We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion.
The great task in life is to find reality.
-Author/philosopher, Iris Murdoch
How real is the world you’re looking at? How solid is the chair you sit in? Very solid, is likely the quick answer. Yet as quantum physics has proven, this is not the case. Science now proves that nothing is in fact solid.
As Albert Einstein said, “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
Although we often don’t think about it consciously, it’s only through our physical eyes that your phone in your hand appears solid, and your foot in your shoe appears solid, etc. Everything around us, including “us” ourselves, is moving energy. Levels of vibration; waves of light.
I’m going to dig a little deeper, and look at the question: how real is our reality?
My son used to get terrible night terrors. My husband and I would find him thrashing and crying in the middle of the night; reaching out at something that wasn’t there. Yet his eyes were closed. He was clearly asleep and didn’t realize he was dreaming. He was experiencing something that terrified him enough that he cried. My guess is either you or someone you know has experienced the same type of nightmare.
But soon enough morning comes, we open our eyes, and here we are in this reality. Yet didn’t that dream you just had seem real? That night terror was real enough to my son that his body was physically reacting. Although he never left his bed, and he never opened his eyes. It was all in his mind, in another part of his consciousness.
So we shake off the fog of sleep, get up, and go about our day.
However – what if this reality we look around at, the one science has proven is not in fact solid but constantly in motion, is just another form of dreaming? Another layer of consciousness? A type of illusion and an elaborate imagining of our powerful Mind?
Science has also proven the “observer effect”, which in short is that nothing is solid until the observer lays eyes on it. And even more interesting, that each observer’s thoughts can effect what they see differently, depending on individual intention.
When we realize that this life we’re living is really a reflection, a projection, of our most persistent thoughts, it’s beneficial to look closer at our inner world. I say persistent thoughts because these are the thoughts we have emotions tied to. These are the thoughts that have becomes patterns in our mind, the worn pathways we fall back to – versus the fleeting thoughts that pop in and out that don’t have much emotions tied to them. Once we begin to realize how impactful these emotionally charged thoughts are, it’s exciting and also a bit daunting.
Now what? Well, rather than letting life be a projection of our fears (often our human self and ego mind), the idea is to wake up to our True Self, which is our creative and loving Soul. Our mind can then begin to experience this reality as an extension of Love, The Universe, Creativity, God. So rather that projecting our human fears into this waking dream, we can relax and instead extend our creative essence to co-create a better world. See how one way feels limiting and one feels expansive?
By seeing the world for what it is…a dream-like state, a play of consciousness…it’s easy to forgive the world and all it’s insanity. Forgive people who are asleep. They’re tuned out. They are running on patterns of thought. Often seeing today with the same eyes they saw yesterday. Yet no one is better than or less than any other. Each person’s Soul is always there/here/everywhere, always whole and fine, in the higher dimension/vibrations that surround us and connect us. There are layers to our consciousness, and we ourselves are multi-dimensional.
Here’s another way to think of the this dream analogy. Picture yourself lying in bed at night, having a vivid dream. You then “wake up” in the morning and enter your waking consciousness. You say to your spouse, “whew! What a crazy dream I just had!”. You might be amazed that your mind thought up so many details in the dream, and it seemed so real at the time. So you get up and continue your day, now in your human consciousness vs. your night-sleep consciousness. You experience all sorts of things: ups and downs, challenges and fun times. This cycle continues of dreaming and waking life. Then one day your body wears out, it maybe becomes sick, or just old, and it’s time to shed the physical body and end this human life. Yet where does the Mind – The Soul – go? This time you wake up yet again. Yet now you wake up in your true Home. You enter yet another layer of your consciousness – your expanded consciousness. You’ll likely look back on this brief but adventurous human life and say “Whew! What a crazy dream I just had!” You’ll no longer have the human brain to filter down your surroundings (the brain acts like a transmitter) – instead you’ll be pure Mind. Pure consciousness and light.
