“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” Albert Einstein.

Warning: mind twisting theories and ‘what if’s’ ahead. If you enjoy challenging your current beliefs and ideas, continue on and happy reading!

I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t interested in the concept of reality. It seems as though it has always been something floating around in the back of my mind, a question I would always try to answer, but never could. It was only until recently that I began to understand what reality is. Well, understand is a bit of a stretch. I’m not sure I’ll ever fully understand its meaning, but a couple of pieces of the puzzle are beginning to come together for me.

Let’s start from the beginning. From a young age, we’ve been taught that reality is everything we see around us. We’ve been taught that reality is everything we can touch, see, smell, taste, and hear. Anything else isn’t considered ‘real’, but this idea isn’t necessarily true, is it? Our thoughts are real. We can’t experience them with any of our five senses, yet there they are.

This is where my journey began. I’ve always had a very active imagination, so I couldn’t help but wonder, what are thoughts anyway? Where do they come from? How do they manifest in my mind? How do I ‘hear’ them without actually hearing them with my ears?

These are the types of questions I thought about as a child, and still do. I found that no matter how many times I asked those questions, I could never seem to find an answer. It’s frustrating, of course, it’s in human nature to be curious and want answers, but if you’ve ever studied philosophy, you know that sometimes you just have to accept that you won’t always find the answers. In fact, sometimes you’ll just find more questions. Still, that doesn’t stop me from searching, and it shouldn’t stop you either.

Back to the concept of reality and thoughts, I found that they both go hand in hand, and aren’t as different as they seem. While following my intense curiosity to figure out what exactly reality is, I learned a lot of things. There are so many theories and ideas out there, and some seem absolutely insane but are still incredibly intriguing. One of the biggest ideas that stuck out to me was the Law of Attraction.

The Law of Attraction

“What we focus on, we will attract. Everything we experience in our life is dictated by our own mind. It is important to just focus on thinking about what you want and get emotionally involved to attract it into your life.” Bob Proctor

You may have heard of the Law of Attraction. This is the idea that you create your own reality and attract situations, people and things into your life. The Law of Attraction works a bit like Karma. While Karma is the idea that what you do to others will be done to you, the Law of Attraction states that the thoughts and energies you send out will be sent back to you.

This means that if you have a very negative mindset and are constantly in a low vibration and energy, the universe will match that vibration and send you people, situations and things to fulfil your expectations.  

When I first heard of this, I was very intrigued. As someone who always loved fantasy, this sounded like the closest thing to magic I could get. It was difficult to digest at first, especially since my mindset had been filled with limiting and negative beliefs, but as I kept studying and learning, I found it resonating with me more and more.

I felt so excited as I continued to learn about the Law of Attraction and just how powerful my thoughts are, as well as their influence over my physical reality. Finally, all my searching was leading me somewhere. It felt as though I had been stumbling in the dark for so long and finally, I found a spark of light, lighting up my path.

Despite my excitement, I still had many unanswered questions; and the more I learned, the more questions came up.

We create the world around us

“Everything is within your power, and your power is within you.” Janice Trachtman

There was one specific idea that really stuck with me. The idea that reality is the projection of our inner selves. That means the situations, people and places we come into contact with are all created by our thoughts, emotions energies, and unconscious beliefs.

There is one theory that really caught me by surprise. It made me feel uneasy at first, but I couldn’t help but follow my curiosity and learn some more about it. This theory offered the idea that nothing is real outside of you.

This means, that everything you see, everything you feel and experience, even the people you come into contact with, were all created by you, whether you’re conscious of it or not, because everything is a projection of you.  

This theory made me feel very lonely. If everything is me, am I the only one here? Does that mean no one else exists at all? How could that be?

Of course, there is no way to prove this is true, but at the same time, there is no way to prove it untrue.

Feeling very doubtful, I decided to do some more research, and I found something even more intriguing.

The Multiverse Theory

The idea of the multiverse is that there are an infinite number of different realities that exist, not just this singular reality as we’ve been taught to believe. This idea says that many different versions of reality exist, occupying the same space in the universe, so we can’t see them with our eyes.

This theory suggests that if you’ve ever faced a decision or a choice, those choices, even the ones you didn’t take, exist. For example, if you were faced with the choice of going to law school or going to culinary school and you decided to go to law school, there is a parallel reality where you went to culinary school instead.

