Did you hear the story about the two old men who passed away on the same day?
They were both 92 years old, but they lived very different lives. They were chilling in heaven playing dominoes and a nice old lady walked up and sat down beside them. She said, “You guys are new here, can you tell me a little about your life down on earth?”
“I was a scientist and I worked for NASA. I’ve always been fascinated by space and I helped send a man to the moon. I loved my work and wouldn’t have been happy doing anything else.”
“My wife and I used to go on holiday to a beautiful Caribbean island every year and we would chill out on the beach drinking cocktails all day. I had a beautiful house and when I wasn’t working I would grow vegetables and cook lovely meals at the weekend.”
“I used to fly into outer space every night and visit strange and majestic planets. I would also walk through portals and travel back in time. I remember being chased by this crazy dinosaur who wanted to eat me alive, so I jumped off a huge cliff to get away from it.”
“I visited every country in the world. I climbed up the pyramids, I swam down the Amazon River, and I snowboarded down Mt. Everest. I had the power to do anything and went on a new adventure every single night.”
Dreams vs. reality
You might think I’m a little cuckoo, but I don’t think there is any difference between dreams and reality, or what we call ‘reality’ anyway.
If each of us were to look back on our life right now could you tell the difference? Would something that happened it the real world be more real than something that happened in the dream world? What makes the real world so special?
We see, hear, feel, taste, and smell things in the real world that turn into electrical signals and reach our brain. Our perception of reality comes from our senses.
We see, hear, feel, taste, and smell things in the dream world and the exact same electrical signals reach our brain in the exact same way. There isn’t a separate part of the brain that deals with dreams.
Our perception of the dream world comes from the exact same senses we use in the real world, which turn into the exact same electrical signals that affect our brain in the same way.
What about your memories?
Everything that’s happened in the past doesn’t exist anymore. It’s gone and it will never come back. The only thing you have from the past is your memories and it’s up to you what they will be. What do you want to remember 20 years from now?
Do you want to remember going to work every day and getting stressed out? That’s maybe unfair, so let’s look at the good times. Do you want to remember going on holiday and swimming in the sea? Do you want to remember getting drunk at a concert while listening to your favorite band?
I think I prefer my dream memories.
Can you tell the difference?
I can’t even tell the difference between my dream memories and my real life memories.
Can you? I’m not trying to say I’ve lost touch with reality. I just feel like my dream memories are as real as my normal ones.
Memories are memories. It doesn’t matter what world they came from.
Some people seem to think that lucid dreaming isn’t real. They would rather spend time in the real world as if it’s somehow better. It’s not. The real world is not better than the dream world because when you’re inside a lucid dream you can do anything.
The big difference between the both worlds
The ‘real’ world
In the real world you are not alone, or are you?
Other people are conscious beings. That’s the only difference, but what does that have to do with you? You live inside your head, behind your eyes. You are alone in the world. You came into this world by yourself and you will leave by yourself.
It doesn’t make any difference to you whether someone is a separate entity, or if they are just a part of your subconscious.
People love you, or they hate you. OR they might not care either way, but the only way the real world is different is if you care what other people think of you. I can see why your ego might love the real world.
Don’t get me wrong, I do think it’s great when other people care about you and I wouldn’t have it any other way, BUT, it’s still not a good reason to dismiss the dream world as if it’s somehow beneath the real world.
What I’m trying to say is: the only thing different about the real world is the fact we need other people to make us feel happy. The dream world still feels real except for the fact you are the only conscious being.
The dream world
Can the dream world offer us anything that the real world can’t?
Gee, let me think… I wonder if I can come up with anything. What about:
The fact you can do anything and you won’t die. You can race a car at a hundred miles per hour without being concerned for your safety. You can jump off a huge cliff, or you can spend 10 minutes under water minus the drowning part.
The fact you are not an insignificant little creature living on a tiny insignificant planet because you can travel to anywhere in space. Your subconscious mind can conjure up worlds that are 100 billion times more wonderful, freakier, scarier, and intense than our stupid little planet.
The fact you don’t have to eat, but you can if you want to. You don’t have to pay for anything and that means you don’t have to work. Why would you need to work when you don’t need money? You can just have non-stop fun.
You own everything and nobody can tell you not to fly that fancy looking helicopter you somehow found when you were exploring a massive ship. You don’t even know how to fly a helicopter, but you can make it up as you go along.
The fact that time doesn’t exist. You don’t have to wait on a bus. Trains don’t run late in your lucid dreams and you can get on them in the middle of a field. If you want to get off you can just fly through the roof. No more sitting around in stupid airports while they put fuel in the airplane.
I think I can safely say I’ve came up with a few good reasons why the dream world is better than the real world.
You don’t need to choose one
I’ve maybe been a bit harsh on the real world, but you don’t need to choose what world you live in. You can’t choose. You need to live in both worlds whether you like it or not.
We are conscious inside the real world for around 16 hours per day, so it’s very important that we enjoy it as much as possible. This much is obvious, I’m sure you’ll agree.
What about the dream world? We all spend a few hours inside the dream world every single night of our lives.
Would you rather be Bob when you arrive in heaven? I would rather be Simon and I would rather have amazing memories I could never forget.
Maybe I am cuckoo
The dream world is real. You’re just alone when you’re inside. Memories are all the same. Yesterday’s real memories feel the same as yesterday’s dream memories.
I want to know what you think. Is there really a lot of difference between the both worlds? Do you understand what I was trying to say even if you don’t agree with me? Am I cuckoo? Should I call and get the guys in the little white van to come pick me up?
