My dream life is pretty mundane. I don’t dream a lot, or at least don’t remember dreaming much. What dreams I do recall are the usual pastiche of daily sights, events, stresses and thoughts.
I’ve never had recurring dreams either, strictly speaking, but there is one sort of sleep experience that has always been with me. I occasionally awake with the overwhelming feeling—not memory, just feeling—that I’ve spent my unconscious hours living another conscious life in another reality. I have one lucid moment, a sense of stepping from one existence to another, before the feeling evaporates and I am fully awake.
And here’s the weird part.
This fleeting feeling of transition between worlds is often accompanied by a strong emotion. Sometimes I have the feeling that the existence I just left was wondrous and desirable. I am filled with a sense of loss as it slips away, leaving me to my tedious, everyday reality. Other times, I awake from an existence that seems tedious and unpleasant, and I am filled with joy to be once again in this wondrous and desirable everyday world of mine.
Is there any wisdom to be gleaned from the knowledge that this life is both the existence I seek escape from and the existence I seek escape to ?
Quantum physics tells us there may be multiple universes. Metaphysics tells us we may live multiple lives. What if both are true, and everything is simultaneous? Who will remember to feed the dog?