materials themselves. I believe I'm experiencing the re-creation in my mind.
When I lucid dream (which isn't often these days), I "wake up" in the dream. I'm still experiencing the dream world, but I have this deep awareness that this is a dream. It's something I just know to be true.
There's this heady-understanding I have right now that what I'm experiencing is a recreation in my mind, an approximation of the material world around me. But that sense that this is a dream isn't there.
I have my moments (though not often) where I can feel that this is a dream feeling, in real life. Where that heady-understanding is part of my experience, not just words on a page in my mind. That feeling is different than in lucid dreams, but there's some similarity to it.
This world has a consistent system of physics. When I'm testing a lucid dream, sometimes I'll jump & see physics become wonky - I'll jump higher than I should. Other times, physics become unhinged, and I'm in a weightless body just floating along.
But in the real world (this 'dream'), the physics are consistent. Everything is explainable. Part of this explain-ability is an advent of modern sciences. But ... idk. How do I know that what I take as truth about this real world isn't just a "dream fact"?
I had a dream once. There were these vast grassy rolling hills. Rain was pouring down, and the world was flooding. I came upon a boat dock, and met a man. I was somewhat lucid, and I said to this man "This is a a dream." He said "No it's not."
Regardless what I know (or don't know), this dream is the one I call reality. I'm attached to it, I care about it, I'm committed to it. I don't want to "wake up" from it any time soon. And if I do wake up from it one day, I'll be sad for all the loved ones I lost. This "dream" is relevant to me.
The dreams in my sleep - well, I enjoy them often times, but ... I don't value them the way I do reality, I'm not attached to them, I'm not committed to them.
All the heady dream stuff aside, this life is fleeting and short, relative to the age of the universe. I'm here to live, to experience my life. I live on a small time scale, not on the time-scale of the universe. So imma just keep livin, and try to enjoy it.
One other thing. I've been asking myself recently: Is THIS the world I would dream of?
And two nights ago, when there was a thin layer of snow on the ground, and it sparkled in the night, I thought ... yes. It was so beautiful.
P.S. Are other "people" in my dreams just creations of my mind? Are they conscious too? Idk. If real life is a dream, are the other people conscious? I believe so. But I can never truly know.