About Dreams (where P and P meet # ll)

One of my oldest friends in P&Q, Hazle, quoted from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem “The Higher Pantheism”: “Dreams are true whilst they last, and do we not live in dreams?”

“Dreams are true whilst they last” is a striking thought. It feels true because it touches on the impermanence of all things—dreams included—and reminds us that reality itself may not be so different. Isn’t reality just another dream? What separates the two? Perhaps only the solidity of what we call reality—the sense of tangibility. Yet what if “tangible” and “solid” are only degrees of focus within a particular dream, and the intangible or blurred is simply the part of the picture beyond our zoom?

One of the great achievements of cinema is precisely this power to question the frame of reality. In its glossy, almost naïve package (necessary for its cultural moment, to reach the masses rather than a few philosophers), The Matrix put forward one of humanity’s oldest and most profound questions: Is the real world really real?

Idealist and realist philosophers, as well as materialists, have wrestled with this question for centuries. Some currents of idealism, especially in radical forms like solipsism, went so far as to claim that not only is the world unreal, but that no other mind exists besides my own.
Descartes, in his Meditations on First Philosophy, did not go that far, yet he did raise a doubt, one similar to Matrex's almost 400 years before. He imagined the possibility of a powerful deceiver—the malin génie (evil demon)—who might be tricking him about the existence of the external world. In this thought experiment, he questioned the certainty of reality, centuries before science fiction dressed the same doubt in digital code.

To answer Hazle, perhaps everything that lasts—even briefly—is real. Not only as a quantum vibration but also as a lived reality, dreams included. A dream may be a reflection of certain “solid” realities refracted through our primary focus of consciousness. According to some esoteric traditions—for instance, the Toltec teachings—there may be hundreds of overlapping realities, some say as many as six hundred, each accessible by shifts in perception.

It is a very interesting idea. It opens the question of dream versus reality, suggesting that both dreams and waking life may be real, though in different registers.

But, to me, the world of dreams is vast and difficult to untangle. It rests on perception, which may or may not be anchored in truth.

For example, paranoia is also like a dream, but shaped by fear and suspicion, convincing yet without ground outside the mind. It shows how fragile the boundary is: what feels real can quickly collapse under closer look. Reality proves itself not by how vivid it seems, but by lasting when tested against other perspectives. Dreams and paranoia may create whole worlds, but only reality remains when those worlds disappear.

Snooze, thank you so much for your thought-provoking response. Here is my long-winded answer. Sorry, it was so much to cover; you’ve really opened new cans of worms.

Your concerns about paranoia and mental illness are valid, yet placing them in perspective with reality is itself another dream~or perhaps better said, dreams are zoomed-out projections of other realities layered upon ours, or the reality we choose to focus on until it becomes tangible and solid.
The dichotomy between dream and reality is like that between motion and stillness. Everything is in motion; motion is absolute, while stillness does not exist—except in relation, or in the divine. Take our home, for example: it feels still when we leave it for work, yet in truth it is not still at all, it spins with Earth, which orbits the sun, while the solar system itself moves through the galaxy, and so on. Or think of the apple thrown upward in a moving train, it falls straight down in relation to the thrower, yet not in absolute terms. Likewise, dream is definite, while reality is relative.
When we sleep, our point of reference ~or what Don Juan calls the assemblage point, shifts, exposing us to other, often neighbouring, realities. The solidity of this reality blurs, and others come into focus. Dreaming is nothing but exposure to another reality. Such shifts also happen outside of sleep~through mental, emotional, or physical trauma. But here, the shift can become distorted and incomprehensible, producing visions that appear untreatable to others.
Every image, hallucinatory, paranoid, distorted- remains an image of something real. No matter how warped, nightmares, art, or delusions are reflections refracted through concave and convex mirrors, distorted yet still rooted in something beyond themselves.
So when you say, “Dreams and paranoia may create whole worlds, but only reality remains when those worlds disappear,” I would answer: dreams and paranoia are themselves part of reality. Both are shifts in the focal point of vision.
What remains constant across these shifting worlds is the point of reference. Everything in this reality is reflected in others, only interpreted differently. Dreams are interpretations, but not the same interpretation as the “solid” reality we cling to. That solidity is itself another dream, one we learn to focus on so intently that it becomes stone-like. Its “solidity” is only the effect of zoom.
The only unchanged presence, if seen by true eyes, is the Absolute, appearing as God to some, or as the stone idol to the so-called “primitive” man.
In schizophrenic patients, this becomes painfully clear: their reference point keeps shifting, and they are unprepared to manage it. Trauma fractures their vision of the norm, and this discrepancy makes them appear strange, both to others and to themselves. Stress then disrupts their biochemical balance, which in turn affects brain function. Sometimes the brain dysfunction occurs simultaneously with, or even prior to, the shift in vision.
We must remember that what we call “reality” is itself a focus learned and reinforced from birth. Parents steadily shift the newborn into this shared vision, schooling them until it feels solid. Anything that does not conform to it is then dismissed as unreal or insane.

