Making our reality

“Reality is merely an illusion, although a very persistent one” Einstein

Reading through Stevens' poem, "The Idea of Order at Key West," I get the impression that reality is a dream we imagine so strongly, we make ourselves believe the dream we create is reality. "There was never a world for her/ Except the one she sang and, singing, made." The sea, the world, "whatever self it had, became the self" when she sang her song. I actually don't have many objections to this-- the idea that the world we live in is a dream. People used to think travel from one end of the U.S. to another in one day was a fantasy. Going into space-going to the moon was (and to some people, still is) impossible. Developments in medicine-- AIDS/HIV is not a death sentence. Leukemia can be cured. With imagination, we have been able to constantly re-invent/ re-order what we think of as dream and reality.

But I wonder if we are truly the ones who control the dream. Or create the whole dream? I am not sure that the world comes from the dreams of mankind (though maybe the world would not exist if we weren't conscious of it, dreaming and molding it). Maybe we are not making anything original at all- just remembering the forms of things, the lives or moments we have already lived. "These aren't dreams; these are memories" (Inception). There are few things I remember about Finnegans Wake, but I think there was an idea of that we live every person's experiences each day- It's a pattern? Like string theory- parallel lives we live- that are being lived as we live, but those other possible lives (that are maybe more than possible) just seem like dreams we can't remember. I don't know.