What do you do when you start doubting reality?

Question

I curl up in to a little ball, quaking with illogical fear, and then I finally circle back to the conclusion that if this is all an illusion, it doesn't matter, because I have it pretty good, so why would I want to find out reality is something different.

I don't know why it's so scary, though...seeing as it's completely irrelevant.

I guess I just start thinking about how weird it is to exist...to see, hear, smell, touch and taste. And it goes on from there.

Anyway, this is going on too long.

What do you do?

Answer 1

How would it end for you if you didn't have it pretty good?
It is not irrelevant.
I wallow in the lost and hopeless feeling I get when my faith in reality is shaken. I try to magnify it and make it more pronounced and frightening so that I can figure out what aspect of my life is causing me to feel and think that way. It's not really a mystery, try looking at yourself instead of 'reality'. As a sort of an exercise try assuming that all the feelings you have when you 'doubt reality' are feelings you have about yourself and your life all the time. Work out what it would mean if true no matter how unpleasant. Its not easy, but the conclusions might surprise you- at first.

Answer 2

I believe it means you are a thinking, curious person. I have had similar reflections and feelings. So did some of the great philosophers. I think it was Plato who was watching shadows on the wall and asked "is the shadow reality or the person who made the shadow?" Sometimes i feel as though I am in a dream and will soon wake up to reality. I don't know that you can get those feelings to completely go away. Just live your life to the best of your ability. Try to find happiness and purpose in life. Good luck.

Answer 3

Here's my take on it. Our brains are capable of asking certain questions that have no simple answer. We wonder if things exist if we are not there to observe them, we wonder why our personalities are ours and not someone else's, why were were born when we were, etc... We are capable of killing ourselves over these questions. They simply have no answer. The fault in our brains is that we can't find an answer to a question we can ask.

Monkeys, dogs, fleas, lions, etc... don't sit around wondering why they are here, what their purpose is, etc... We do. How ironic that we are looking so hard for something that isn't there and actually stop living b/c of it. Just b/c we have big brains doesn't mean we have some cosmic purpose. I assure you we don't

This revelation can be very liberating! You have no obligation to anyone. Go anywhere you want, do what you want. It makes no difference. You will be dead in anywhere from 1-70 years from now. Just live!

Answer 4

We see the movie... a story unfolds... various events take place... while allowing ourselves to respond to the stimulation of the movie, we still keep a part of our self quite aloof from involvement and we know all the time that it is just unreal even as we may be sobbing at the heroine's plight!
I hope you got your answer... we can live our life quite fully even as we may strongly believe that it is all unreal... there should be no cause for worry precisely because it is all unreal. The worry would be regarding not knowing as to what then is real... here the best help would come from belief... in God or fate which would give us the required feeling of security.

Answer 5

Life is but a dream. This world is the world of illusion, what we sense is only an infinitesimally small portion of reality. Between incarnations we wake up and see reality, when we take a body we go to sleep and live in a dream world. When we see glimpses of the reality beyond the veil the rude awakening from the bliss of ignorance can be frightening, but if we can realise that fear is based on illusion the bliss of waking up to who we truly are is way beyond the bliss of ignorance.

Answer 6

You might take up meditation as a practice; but only if you want to explore further.
Is it weird to exist or is it reality? And what does exist really? Maybe the "good life" you have is the illusion? What was your face before you were born?

Answer 7

I consider my alternatives and find none other. I can bend reality with alcohol, but when my true reality kicks in, I feel I never bent it in the first place. Only suffered a cause and effect to my always existing reality.

Whether it is a so called illusion or not, it's best to embrace it, not fight it.

Answer 8

Descartes: that usually reassures me. "I think therefore I am"

Maybe you don't doubt reality but don't believe your own interpertation should so valid or real when it's constantly moving and changing beyond your grasp but every morning it's there and you can't stop it no matter how many times you've tried. Short of killing yourself because that's not really where you wanted to go with it anyway.

You know what I do, I stop and take it in and it feels like everything expands to fit me in and I empty to fill up with it. Like breathing life until I am everything that I could never know for sure.

Answer 9

I wonder if you know God? This is our reality right now, but there is another reality to come. I try to make the best of this world I've been placed in. What good am I, what kind of contributor am I, if I fester on the unknown? And what good would it really do me to know all the answers? I know enough to stay on course. Why torment myself with fear and the question of, "what's it all for?"? In the meantime, I'll do my best to make a difference and appreciate all the blessings I've been given.

Answer 10

You fear because you sense the loss of reality as you descend into thought. I come back to the moment, the only thing I have, the only reality I can truly know, and live there, my only true experience.