A popular theory today in the strange realm of theoretical science is that reality as we perceive it is nothing more than a computer simulation to which our real selves are somehow connected. Like many of our current theories and beliefs of things larger than we can see through a telescope or smaller than we can see with a microscope, it echoes a much more ancient belief, albeit in a shallower way, with all its meaning stripped. The ancient belief held by mystics around the world is, to quote the classic nursery rhyme, that life is but a dream.  

This is not to say that our dreams and waking life are the same, it is plain to see that they are not. The world of a dream is fluid, changing constantly and erratically, while the real world is solid, steady and consistent. That which happens in a dream is fleeting, temporary, with no lasting consequence other than impressions left upon the psyche. That which happens in waking life is permanent and cannot be undone. We wake from many dreams throughout a life, having explored endless lands within, to the same life we left when we went to sleep. 

And yet life is not all that rigid itself. Even the most mundane life is subject to constant change. A stagnant landscape still shows signs of age, and when all else seems unchanging, the eye of the beholder itself ages and the perception of its surrounding changes. Characters move in and out of one’s life with new ones taking on the old one’s roles. Elements of one person, their appearance, mannerisms, might remind you of someone else from your past. Their archetype stays with you in one form or another like the changing faces of a dream.  

The dream is entirely conscious in nature. The body we take on and the  dream world we inhabit, and everything contained within, we know to be creations of the mind. We know this upon waking but at the time we are unaware. Is this the nature too of reality? What’s the alternative? On one hand we have a world that’s living, conscious, on the other one that’s dead and inert. If the world is fundamentally material in nature, made of lifeless bits and bobs, then where does the life come from? Where does this consciousness come from? Its existence cannot be denied, it’s denial would be a conscious act! And so we have a model for a conscious reality and a reality fits the model.  

What can the dream then tell us about reality? It is well worth considering that while we often look for meaning within the circumstances of our dreams, we seldom look for any meaning in the circumstances of our waking lives. And yet the meaning is there and is far less obscure than in the dream, for the dream speaks in symbols relating to one’s waking life, while the happenings of life are directly related; they are your life. The message to be decoded is not esoteric in nature, it is simply functional. The circumstances of your life are meant to guide you, push you and prod you along a path that is your destiny, to be the person you’re meant to be and lead the life you’re meant to lead. Seen to it’s fruition, life becomes a dream in its greatest sense, but by ignoring the messages of life one forces them to become louder, more shocking on nature. Soon enough the dream becomes a nightmare.