Anyone who has experienced the phenomenon of false awakenings, waking from a dream only to find she has entered yet another dream, has pondered the question of whether the dream is perhaps the true reality, and the waking world a fraud.

In the movie “Inception,” dreamers who spend countless hours plumbing the depths of the dreamscape are warned that they may begin to confuse dreams with reality.

Dreamers aren’t the only ones who question the reality of the wake world.  The Hindus call our material existence, the world of the senses, “Maya” or illusion. Metaphysicians tell us that what we perceive as solid and real is merely energy masquerading as matter.

Dreams offer a different perspective on what’s “real.” In dreams, after all, we are released from the world of the senses. Eyes closed, sensory perceptions dulled, body all but immobile, consciousness is free to explore the world beyond the physical senses; beyond the model our waking brain constructs of waking reality.

Whatever one believes about dreams: philosophically, psychologically, metaphysically or scientifically, perhaps we can agree on this: One of the greatest gifts of dreaming, is the opportunity to get a new perspective on our world and on our lives.