The Dreaming

"You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in it's own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you. But I tell you Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, nowhere else." ~ George Orwell, 1984

Till this day, Orwell's haunting definition of reality and areality, the real from the dreaming, the objective from the surreal, haunts my consciousness.

How do we distinguish the real from the unreal, the living from the dead, the state of consciousness from that of dreams? Freud has long postulated that the dreamstate is a continuum of reality, a playground for the jostlings between the id, ego and superego. Dreams perform and enact our desires kept in check by social expectations and norms. Yet oftentimes dreams can feel so 'real'; we feel the fear we experience in dreams, we feel pain, we weep to discover wet pillows. The body reacts physiologically to the psychological impulses sent by the mind. Yet where does the mind wander to in the state of dreams? So why are dreams considered 'unreal' and dismissed readily as folklore and fairy tale?

Is existence not merely in the mind? Are the physiological experiences and the emotional similar to that experienced in dreams? How do we know we exist and weren't part of a larger state of dreaming? Isn't reality only conceived by the mind and nothing else?

Can Descartes' assertion of existence as that which is solely perceived in the mind be true? Can existence be independent of the mind?

The amateur philosopher's question: "If a tree falls down in the woods and no one is around to hear it- does it make a sound?" Yet this very question impinges on the concept of existence. Do I exist only because others know I exist? I exist because my mind is able to comprehend my being as object.

But when the mind ceases to function, would I still exist? How do we comprehend reality without the mind? If so, would altering the mind's concept of the 'real' and 'unreal' not alter radically what existence is?

I've had my first experience of alternate realities in consciousness today ... a taste perhaps of what it's like to loose one's mind quite literally. It was a fearful experience ...