Is this a dream or is it real? Is the mind the answer?🌤

 

Is this a dream or is it real?”

We experience life through our senses — eyes, ears, touch, memory, feelings.
But senses can be fooled. Dreams feel real while we are inside them.
So how do we know we are awake now?

The simple answer is:
We don’t know reality directly.
We only know our experience of it.

However, there is something that makes waking life different from dreams:

In dreams, things change without rules.

In waking life, reality follows consistent laws (gravity, time, cause–effect).

Other people exist independently of our thoughts (they surprise us, disagree with us, teach us).

So this world has structure, stability, and independent existence. That suggests:
This is real, not a dream — but we experience it through our mind.

“Is the mind the answer?”

The mind is not the creator of reality, but it is the translator of reality.

Think of it like this:

RealityMindThe world, events, people, experiencesHow we interpret, feel, and understand them

Reality is outside us.

Meaning is inside us.

So yes — the mind shapes the meaning of what we experience.

For example:

One person sees rain and feels sad.

Another sees rain and feels peace.

The rain is the same — only the mind’s interpretation is different.

So what is the truth?

Reality = the world outside Dream = the world inside the mind Life = both together

We live in a real world,
but we experience it through the lens of our mind.

Your mind is not the final answer,
but it is the key to understanding, peace, and clarity.

A shorter, poetic version:

This life is real,
but we see it through the window of the mind.
Clean the window — and the world becomes clear.

A Deeper Poetic Reflection

Perhaps reality is not a place,
but a movement.

A breath rising,
a breath falling.

The world outside
and the world inside
meet somewhere you cannot point to with your finger.

Call it the heart.
Call it the soul.
Call it the secret place where you feel without speaking.

You ask:

Is this a dream, or is it real?

Maybe the answer is not yes or no.

Maybe reality is both: a dream that touches you,
a dream you cannot wake from because you are the waking.

Look around:

The wind moves the leaves.
But what moves you?

Not the body —
there is something deeper than muscle and bone.

A quiet awareness…
a witness.

It watches your sadness,
your happiness,
your fear,
your laughter.

It watches your thoughts come and go
like clouds that do not belong to the sky.

This witness — this silent seeing —
has never changed, even while everything in your life keeps changing.

Your face changed,
your voice changed,
your beliefs changed,
your heart was broken and healed
and broken again.

But the one who watched those moments
…remained.

That is the real.

Not the dream,
not the world that fades,
but the one who sees it.

The mind is not the answer.
It is only the door.

Step through it —
into that silent, watching presence
that has been with you
since the first breath.

There —
you will find something that cannot be named,
but you will recognize it
as home.

There comes a moment in every human life
— perhaps after a heartbreak,
or in the silence of midnight,
or while staring at the ceiling in the dark —
when the question rises quietly:

“What is all of this?”

The sky, the body, the breath,
the laughter between friends,
the tears no one sees,
the pain we hide,
the hope we hold,
the love we chase—

Is it real?
Or is it all a flicker,
a candle flame in a vast darkness
that we cannot name?

Let us look closer.

There is the world outside: the soil beneath the feet,
the taste of warm tea,
the distant sound of a motorcycle on the road at night,
the softness of your pillow when you are tired.

This world has weight, shape, and form.
You touch it, and it touches you back.

But there is also another world:
the one inside.

Where feelings rise like tides,
where memories play themselves again and again,
where thoughts argue and whisper,
and dreams bloom like night flowers
in a place no one else can enter.

This inside world is just as real —
maybe even more real —
because everything you experience
first passes through it.

The world outside shapes you.
But the world inside creates you.

So then you ask:

If all things are seen through the mind,
how can we ever be sure what is real?

Here is the quiet truth:

You are not your thoughts.
Thoughts come and go.
Like wind crossing a field of tall grass.

You are not your emotions.
Feelings rise, swell, fade, return, disappear.
Like waves on the shore.

You are not the body.
The body changes every year
like seasons turning over a lifetime.

So who are you?

Who is the one who notices thoughts? Who is the one who feels the feelings? Who is the one who watches the body change?

This watcher — this silent presence —
does not move, does not age, does not break.

Even when the heart shattered,
it remained.

Even when you cried into your pillow,
it was there, witnessing, silent, patient.

It is the same awareness that was with you
when you were seven years old,
when you were twelve,
when you were fifteen,
and now.

Everything changed. But the one who is aware of the change
has not changed.

That is the real.

Life is like a dream in this sense: the forms shift, the moments dissolve, people enter and leave like characters in a story.

But the one who is aware of the dream
is not the dream.

The one who watches the mind
is not the mind.

The watcher is deeper than thought,
older than identity,
softer than memory,
closer than breathing.

This silent presence
is like the sky —
vast, open, untouched.

