Living in the Locked World

Why are dreams so real? 

They say the world is inside our heads as we can only perceive the world through the sensations we receive from our sense organs, our brain, yet another organ interprets it and tells us how’s our world. Our scientific researches too rely on our ability to sense and perceive and then consider something valid. Unlike our sensory system, this is very indirect, like finding logical languages and devising instruments approved through our sensations. And in many cases where senses appear to be deceived, we justify things using logic, yet another way to perceive. 

I was always convinced that a significant part of our lives exists only in our memories. We know people because we’ve got a memory of them, stored in some form of an experience only whether it is the direct experience of living with them or knowing them by any available means. Will we consider life and our relations with people to be the same as we do now if we’d wake up with no memory of the previous day? Probably not. Even if we don’t meet people always, the information is in our heads that they exist, and we know them. And mostly, this is what living is all about- having the memory that we’ve known each other. Knowing that a world with people exists even if we aren’t able to witness it at times directly. I’m not discussing the simulation theory of our existence but talking on similar lines (the idea that we’re living in a simulated world). 

I’ve been so convinced that one fine evening I came up with a thought, and it never left. So the theory is (Yes! Theory! Because that’s how you make things look legit) that we don’t exist anywhere except in memories and all of our relationships with anyone else is just an effort to live, what we call the survival extinct. Let’s put it in this way that just as the complexity of “life” from a biological perspective where a unicellular organism is simpler than a multicellular organism, similarly from a metaphysical perspective, “living” isn’t an exclusive event which we experience being in a body. Instead, “living” too can be classified on a spectrum of simple to complex. A simple form is living in someone’s memory, which is neurological as information is stored in our brains, e.g., being known by a person (remember the movie Coco?), and a complex one being genetic transfer where we pass on genes to the next generation. 

Other examples of living are through our work, which can be writing, painting, buildings, etc. Our extreme emotions when we’re in love, and the even extreme is the break-up, are all the efforts to live in someone else. As when I carry your memories within me, I’m carrying a part of your life that will keep you alive until I remember you. And when I’m missing you replaying the moments we spent together, I’m keeping you alive, and you too are doing the same.

After spending this much time alone while going through the global health crisis, it feels I’m able to experience more vividly what’s already known in theory. The concept of reality existing only in our heads and us living only in someone’s memories. As if it’s all just a dream going on, and I’m living through it except that it doesn’t end when I wake up to differentiate between dream and reality. 

The better part of living in pre-COVID 19 worlds was the illusion was extraordinarily seamless, and realization of things being only in our heads needed cognitive efforts, so the illusion of reality was let’s say “real” for the lack of better word. But the post-COVID 19 worlds have made those illusions a little ineffective, and the brain can experience the glitch while perceiving reality. The connection with the outside world is confined through texts, video calls, and, of course, the information and belief that people do exist. Though convincing enough yet our bodies are lacking lots of physical stimulation, especially of movement, conversations, small talks, traffic, noise, street food, unknown people around, and the feeling of feeling alone in the crowd. 

Do I miss being in the pre-COVID world? Possibly not. Am I enthusiastic about what’s next? Probably not. It’s just the sheer realization of existence, which is both disturbing and liberating at the same time. Times have been tough for a lot of people, and sitting in the corner of a room, I’ve been able to feel that pain too, and I’ve been so numb as well where the only feeling was no feeling at all. At times this sense of not feeling and not belonging falls so heavy that… I don’t know the word for it. It’s just that as that veil of illusion keeps on rising, “I” gets dissolved, and I’m seeking a balance! Maybe this is the real dream.