Reality is not a Dream

[Dodo]

I've been hearing a lot of talk around here and elsewhere, the sensationalist statement: Reality is a dream. I'm here to prove it is Not a dream, by pointing out flaws with this assumption and major differences between dreams and reality. 

As a self proclaimed ream expert, (having the necessary experience of 10k+ hours of dreaming and education about it) I am in the perfect position to dispel any misconceptions that might lead you to believe you are living in a dream, whether you heard it somewhere and it sounds true, or because you reached that conclusion yourself.

You are welcome to disagree and present your opinion as well, I actually look forward to any attempts to prove to me the impossible.

Here is a numbered list of reasons why reality is NOT a dream. Let's be real, dreamers! 

1. You do not need sustenance in dreams to survive. You do not need food and water, as a side note you don't need to pee or poo either! You don't need to sleep in your dreams to recharge your energy. *warning*  Sometimes you can pee in your dream, but beware! You're probably peeing in your bed while doing so, do not admit to doing that.
2. You don't need to be a natural organic being character with a beating heart in your dream in order to interact with it. I've had many dreams where I am my human self, but I've also had dreams where I transform into other things, such as a flying in-game spaceship, and I was fighting other in-dream MMORPG characters. It was a lot of fun, and I even got a bicycle drop from one guy's loot! 
3. You do not have lasting consequences and continuity in dreams - you also cannot revisit the same dream after you wake up from it. Basically, you can do whatever the heck you want in your dream with 0 consequences and no accountability!
   
   You can do impossible feats such as flying without any necessary equipment, move through walls, break the " physics " of the dream, which is impossible in actual reality (I mean try it). I've had dreams when I was younger where I am in my apartment, and I jump down from the 6th story and start to fly. Actually I have had multiple dreams like that, sometimes being chased by someone, other times I just jump by my own will after realising its a dream and I know there are no consequences if I do it. 
   
   Other times within a dream I dont even realise I'm dreaming, but I get the sudden realisation that I can jump very high like a superhero or fly if I do so and so and feel like a real superhero for a while. I even tried to record it with a phone within my dream one time, because I wanted to prove to others I can jump so high, but somehow my phone battery was always dead and I looked like a scam!! My dreams were shattered once I woke up and reality hits o whelp, I guess I cant jump that high, bummer! 
4. I heard talk about Lucid dreaming - that when you awaken spiritually and "realise you're in a dream" you remain in the dream and interact with it knowing it is a dream etc etc., but again, like the last point, once you realise you're inside an actual dream you can actually perform miracles straight away, most people get the urge to fly or get naked in public ! (both superpowers by their own right). Not only can you not do flying after spiritually awakening, but there is another detail which differs between being lucid in a normal dream and lucid in "reality dream" in that when you become lucid in a normal dream, you actually have to remain calm and collected, because if you get too excited you will wake up immediately and ream is over - try again next time. There is no such thing in real life, in fact you can get as excited as you want, you can even try hard, if your life is sh!t to exit the dream, but without actually putting a bullet in your head or something of that kind, you cannot do that. Very un-dream-like behaviour really.
5. Your character inside the dream can't sleep and doesnt need to sleep as mentioned in point 1) and it has infinite energy if you will. So if in a dream you cannot sleep and dream, then why would we equate reality - where you can sleep and dream - to a dream where you can't do that? If you "fall asleep" in a dream, you start the next dream or go to deep dreamless sleep, you don't go to the dream inside the dream of your dream character...
6.  You cannot read normal text within dreams. The logical part of the brain is given a rest, and within dreams if you start reading text, all the characters will be jumbled up, they wont make sense - in fact thats one of the methods to gain lucidity within a dream, by trying to read something. 
7. Dreams are a mechanism by which we might be getting training for actual reality inside of a very non-threatening and inconsequential environment, where you can try things out and perhaps get real ideas and wisdom from, but they are in no way even close to what actual reality is - in actual reality you don't get a re-do if you royally screw up. I've had dreams where I was able to go back in time when I really wanted to! In reality I cant do that and my cryptocurrency journey shows that, I really really want to go back for that one! Perhaps we communicate with our deepest unconscious when we dive inside a dream and can learn things about our character when we are in an unrestricted environment designed by our own unconscious for lessons we might want to learn and use in real life.
8. Communication in dreams happens exclusively by telepathic communication. No actual speech or words being said, you know what you are saying and you know what the other dream characters are saying and it feels like actual conversation sometimes, but its "telepathic" because its you, or your deeper subconscious basically speaking to yourself. You might get things being said to you that are not something you would say or ever be able to think of, but thats the entire dream really, you get a dream conjured but by your subconscious with some specific script and things happening like in a movie sometimes and you have no clue who made this dream because you would never be able to come up with such an elaborate script yourself and dream through it without knowing the script - I would explain this with the subconscous again. Supposedly it is much more grand and inteligent than the conscous part of the mind, as if you had conscious knowledge of all the subconscous knows you might and will go nocap insane! 

