How do you know what's real if dreams feel so realistic?

Answer 1

That's an interesting question. That's where the idea of pinching yourself, or having someone else pinch you, to see if you are dreaming came from. So, I suppose pinching yourself might work. Pain works differently in dreams for the most part. :) Probably the other part is just being very observant of details. No matter how "real" a video game might feel, there are holes... things you can't do, details that are not present. The same with dreams. We create a reality in our heads, but there are logical jumps that you can't make in reality, and details that are usually not there. For the most part, we dream scenarios in our minds... little stories that help us work out things that are bothering us or that we are hoping for. Dreams typically put us in situations that we won't see in real life... and dreams fade. Usually if you don't write them down right after you have them, the memory starts to degrade, and your conscious mind can't grasp it easily again. Exceptions are repetitive dreams, where you dream the same thing over and over again. How do we know what is real? ... usually by testing the boundaries of what we see as reality, and learning from that. Even in "reality" some people base decisions on things that are not "real." ... People get murdered over property in Video Games, for instance. Life has bigger consequences than dreams, although dreams are one of our body's ways of blowing off stress and keeping us sane. One of the best ways to know what reality is, is to compare our view of reality with other people's view... especially people who we have share experiences with. Talking about it, and seeing where our views overlap will usually bring us closer to a shared view of what is real and what isn't.