Have you ever grown attached to something you met in a dream?
Six years ago, an anonymous Reddit user posted the following question to r/AskReddit:
This was one of the responses:
My last semester at a certain college I was assulted by a football player for walking where he was trying to drive (note he was 325lbs I was 120lbs), while unconscious on the ground I lived a different life.
I met a wonderful young lady, she made my heart skip and my face red, I pursued her for months and dispatched a few jerk boyfriends before I finally won her over, after two years we got married and almost immediately she bore me a daughter.
I had a great job and my wife didn't have to work outside of the house, when my daughter was two she [my wife] bore me a son. My son was the joy of my life, I would walk into his room every morning before I left for work and doted on him and my daughter.
One day while sitting on the couch I noticed that the perspective of the lamp was odd, like inverted. It was still in 3D but... just.. wrong. (It was a square lamp base, red with gold trim on 4 legs and a white square shade). I was transfixed, I couldn't look away from it. I stayed up all night staring at it, the next morning I didn't go to work, something was just not right about that lamp.
I stopped eating, I left the couch only to use the bathroom at first, soon I stopped that too as I wasn't eating or drinking. I stared at the fucking lamp for 3 days before my wife got really worried, she had someone come and try to talk to me, by this time my cognizance was breaking up and my wife was freaking out. She took the kids to her mother's house just before I had my epiphany.... the lamp is not real.... the house is not real, my wife, my kids... none of that is real... the last 10 years of my life are not fucking real!
The lamp started to grow wider and deeper, it was still inverted dimensions, it took up my entire perspective and all I could see was red, I heard voices, screams, all kinds of weird noises and I became aware of pain.... a fucking shit ton of pain... the first words I said were "I'm missing teeth" and opened my eyes. I was laying on my back on the sidewalk surrounded by people that I didn't know, lots were freaking out, I was completely confused.
at some point a cop scooped me up, dragged/walked me across the sidewalk and grass and threw me face down in the back of a cop car, I was still confused.
I was taken to the hospital by the cop (seems he didn't want to wait for the ambulance to arrive) and give CT scans and shit..
I went through about 3 years of horrid depression, I was grieving the loss of my wife and children and dealing with the knowledge that they never existed, I was scared that I was going insane as I would cry myself to sleep hoping I would see her in my dreams. I never have, but sometimes I see my son, usually just a glimpse out of my peripheral vision, he is perpetually 5 years old and I can never hear what he says.
An obvious question about this account is whether it's real. It has a distinctive greentext feeling, and those wise in the ways of the internet would rightly suspect it's one of these darned 4chans anons trolling us all.
The answer is: does it matter?
The very fact we can conceive of such a story constitutes an irreconcilable doubt of reality.
If "reality" was undeniably "real", we could never doubt any aspect of it. But, we can. We can have an experience that seems entirely "real", yet at some later point is resolved to have been "unreal", such as a dream.
Then how can be sure that anything is "real"? How can you be sure what you experience right now is real?
The answer is: you can't.
Like the odd lampshade, this tiny speck of doubt, being irreconcilable, must grow to encompass and undermine our entire field of perception.
It becomes the Great Doubt as taught in the Zen tradition.
With this one story, the whole concept of "real" is definitively refuted.
It will be difficult to accept, so I'll try to explain that further.
Suppose we construct a dichotomous definition that every phenomenon behaves as either a particle or a wave. Then, if we ever find even a single phenomenon that is both a particle and a wave - then our definition itself has irrevocably relinquished any claim to be a universal law. For example, we can no longer assume that anything is a wave just because it's not a particle, or vice versa. In fact the dichotomy itself is refuted, since a single phenomenon can be both - so wave and particle are not mutually exclusive, hence there is no dichotomy between them.
In the same way, if we are in a dream, and there is no way for us to realize that we are in a dream, we can never be sure of "reality".
How can we know we are not dreaming in this very moment?
We can't be.
In fact the very definition of "real" loses all meaning. At any moment, we can't be sure if we, our lampshade, or every single aspect of our "reality" is in fact "real". It could all be a dream.
This is like repeating a word until it loses all meaning. A silly exercise, right? Yet it is exactly like mindfulness meditation, or staring at that lampshade. By bringing it repeatedly to our attention, we realize, first, that the glaze of meaning our consciousness coats it with - is in fact a fabrication. It is empty and false. You can do this with a word, a concept, an idea, an object.
Nothing is "real". "Real" itself isn't "real".
The great secret of the story is that you don't have to find an odd lampshade. It would certainly make the task easier. But if you are so inclined, feel free to meditate on your own personal and ordinary lampshade. You will find it equally beneficial.
What does it mean for the lampshade to be real?
Our whole view of life is founded upon concepts that seem perfectly solid, yet have no validity at all.
What is "real"? What does the definition even mean?
Now suppose that in the last month of the hot season a mirage were shimmering, and a man with good eyesight were to see it, observe it, & appropriately examine it. To him—seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it—it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in a mirage? In the same way, a monk sees, observes, & appropriately examines any perception that is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near. To him—seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it—it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in perception?
-- Pheṇa Sutta - SN 22:95
So that's the secret of the story in the comment. And what's the secret of Buddhism?
That the Buddha isn't real.
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