Whilst the argument is compelling in its poetic breadth, it also invites the critique of collapsing categories, romanticising illness, and leaning on metaphysics where empirical distinctions remain necessary.

The claim that dreams and paranoia are themselves part of reality risks blurring categories that matter. Certainly, dreams occur in reality, taking place in the brain and shaped by consciousness; but to call them realities in themselves confuses occurrence with truth. Without such distinctions, the very tools we use to diagnose illness, to test claims, and to distinguish the verifiable from the hallucinatory lose their force.

The analogy drawn between motion and stillness is striking but limited. Motion is measurable; it can be calculated and confirmed by experiment. Stillness, even if relative, remains a useful and valid description within specific frames of reference. Dreams, however, cannot be treated in the same way. They are not simply alternative frames of reality but phenomena whose contents can be false, misleading, or destructive. To equate them with waking life risks erasing the pragmatic necessity of a shared ground.

The discussion of schizophrenia is also open to challenge. To frame it as merely a shifting reference point may inadvertently romanticise a condition that is devastating in lived experience. Mental illness cannot be reduced to metaphor. There are neurological, chemical, and genetic causes that distinguish psychosis from the dream state. To describe all as mirrors reflecting something real risks overlooking the material and biological suffering that defines illness.

The invocation of the Absolute as an unchanged presence, whether as God, idol, or beyond, is rhetorically powerful but philosophically fragile. If everything else is relative, why should such an anchor exist? Its introduction appears less as a conclusion drawn from the argument than as a metaphysical patch for the instability created by the collapsing of categories.

Finally, the claim that reality is only a learned focus, schooled into children by parents, suggests arbitrariness where there may instead be necessity. Shared reality is not simply another dream zoomed in; it is a negotiated, intersubjective field that allows for communication, survival, and critique. To dismiss it as illusion risks undermining the very possibility of challenging reality’s exclusions and injustices.

First of all, thank you for responding and presenting such a strong argument.

Dear Snooze, let me begin with your last paragraph and work back to your first. Your reading seems based on the assumption that my argument denies the elements you mention—“a negotiated, intersubjective field that allows for communication, survival,” etc., but that is not the case. When one zooms in on reality, more elements appear. I did not focus on those because my concern was describing what happens when the focal point itself shifts.

For the materialist, “solid” reality is like stone: the idol upon which they rest their faith. When you zoom in on a reality, losing focus is indeed damaging, for then you lose the very subject of study. This is precisely why societies enforce and sustain focus; as you note, losing it can be dangerous, like what we see in mental illness. Only those with years of practice can afford to let their focus slip without harm.

This does not mean I deny medical treatment, neurological disease, or biochemical imbalance. To assume so is mistaken. Such factors may be cause or effect of a shift in reference point—especially in schizophrenic patients. My argument includes medical and scientific frameworks, and may even broaden the way such treatment is understood. To claim I “reduce them to metaphor” is a misreading.

The point is: when you focus within this reality, all sciences and technologies are valid; they correspond and reinforce one another. But when the focus shifts, they no longer hold in the same way. Non-Euclidean geometry has merit within its framework, but collapses if applied within relativity. Likewise, Newton remains valid within his frame, even as Einstein redefines the broader field. Categories blur when focus shifts, but we blur them on purpose. And we can always zoom back in, restoring categories to sharp relief. What is required is flexibility, the willingness to zoom in and out as needed. Without it, we remain bound to a rigid, mechanical materialism.

As you might guess, shifting focus alters categories themselves. But this is not cause for fear—they remain intact whenever we return. The most obvious analogy is the shift from Newtonian to Einsteinian physics: one frame valid within its bounds, another valid in the broader view.

The danger lies in treating “solid reality” as absolute. Though materialists deny absolutes, they unknowingly worship one, their own absolutized matter. In this sense, materialist dialectics deny their very dialectic.

So, returning to your opening critique: you are right that categories collapse when we shift focus, but they collapse temporarily, for the sake of study, not denial. The charge of “romanticism” does not apply; my argument does not reject the coherence and uniformity of empirical study. Rather, it suggests that if we pull our heads—the hardest task, out of the cocoon braided around us since birth, and allow these realities to blur for a while, we might notice other realities with their own coherence and uniformity. Not fantasies, but worlds revealed whenever we dare to shift the lens.

Thank you for clarifying. I see your point about focus shifting rather than denying categories, and the analogy with Newton and Einstein is helpful. I still think the challenge is how far that flexibility can stretch before coherence itself is lost, but I take your argument that the collapse is temporary, a method rather than a denial.