Your thoughts and feelings
are clouds passing through.

Let them pass.
Do not chase them.
Do not fear them.
Do not trust everything they say.

Just watch.

Because in watching,
you begin to remember:

You are not the storm.
You are the sky.

This is not something learned.
It is something remembered.
Something you have always known,
but forgotten for a little while
in the noise of living.

Come back to the quiet witness inside you.

There —
you will find a peace that does not depend
on who loves you,
or who leaves,
or what the world becomes.

There —
you will find a reality
that does not fade.

In moments of silence, when the world grows quiet and the heart becomes still, a question rises gently within the human soul:

Is this life real, or is it like a dream?

Islam teaches us that this world, Dunya, is real — but it is not the final reality. It is a temporary place, a passing stage, a brief shadow compared to the eternal life of the Hereafter.

Allah Almighty says:

“This worldly life is nothing but play and amusement.
But the Home in the Hereafter is the real life — if only they knew.”
(Qur’an 29:64)

Like a dream we experience in sleep — intense, emotional, sometimes joyful, sometimes painful — dunya feels completely real while we live it.
But when we awaken in the next life, we will realize how short and fragile this world truly was.

The Mind and the Heart

Allah has given us a mind to understand and a heart to recognize truth.

The mind sees the world.
The heart sees meaning.

The mind studies creation.
The heart turns toward the Creator.

The mind asks, “Is this life real?”
The heart answers, “Yes — but it is not the end.”

The Prophet ﷺ said:

“Be in this world as though you were a stranger,
or a traveler passing through.”
(Sahih Bukhari)

This world is like a short stop on a long journey.
No traveler builds a palace on the road.
They rest, they continue, they keep moving toward their true home.

The Nature of Dunya

In Islam, dunya is not evil.
It is a test, a training ground for the soul.

We laugh, we cry, we love, we lose.
These experiences shape our hearts, soften us, humble us, and turn us toward Allah.

Hardship teaches the heart to seek.
Pain teaches the soul to pray.
Loss teaches us that nothing belongs to us except our deeds.

Allah says:

“He created death and life to test which of you is best in deeds.”
(Qur’an 67:2)

So the question is not whether life is real —
but whether we remember its purpose.

This Life is a Bridge

Imagine standing on a bridge.

You do not stop to decorate it.
You do not build your house upon it.
You simply cross it.

Dunya is that bridge.

And the Prophet ﷺ told us:

“The world is a prison for the believer
and a paradise for the disbeliever.”
(Sahih Muslim)

Because the believer knows: This world is not home.
This world is preparation.

Our real home is with Allah — a home where there is no fear, no pain, no loneliness, and no separation.

The Soul Remembers

Inside every person, there is a deep, quiet memory —
the memory of standing before Allah before we were born.

“Am I not your Lord?”
They said: “Yes, we testify.”
(Qur’an 7:172)

This is why the heart feels restless in dunya.
It is searching for something it once knew.

It is searching for Allah.

And when the heart remembers Allah,
even for one sincere moment,
it feels like coming home.

Conclusion

So yes — this life is real.
But it is not permanent.

It is a path.
A lesson.
A test.
A reminder.

The true life is the life that begins after the soul leaves the body —
the life that never ends.

And the mind can think,
but only the heart can return.

Return to Allah.

This world is a lantern glowing for a moment,
a traveler’s candle burning in the night.
Its light is soft, beautiful, warm—
but it is not the sunrise.

We walk through its streets,
laughing, crying, hoping, breaking, healing.
We hold hands with people we love
only to learn that every hand we hold
will one day gently slip away.

Nothing here stays.
Not joy.
Not sorrow.
Not even us.

And yet—
something inside you remains untouched,
unbroken, unlost.

It is the soul.
The breath Allah placed inside you
before the world began.

It remembers.
Even when you forget.

It remembers the moment
you stood before your Lord
in a time before time
when He asked:

“Am I not your Lord?”

And your soul said, “Yes. You are.”

That memory lives like a quiet echo
beneath the heart’s beating.
It is the reason why you search,
why you feel something missing,
why no earthly thing ever satisfies.

Because your soul is not from here.
It was made for a world without endings.
A world where love does not break,
where joy does not fade,
where peace is not interrupted by pain.

A world where you see Allah.

So walk this life gently.
Do not cling to shadows.
Do not fear the winds of change.
Do not worship what is temporary.

Let your heart remain soft,
your tongue remain humble,
your steps remain sincere.

For this life is not the home—
It is the road.

And every prayer is a step.
Every tear is a purification.
Every patience is a key.
Every sincere “Astaghfirullah”
is a gate opening in the unseen.

You are walking,
slowly, beautifully, quietly,
back to the One
who loved you first.
The One who has always been near.
The One who waits at the end of every journey:

Allah.💖