It’s an interesting concept to ponder, though it can definitely be hard to grasp. When I first heard of this theory, it felt as though my entire sense of reality had been flipped on its head. All of a sudden, I was overflowing with more and more unanswered questions.

I soon realized I had reached the point of no return. There was no way I could go back to how my life was before I started asking these questions, and I had no choice but to continue on my path of discovery. So, despite the confusion I felt, I kept looking.

Is anyone else real?

I recently came across a theory called Solipsism. According to Wikipedia, Solipsism is defined as-  

“the philosophical idea that only one’s mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one’s own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind.”

This might sound very strange to a lot of people, it almost scared me off when I first heard of it, but let’s entertain the idea for a moment and combine it with the theory of the multiverse. What if you are the only conscious being in your world? What if the people you see and interact around you are only conscious in their world?

Truth is, you can’t prove if anyone else if conscious. You know you are conscious because you feel and experience, but you can’t feel or experience the perspective and reality of others. Does this mean no one outside of you exists?

What if, there are billions of different realities, much like the multiverse theory suggests, and everyone you see and know do exist, with the idea of consciousness equaling existence, but on a completely different parallel reality that you can’t feel or experience?

This idea would tie into the idea that you create everything in your reality, whether you are conscious of it or not. This would then answer the question of ‘If I’m a powerful creator who creates everything in my reality, how does that work for other people, who are also powerful creators? How do we all create our own realities without throwing one another into complete chaos?’

If the idea of parallel realities and Solipsism exists, then it would make sense if each person you come across exists in their own separate reality, where they are free to manifest whatever it is they desire while you are free to create the life you want in your reality.

Still with me?

Does that mean any reality you can imagine exists somewhere?

“In an infinite multiverse, there is no such thing as fiction.” Scott Adsit

While we’re talking about the idea of multiple realities and parallel universes, let’s take a closer look. We’ve already discussed the idea that every decision you’ve taken or not taken in your life exists in another parallel reality. Then comes the question, what are the boundaries? Are there any limitations?  

There are many stories about people suddenly shifting into a parallel reality, some which sound quite strange and very different from our own. There are also people out there who believe that every thought we have, anything we can imagine exists somewhere, otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to have the thought in the first place.

If this were true, that would mean that anything you could possibly think about actually exists in a completely different reality.  Sounds confusing yet interesting, doesn’t it?

Are we living in a matrix?

If you’ve ever seen the movie “The Matrix” you may have been left wondering about the possibility that we are living in a simulation. It certainly makes for an interesting thought. Despite the fact that “The Matrix” is defined as fiction, many people believe that this idea could be true. This theory is known as the simulation hypothesis.

The simulation hypothesis is the idea that everything you can see, feel, touch and experience is really nothing more than a computer simulation, sort of like a very realistic virtual reality. It also suggests that this reality, or simulation, consists of both conscious and unconscious minds (or computer-generated people who don’t actually exist) and that it’s nearly impossible to tell which from which.

Although maybe slightly absurd, this is an interesting theory to consider. The simulation hypothesis suggests that if we are living in a computer simulation, that would mean that only a small fraction of the population are truly conscious beings, while a majority of the population are computer generated or unconscious beings.

How would we be able to tell a conscious person from a false one? It would have to be a perfect program without any glitches for this to work, otherwise the possibility would exist for someone to figure it out and thus, prove this theory to be true.

This theory also suggests that perhaps reality is a computer-generated simulation and that we are a part of this computer code. If this were true, who or what created this simulation in the first place? And for what reason?

This theory also explores the idea that everything you feel, think and act upon is nothing more than a computer design which has been programmed into you. This is an unnerving thought to consider. If this hypothesis were true, would that mean there is no such thing as free will?

If we are nothing but a string of code, do we even exist at all?

Conclusion

The concept of reality is an idea which philosophers have been trying to understand for centuries, and while many theories and ideas exist, no one truly knows what reality is.

Perhaps we are living in an infinite multiverse where anything we can imagine exists in a parallel reality, or maybe we are in a game or simulation like the Matrix, and we are all walking around completely unaware.

No matter how farfetched these theories may sound, the truth is that there’s no way to prove or disprove them. Does that mean we’ll never know what reality is? Maybe, but that doesn’t stop me from searching for answers, and it shouldn’t stop you either.