Are we dreaming?

Question

Dreams are our actual reality and our reality is just a dream. What do you think?

Answer 1

It reminds me of an ancient chinese philoshipher, who once dreamt he was a butterfly, flying to and fro, peacefully and gleefully, and when he woke up, he became the chinese philoshipher, and he began to wonder, was he the chinese philoshipher dreaming he was a butterfly, or was he a butterfly, dreaming he was a chinese philoshipher.

Answer 2

During sleep dreams seem very real, but upon awakening we realize that they were just dreams. So it is with this world we call reality. It is possible to wake from it too. Sri Ramana Maharshi, the great Indian sage, has said that the difference between a dream while sleeping and the dream we call wakefulness is only of duration, one short and the other one long.

Answer 3

The old "which is the real us and which is the dreamt us" argument has been around for ages, and here's the best argument I ever heard that the real us, is the daytime-awake us....

If we die in our dream, the real us continues to live...but if we die in real life, science teaches us the components that create dreams, also die. So it would seem in that sense, that daytime-awake us, trumps sleepytime-us.

The other thing, is consistency. The nature of hallucinations, are that they depict forever changing, completely ridiculous scenarios. For example, in a dream one night, you might be riding a dinasour down the street, and get pucked off his back by a winged-zebra. The next night, you might be fishing with an old man, who catches a whale. The scenarios change wildly and completely from the last one, and don't consistently pick up where the last one left off...rather, they just fire wildly varying scenarios at you, that defy every law of physics and common sense we know.

Whereas daytime-us, picks up where our last session of daytime-us left off...what occurs, seems to be governed completely, or at least far moreso, by rules, patterns, laws, and reason.

For these reasons, nighttime-us, seems to be far more characteristic of hallucinatory randomness, whereas daytime us, tells a story so consistent, that it seems to have grounding in tangibility.

Answer 4

We are in a waking dream when we are not resting and in a sleeping dream when we are resting.
We are not this material body, IE; Race, color, nationality, Religion, mind, intellect, senses, job, etc. We are all eternal spirit souls, part and parcel of the Supreme Soul, also known as Krishna, Allah, Jehovah, Vishnu, etc. We never die, only this mortal body dies. This material world is not our real home, it is called Maya (illusion) and is temporary and full of misery, only one fourth of the souls come here, and the rest are enjoying blissful eternal loving relationships with our Maker named above. We fell here due to envying Gods position. He made the material world for those who want to try to live separately from Him (Which is impossible because He is actually everywhere). After many lifetimes of trying to be happy in this temporary world, one becomes frustrated and board and begins to question their existence. We then seek out real happiness, and when one becomes sincere God reveals how to come back Home. Those who are intelligent, take up the process of self realization (Bhakti Yoga), which begins with the chanting of the Maha Mantra, (the great mantra for deliverance from all suffering and illusion), which gives one real peace, happiness and reality. Then at the end of life, they can give up all material attachments and fully surrender to God and return to the eternal Kingdom, where there is no more birth, death, old age, or disease and be eternally happy. For info. Go to harekrishnatemple.com Read Bhagavad Gita- As it is by Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada asitis.com Can be read onl ine. THose who realize this is a dream are soon ready for the reality. See the movie The Trueman Show with Jim Carry.

Answer 5

No. We are not dreaming reality. Reality is dreaming us.

Answer 6

An interesting possibility.... sometimes, I do feel that my real self manifests better and truly in my dreams and on the other hand, when I am awake, I often try to hide or overrule my natural self.

Answer 7

Reality is nothing like what we believe it is. We are limited by our 5 senses.

Answer 8

I've thought about that before, but it wouldn't actually be described as a dream, since in our dreams we aren't "going to sleep" Very interesting to think about - we sometimes remember our dreams in real life, and remember our real life in our dreams. However, our real life morals and personalities guide our decisions in our dreams but our dreams *hopefully* dont severly guide our decisions in our real life. or "real life" if you want to think about it that way haha.

Answer 9

Wake up, smell the coffee, and find out if you were dreaming.

Answer 10

Most of us are not awake for most of the time. Is it a dream? Not really, but that is what it will seem like when you try to remember the times when you were not really awake.

At times when a person is confronted with the possibility of death, that person's entire life history takes on a different feel and most priorities are drastically changed. You haven't been dreaming, but you may have been intoxicated by the ritual of everyday life.