“We all live in a kind of continuous dream,” I told him. “When we wake, it is because something, some event, some pinprick even, disturbs the edges of what we’ve taken as reality.”
–Jeff Vandermeer/Annihilation
The other morning I woke up to the sound of a doorbell. I looked at the clock, fuzzy-brained, and it was too early for it to be a friend to be at the door. I considered going to the door to see, but I knew that by the time I put clothes on and went out to see if anyone was there whoever it might have been would be gone. I snuggled back under the covers and wondered if I had dreamt it or if it was real.
Then I wondered what I had been dreaming.
Either way, it was real enough to have woken me up.
Reality is in the eye of the..what would you call it? The beholder? Considerer? Imaginer? Is anything that triggers your brain to hear it, smell it, taste it, see it real?
I’ve hallucinated demons. It felt like they were really there. My body responded as if they were real. I’ve had a telepathic conversation in French with a black Lab. That was very real to me, as real as his two owners who were standing there with him. I’ve heard leaves talking to me, and melted into a stair rail. I’ve had sex with angels and human beings which definitely felt real.
Real?
What is?
Are feelings real, or only things?
How do you really know if anything is real given how convincing a hallucination or dream can be?
I wonder if I watched one too many TED Talks about Neuroscience this weekend?