werewolf27

Do you ever have one of those dreams where nothing too astonishing happens? You're just walking around doing something mundane. The weird thing is when you wake up. Even though the job, or the supermarket, or barbershop, or wherever you were at in the dream is nowhere you've been in this waking life, you now have hundreds of memories associated with it. Not just like you've dreamed it a bunch of times before, but it's a whole parallel life. There's an entire history there with different characters you have all kinds of relationships with.

It makes you ask questions like: Can we have complete parallel lives in the dream state? If so, how do we know that those realities are not at least as real as this one? And why do we assume that this is prime reality anyway?

It seems to generally be good strategy in "this reality" to assume it's real -- or at least play the game. If you question it too much, they may want to medicate you, or worse. However, in the dream world, if you question it, you have a breakthrough. It's called a "lucid dream." You know that reality you're in is being created by your mind and can therefore be shaped to your whim and will. Amazing things can be experienced. What if we could come to that realization in this waking life? Would that mean enlightenment? Or would that mean it's all just a dream? Maybe those two are one and the same.