The illusion of reality

Had a dream last night which seems particularly relevant to the discussion about "reality."

But first, in my dream I woke up from a dream and thought about it. So, I had two levels of dreams -- and they were connected. This has happened a couple times to me although I can no longer remember the details of the dreams.

Anyway, in my dream, I am at some sort of conference or meeting and I am sitting near a podium of sorts. As I'm looking at the podium, it does some kind of waving, shimmering thing and pretty much disappears. All that remains is a "patch" that resembles the carpet and takes on the silhouette of the podium. I concentrate on this patch and am able to make it blend in perfectly with the surroundings so that the podium is invisible. But, as I'm looking, I notice that it is more than invisible. It's shadow has disappeared and the shadows of other things appear unobstructed through the space that the podium had occupied. I move around to see the shadows from different angles and they are seamless. For all intents and porpoises (*laughs at tie-in to previous post*) the podium is no longer there even though I know that everyone else still sees it.

Then I wake up but I'm still dreaming so I've woken from my dream within my dream. Now, I'm thinking about my dream and I know that had I tried, I could have passed my hand through the space which the podium had occupied and everyone would have seen my hand pass through the podium itself. I was that sure that my "illusion" of the podium not being there was "reality." Throughout, in both levels of dream, I had the distinct impression that I, to some extent, "caused" the podium to disappear. Or maybe it was that I "caused" myself to see past the illusion of the podium?

Then I wake up for real ... or have I?

Un-doing

All periods of unconsciousness reunites us with our daemon - from sleep, hypnosis, thought to illness, accident and death itself (The knockout blow to wistful reminiscence). Think of Lost in Space, where Will Robinson gets transported into another dimension or The Twilight Zone, where Howard Duff finds his life is actually a television play.

I call this movement between states, The Artist Effect or moving forward to act (alter) unconsciously, or back to examine what's happened/ been done. Life is having your nose pressed up against a window, looking in - reality is turning round and seeing the real world in all its entirety (The paranormal taps us on the shoulder, to take our focus off the small dream we have all our attention on, to remind us that there is a bigger picture out there in infinite space/ through eternal time).

The reason that normal conscious knowledge is poor could be that we suppress it, to keep our eye on the ball (Action is visual 'reaction' - thought (contemplation/meditation) requires stillness of body (action replay): 'Don't distract me with chatter - I'm watching the game!' (intellect versus e-motion or the illusion of reality caused by immersion in it i.e. moving with it versus standing back (disconnection) and seeing it as an illusion, separate from the self: Emotion, sound and Eidolon versus intellect, sight and The Daemon (The past is lived internally, in the driving seat but viewed externally because you've driven past that point and are looking back on it or the car is parked and you're unconscious (immobile). Why do some people have life reviews and others don't? Think of a plane crash. The life reviewer parachutes out of it before it crashes, watching his life go down inevitably, slowly in the distance. The non-reviewer (materialist) hangs onto the controls like grim death, going down with the plane, hands on the controls/ face pressed up against the window, refusing to give into death until it leaves him no choice but to acknowledge he's dead.

Observation stops something in its tracks - freedom is taking our attention off it and allowing it to be/do whatever it wants itself - unharnessed, uncontrolled: The Observer Effect could be why we get the answer we expect - we make it.