Life is but a dream…

Fast forward to the day when somehow you could be standing there, maybe as a ghost or some other ethereal spirit, at the end of your life, at the point where hopefully you would have died a somewhat normal death and being buried at a decent cemetery and people are crying over you being buried. Is that the end? Or is a beginning?

The question begs us to go back to what you might suppose is your beginning: the moment you let out that first cry, fresh with amniotic fluids as you struggle to leave the watery world you knew to enter the “real” world of air breathers. Were you being born or did you think you died when no longer you were being fed by your mother and now having to breathe on your own – imbilical cord separated from your source of life and nutrient for the past 9 months or so. Isn’t it fascinating to think of our life as something so finite and concrete? Who in the womb knew that they would be soon born or during death knew anything beyond that? Then how is it that we as human beings are so fixed upon this life as if we know and are so sure of what life really is. Certainly those who are older, even the ones connected and wise, face the same predicament of the unknown. Yet, should we fear the unknown or should be a comfort to us? I think the answer lies in how you view your life.

What if life is really but a dream? The Toltecs, an ancient group of scholars and wisemen, seem to think so. I don’t mean to say that life is not concrete or that you should live recklessly and fly around like in your subconscious dreams. What I mean is that this reality is a developing and revealing reality, a dream being dreamt by our creator, with its own set of rules, gravity, and interactions: a world constantly created and destroyed, changing, life and death. Within each of us are smaller dreams, indices and life markers, adventures, and lessons. The culmination of which creates within us a sense of identity and self. Certain physicists studying quantum mechanics would agree that our world and reality is actually just one iteration of reality, a single simulation, one that we can experience. If that is the case, then indeed our reality is really a single dream in a single time line and our existence within this reality then is quite special. But if indeed our lives are dreams, a simulation of reality, then what is reality? Who are the real us? Who are we? What are we? How do we wake up and should we wake up?

Depending on your upbringing and religion, you might believe in different things. But, we all know and have in common something, and that is the fear of the unknown. The awe that we feel when discovering the vastness of the universe or the beauty of nature. We feel something more, something beyond is calling, and sometimes waking up into it, we feel connected – like waking up from a dream.  And if when we feel connected to this “otherness”, we feel more alive and aware, then who is to say that is not our “true” self? Buddhists call this “enlightenment”, Christians contribute this to the “Holy Spirit” and being born again. Born again – or maybe like waking up. The connection of this “otherness” or what we interpret as reality heightens our senses, our purpose, and connectedness to the universe. To me, this sounds like a state of arousal, awareness, and what is true “reality”. I’m certainly no expert on the matter, but perhaps we in our true forms are not simply physical but spirits. In this dream, in this life we have obtain a physical component. CS Lewis posits that human beings are creatures, half spirit and half beast. The Bible often alludes to the Spiritual world and a connection beyond this world.

What if, life is but a dream? This question begs even more questions, but the answer is not really an answer anyone can answer except yourself. A dreamer cannot know he is dreaming, unless he has at least once awakened to himself. Sometimes it’s easier to know and then to simply get lost in this dream. But just like during a dream, you realize you’re dreaming, you begin to enjoy your dream, you create your world and your moments, you fly and soar beyond the ground! You fight your demons and win, you create moments of laughter, happiness, and love. You, instead of being a dreamer, dream your own dream…

What if, life is but a dream?