Musings II: Life and True Reality

Just a head's up: This is non-W101 related. This post may confuse. It may mystify. It may befuddle. It may cause the reader to have chronic daydreams about burnt penguins. It may even...do nothing.

M'kay, now that we've got that out of the way, who's ready for some ramblings about life?

I'll start off by saying: this is the counterpart (counterpost?) to my other post: The Musings of Death, the World, and the Purpose of Life. 

Rest assured, this one will definitely be more optimistic--I know I probably freaked some people out with the other post :) 

Okay, senseless babbling starting in 3...2...1....

Okay. So what is being alive? By that I mean you in a living state. 

The concrete answer, the universally (well, almost) accepted answer is: it's reality. It's the real world.   

But is it really?

Think: what if the 'real world' you see every day was just a dream, an illusion? Who's to say that maybe our living state isn't even real?

To clarify, imagine this: the world around you everday is nothing but a figment of your imagination. All the people, places, creatures, everything--are just the creations of your mind. When you die, you don't die; instead, you wake up into the true reality. 

And what if we ourselves weren't real? What if life and everything--anything--was just the products of another being's mind? What if everything we've known was nothing more than a higher being's experiment? 

I don't really know where this came from, but I read a book once (sadly, I forgot the name) that really made me rethink--what really is reality? Where is the true, ultimate state of existence?

Also, notice how this post was almost entirely questions. Because these things will probably never be answered or proven. 

So, your thoughts?

Jess.