We as energy never die. Since we are consciousness, with many layers, we simply shift vibrations after this human life. We shift realities. We close our eyes to Earthly life and open them on the Other Side.
Ponder this a bit and see if it wakes up anything inside of you.
Try this view next time you see a person hurting those around them and themselves: they are fully asleep in their dream-like state. They are having a night terror. They are thrashing out at the world they’ve created inside of them and it’s projecting into the world around them. In this way they’ve blocked out, or fallen asleep from, their vast and undying Soul. They’ve simply forgotten their connection to Source/God. We’ve all been in this situation, but we’re always fine on some higher level. Always protected and loved.
One of my favorite quotes in A Course in Miracles says, “there is no sin. There is only lack of love.” Forgive people for being asleep here. Sometimes we need to be asleep – so we can experience the joy of unfoldment and waking up.
As each in their own time begins to awaken to the vibration of love, our true home, and remember we are a part of God/The Universe – and not separate – then the dream can become more joyful. Everything is permeable. Nothing is solid. Wake from the dream where you are the victim to every fearful emotion, and remember who you really are. It’s not something you can think your way to – it’s a feeling you let take hold, get to know and recognize, and then extend. You know the word I’m going to say – it’s a vibration.
I believe at some level we all know this. Yet the energies on Earth can get so dense (fear is a low vibrational energy) that we can easily get lost and forget at times. But the great thing is we can tap into any vibration we choose to. It’s literally a thought away.
If this sounds completely out there to you, I invite you to watch your thoughts like a hawk for a couple days, and see how your perception of your world changes as your emotions (vibration) change – from happy, to sad, to joyful, to fearful.
What happens as we unfold to this truth?
I was in the car with my kids the other day and we were talking about cars we’d like to own someday. I told them how when I was in high school, I really wanted an old, red, VW Bug convertible – like the one pictured below from 1969. I never got one, but that’s not the point of my story. What I said to my kids that day was, “I haven’t seen one of those old bug convertibles in probably 10 years. I never see people driving them anymore and I just love seeing them.” And I thought how I’d like to see one. I did more than “think” it – I actually felt the fun and joy I used to feel when I saw that car.
You can probably guess where this is going. The very next day I was driving by myself on the long road along the lake we live by. I was the only one on the road, when around the bend I saw another car coming my way. You guessed it – it was a 1960s, red, VW Bug convertible. The exact one I had wanted and hadn’t seen in years. I laughed out loud.
I don’t believe in coincidences. What are the chances that I’d be on that road, at that time, just us two cars, the very next day. This was God winking at me. She/he telling me “I’m here with you.”
It’s a dream; a wonderful creation of your powerful, vast, and never-dying Mind. Wake up to who you really are. Experiment with this idea. Have fun with it. Ask for signs. Ask for guidance. Let is show up and extend into your reality. Be grateful.
An important note: to realize life is a kind of illusion is not to diminish the meaning of life on Earth. It’s certainly not to make it in any way less important, impactful, or valid. We are here for a reason – to lift the vibration of ourselves and others through love. We’re all well aware that we’ll experience challenges and triumphs. When we are the star in our movie of life, drama is usually part of the learning and the adventure.
These ideas are not to take away from impactful life events that seem very real and tangible in the moment. And it’s not to throw in the towel and say “none of this matters.” It’s the opposite – it’s to remember how much we as Souls do matter. By realizing we are capable of creating this all (look at all the beauty around you), we can start to remember and invite in the Mind of Source/Spirit/God to be with us in our dream. Invite in the highest vibration. It’s a part of you that’s always there; if maybe forgotten for a bit. When we remember our Soul as an extension of Source/God, then we don’t have to dream alone. We can welcome guidance, insight, love and support, as we live this life to the fullest until we return to our true Home.
We can wake up more. Nobody needs to be thrashing around in an imagined night terror. Peace is just a thought, a wave, a vibration, away.
I’ll end this with a happy tune, a reminder that there is a way to freedom from what seems to hold us back.
It’s what we already knew as a child:
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream
In gratitude,
Nicki
