What is Reality?

Reality bites. Or so the expression goes... I was thinking the other day about this very topic.. or rather, not so much that reality bites, but more so about reality itself. (We can all thank the Matrix for involving us in these thought provoking mental discussions.) All jokes aside, it's something legitimate to think about, because I mean, we all day dream, night dream, imagine things, fantasize about a better life, and watch movies or read books that seem to immerse us in a totally different universe.

Princeton University defines reality as 1. "world: all of your experiences that determine how things appear to you; 'his world was shattered,' we live in different worlds,' 'for them deamons were as much a part of reality as trees were.' By that definition, there's a really broad interpretation of what it actually is. If you think about that, I mean, all of this stuff about nature vs nurture comes into play. What if a child was brainwashing into thinking that people of a certain ethnicity are actually Satanic beings in disguise, for example? So, they went on to believe for the rest of their life that those people were indeed evil and connected to Satan. Obviously this isn't reality, or can we definitively make this statement, because for that peerson, obviously their experiences determine what their reality is.

Princeton also defines reality as; 2. "the state of being actual or real; 'the reality of his situation dawned on him.' By this definition, reality itself is something real, or somethign with verified existence. Verified existence... Well, for me that would mean something that I can confirm with my senses or logic. But then how come dreams allow me to both see, feel, hear, and maybe even smell and taste things that aren't supposed to be there? Maybe this assumption that dreams are not "real" is bullshit, and indeed, we're just sleeping all the time and when we "wake up" after a really weird dream, we just go to another layer of sleeping. Why do we have routine? Good question, maybe it's just some Groundhog Day phenomenon within one massive dream that we're either having naturally, or induced into (think Matrix). I mean, how do you really know that you're awake?

The reason why I think and discuss this at the moment is because I woke up Sunday morning around 8:00. Between 8:00 and 8:41, I was brushing my teeth in my bathroom, next to a fairly attractive girl who was most certainly not my sister nor anyone that would legitimately be in my house at 8 in the morning on Sunday, whom I brushed past on the way out of the bathroom. I could feel the warmth of that person's skin when I walked out of the bathroom and it was not only kind of a weird experience all in all, it was seemingly very real. However, I woke up at 8:41 that morning, unshowered, teeth not brushed. I don't sleep walk or anything like that. So I had to be dreaming, didn't I?

I've always thought it interesting to think about things like the whole giant-dream concept, which also brings up a lot of other interesting points about what is life but a transition from one place to another, be it earth to Heaven/Hell, or from one dream to another. Kind of makes you think, was that deja vu, or was that a symptom of some dreamlike state?

I mean, what honestly can you say about a dream? Is it our ID living out its innermost desires and pleasures. A drunken house-party in your mind, if you will, or are they possibly something more real than that, maybe a past life, or alternate reality.

To end on a geeky note, consider this comment made in a Mythbuster's episode. It was a joke, but no less thought provoking than something serious;

"I reject your reality, and substitute my own!" - Adam Savage