Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams? -Alfred Lord Tennyson
When I wake up in the morning, I feel I have returned to a world of Reality from which I had receded for a while during the sleeping state. As the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi wondered, “I do not know whether I was a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.”
As with most people, my experiences during sleep, such as I recall, have been fantastic, illogical and impossible, but they strike me as such only when I compare them to matters in this normal world to which I am accustomed in my waking hours. My dreams have ranged from the flight of winged elephants to watching a debate between Shankara and Plato on Maya and the man in the cave. I did not have the wits to doubt their reality then, for, as the poet Dryden said, “dreams are but interludes which fancy makes when Monarch-Reason sleeps…” Dreams reveal to us what a world, free from the constraints of logic and coherence, can be. Most of us spend almost one third of our lives in those non-rational interludes.
Philosophers have written extensively on appearance and reality. They explore questions like: What is real? What is illusion? What is imaginary? What is trustworthy? What is deceptive? Each one is quite firm in his or her own grasp of the puzzle. For me these are fascinating inquiries, but only when I am reading or writing, or presenting a paper in a meeting. Aside from making me intellectually engaged, these questions don’t carry me far.
Yet, the quest for the nature of reality is not trivial. Many take it very seriously. Philosophers do so in academic contexts and religious aspirants engage in it for spiritual fulfillment. Answers to questions on the nature of Reality subtly impinge on life and existence. Artists express their visions of Reality through painting, sculpture, music, movies, literature, and the like. Poets phrase them pleasingly. Some people give up life’s normal joys and comforts to realize ultimate Reality. Prince Siddhartha renounced wife and child in his quest for Truth and initiated a religion (Buddhism) that has touched millions of people. Scientists believe that they are intelligently dedicated to unraveling the nature of Reality.
Some systems define Ultimate Reality as that which is not ephemeral, that which never perishes. I don’t have an inkling of its nature, but I don’t feel any the smaller for this ignorance because I have a sneaking suspicion that very few human beings, if any, do though quite a few speak and write about it. I am happy for those who are spiritually content with the answers from venerable authorities, which they repeat and explain to others.
All I am reasonably certain about is that I undergo a complex of experiences every day, forming an overall picture of the world. Whether these are real or not, I am persuaded that I am sharing these with countless contemporary fellow humans. This commonly experienced world may be the only reality available to creatures in human bodies, although all this may be just a grand trick played on the human mind by some unknown entity, or simply by the molecules and forces in the physical world.
Whatever its cause, this apparent reality is very relevant in the context of human life spans, if only because it is there, and it is unavoidable. It is the only kind of reality in which we function normally. It may not be significant in cosmic terms, but the sensorially experienced world is extremely interesting and quite exciting at times for humans.
We become aware of the world through eyes and ears, nose, tongue and touch. The channels of perception transform physical stimuli into sensations, creating pleasure, pain, and impressions, such as the glory of the sunset and the scent of perfumes, magnificent music, delightful tastes of food, and the softness of a cat’s fur.
There is neither music nor color, neither odor nor sweetness in the crass world of matter and energy. In the world beyond our bodies, there are only matter chunks and vibrations, silent and senseless, dark and dreary. The transformation of all this into an astounding world of beauty and fragrance and enjoyment is brought about by the brain, perhaps the most wondrous entity ever to have evolved in the cold cavity of the universe.
The stimuli also generate abstract entities (thoughts). Each one of us is, in Pascal’s phrase, un roseau pensant: a thinking reed. The brain also generates feelings and emotions: joy, sorrow, exhilaration. The perceptual inputs convey information about the world. The totality of all experiences, impressions, and information obtained through the normal channels of sensory faculties constitute the world of perceived reality (PR). That is the only reality we can be sure of. But periodically these are mixed up in dreams. This is not unlike doodling by a child on a sheet of paper a version of a scene the child has seen.
To normal human beings, the world has two aspects: First, the collective and shared phenomenal world resulting from perceived reality. This is external. Second, experienced internal reality with feelings and emotions. These two aspects are not unconnected, since both arise from the sensory perceptions which activate us as conscious entities.
What reality, if any, awaits us beyond this terrestrial sojourn remains to be seen…
Spurts of Thought 