Long time lurker here. Also long-time practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism and user of entheogens.

Sometimes people hypothesize that this reality is a dream or simulation, but then make the mistake of assuming that there's no way to really know. But there is a way to know; it's just that it's very hard to take seriously the possibility that this way of knowing can actually take place. It can. I'm not sure I can convincingly communicate how or what it might be like, but I want to try.

In a nighttime dream, it is possible to become lucid. With continued practice, it is possible to "unravel" the dream. It is as though all the sights, sounds, etc. of the dream are made of an intrinsically luminous fabric (the self-aware nature of mind; consciousness), and the whole structure of the dream can come undone -- not entirely unlike unraveling a sweater. In the process, one can discover in precise detail how (and why) every bit of the dream is constructed, and how the astonishingly clever illusion of solidity and reality is conjured. When completely unraveled, one is in the pure void of being, as though one has returned to the godhead. It is also possible to re-weave a new dream (or possibly the same one), and then "pull the wool over one's eyes" and get lost in it again, losing lucidity and forgetting about the whole trick.



The same thing can happen in this dream. However, once one falls back asleep into it, it is very hard to avoid using the dream constructs (space, time, brains, neurotransmitters, etc.) to explain the whole insight away as nonsense. And since one cannot (usually) influence the dream directly by that point, there is no way to confirm or demonstrate it. One is left sounding like a blithering idiot to others.

If you're interested in hearing this idea developed a bit more, I've thrown together some stuff on a website.

I believe that a rationalist, skeptical framework can be used to undermine the standard materialist position (and that is the perspective I take on my site). And I believe that doing so will be an important transition for humanity if it is to survive. Societal materialism (the desire to accumulate shinier matter) is an inevitable result of metaphysical materialism (the belief that all that exists is matter; life and consciousness being byproducts or illusions). You may wonder why I care that humanity survives if this is just a dream. The answer is that this is not "just" a dream; it is a miraculous, marvelous, magical dream where the well-being of all is of utmost importance. Indeed it is the whole point.

This forum is an obvious (semi-) safe space to share and to hear from others who have interesting ideas of their own to add.

Lots of love,
M

Hey friend,

I was actually thinking about all this dream, simulation stuff earlier as I was driving down the road. Coincidence? Not possible. Although, My thoughts were more centered around, why they don't know, not that they think they can't know. They think they can't know because of the why, not because of their thinking.
You can be aware and know certain truths, and that this is an illusory experience, but YOU are an illusion as well, so information is not being generated from the illusion(yourself) it is fed to you from the non-duality for reasons you cannot know. It is impossible to "know why(" be enlightened), only know of and be aware of such truths that are shared.

When one has been awakened it is permanent. It's impossible for others to understand unless they have experienced it as well.

This forum is an obvious (semi-) safe space to share and to hear from others who have interesting ideas of their own to add.

Yes I agree. I wish their was more of it here though.

Love is eternal.