 

I don't know if I missed anything, but I think this is good enough for now! Looking forward to any arguments and where I am getting it wrong! I'm open to being taught in case someone can directly disprove any or all the points I have mentioned. 

 

Edited November 1, 2023 by Dodo

[An young being]

Kudos for the effort you put in researching all that! 

Dreams could only be used as an analogy to describe reality, but many mistake reality to be a dream exactly as the one they experience in their sleep.

[Princess Arabia]

You are dreaming that Reality is not a dream.

[Dodo]

5 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

You are dreaming that Reality is not a dream.

Thanks, how do I dream the opposite? Instructions not clear

[Dodo]

1 hour ago, An young being said:

Kudos for the effort you put in researching all that! 

Dreams could only be used as an analogy to describe reality, but many mistake reality to be a dream exactly as the one they experience in their sleep.

Well i didn't really research, I have always been fascinated by dreams and in fact the first spiritual book I read was Charlie Morlie's book "Dreams of awakening" which opened me up to lucid dreaming and he has written the book to be a mix between lucid dreaming and eastern spirituality. He talks a lot about befriending your fears and using lucid dreaming for conscious meditation inside the dream and supercharging your practice

[Princess Arabia]

2 minutes ago, Dodo said:

Thanks, how do I dream the opposite? Instructions not clear

You are stuck in this dream. The opposite of what.

[Dodo]

Just now, Princess Arabia said:

You are stuck in this dream. The opposite of what.

If I speak with a dream character inside a dream and they tell me im dreaming I'd probably gain lucidity and be able to wake up from the dream easily. The opposite of stuck. Why is this a dream again? Same rules dont apply. 

[Princess Arabia]

1 hour ago, Dodo said:

Your character inside the dream can't sleep and doesnt need to sleep

You have never slept a day in your life.

[Dodo]

Just now, Princess Arabia said:

You have never slept a day in your life.

Im feelin sleepy right now i might go for a nap! 😲

[Princess Arabia]

1 hour ago, Dodo said:

you also cannot revisit the same dream after you wake up from it.

I have, many times.

[Dodo]

Just now, Princess Arabia said:

I have, many times.

Can you do it at will, or it has happened a few times without your attempt? 

You revisited the same dream after you woke up from it - ok 

have you revisited this reality after you woke up from it? If I become lucid inside my dream I can think about my real self that is sleeping in bed, how come right now I cant even imagine the "sleeping in bed" character that is dreaming this dream? You sound very sensationalist, exactly the type of person my thread wants to target. 

How wise it sounds that reality is a dream, you must be a guru! 

[Princess Arabia]

2 minutes ago, Dodo said:

Im feelin sleepy right now i might go for a nap! 😲

The real you doesn't sleep. It imagines sleep.

[Dodo]

1 minute ago, Princess Arabia said:

The real you doesn't sleep. It imagines sleep.

Do you drink water? Lets put the bs aside and go to the point please, do you drink water? Or do you imagine drinking water? 

Edited November 1, 2023 by Dodo

[Princess Arabia]

Just now, Dodo said:

Can you do it at will, or it has happened a few times without your attempt? 

You revisited the same dream after you woke up from it - ok 

have you revisited this reality after you woke up from it? If I become lucid inside my dream I can think about my real self that is sleeping in bed, how come right now I cant even imagine the "sleeping in bed" character that is dreaming this dream? You sound very sensationalist, exactly the type of person my thread wants to target. 

How wise it sounds that reality is a dream, you must be a guru! 

I have dreamt something and at another time dreamt a continuation of the same scenario. Not sure if that's what you meant. 

I'm a target? Target all you want, I'm just having a conversation. Take it as you wish as i'm just doing the same. Whatever Reality is, it is, however Reality is, it is. Won't make a difference to me. So target all you want. It's fun. Wipeee, do you have a bow and arrow.

[Princess Arabia]

4 minutes ago, Dodo said:

Do you drink water? Lets put the bs aside and go to the point please, do you drink water? Or do you imagine drinking water? 

Water is being drunk. If you can't handle this convo with me, put it aside. I won't be the least bit perturbed.

[Dodo]

13 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

Water is being drunk. If you can't handle this convo with me, put it aside. I won't be the least bit perturbed.

Not at all, I welcome the conversation, I asked for it! I know where you're coming from and saying the things you're saying,  im here to claim this is all because of a belief and not direct experience.  

You are saying I am awareness and not the bodymind organism! Ive been there. Ive witnessed and said things similar to you! Things are happening and there is no doer of them. 

But lets examine, if you forget about nonduality speech and what you've learnt from others, do you get thirsty now and then and drink water? 

Also, If you say you imagine drinking water, dont you need to have experienced something for real before you can imagine its taste and feeling? What im saying is , can you imagine (correctly) what it would taste like to eat something you've never actually eaten?  Where is the basis of what youre imagining? 

How convenient is it that in my imagination im imagining a world that can completely be explained by laws of physics rather than being crazy impossible like people flying at will and transforming to whatever they like whenever they feel like it? How come not even a single hour of my life i havent imagined and gone through a wall? Please endulge me.

Edited November 1, 2023 by Dodo

[HMD]

Consider this: You can dream all kinds of limitations and rules within your dream. You can dream the limitation that you need sleep and then you would need sleep (or need sustenance, or have consequences to your action, and you also dream each and every consequence). 

Similarly, you can dream a lack of limitations in your sleep dreams (lack of gravity, etc). Obvious stuff. 

Edited November 1, 2023 by HMD

[Princess Arabia]

2 minutes ago, Dodo said:

do you get thirsty now and then and drink water? 

Yeah, I get thirsty and I drink water. And....

 

4 minutes ago, Dodo said:

Also, If you say you imagine drinking water, dont you need to have experienced something for real before you can imagine its taste and feeling? What im saying is , can you imagine (correctly) what it would taste like to eat something you've never actually eaten?  Where is the basis of what youre imagining?

You are confusing the "you imagine" with what I really am. If I go and get a drink of water now, Princess Arabia isn't imagining that, that experience is real to this character. This character is tasting water. In the dream, Arabia is tasting wate

 

9 minutes ago, Dodo said:

How convenient is it that in my imagination im imagining a world that can completely be explained by laws of physics rather than being crazy impossible like people flying at will and transforming to whatever they like whenever they feel like it? How come not even a single hour of my life i havent imagined and gone through a wall? Please endulge me.

You are confusing and identifying with the dream character. It isn't who you really are. You are dreaming a world and you are dreaming up a world that is run by the laws of physics. The dream is already complete. When I say you, i'm not referring to Dodo, I'm referring to God.

[Dodo]

3 minutes ago, HMD said:

Consider this: You can dream all kinds of limitations and rules within your dream. You can dream the limitation that you need sleep and then you would need sleep (or need sustenance, or have consequences to your action, and you also dream each and every consequence). 

Similarly, you can dream a lack of limitations in your sleep dreams (lack of gravity, etc). Obvious stuff. 

I actually cant, I dont usually choose what I dream and always if yu gain lucidity you can break the laws of physics that were in place before that. Show me someone claiming to be lucid fly without external help and i will be onboard! Waiting

[Razard86]

This is by far one of the worst arguments I have ever heard....I could literally create a video game or virtual reality where if you don't pee or use the bathroom your character can get sick or die. I could also go to sleep at night and experience that as well.

You wanna know if reality is a dream or not? Go smoke some salvia and find out. You wanna do some REAL SCIENCE instead of conjuring up some easily debunkable points. Go smoke some salvia and find out. If you smoke salvia you will DISCOVER IT IS A DREAM. You can do it on other substances but from what I hear...saliva REALLY drives that point home. Just don't blame me when you shit your pants and have an existential crisis.