are we dreaming?
- 1 mini have this habit of watching random sci-fi or philosophy videos or podcasts to fall asleep. most of the time, i barely get through the first few minutes before drifting off. but the other night, one video grabbed my attention and wouldn’t let go. it was about the “butterfly dream paradox,” a simple yet mind-bending story from the chinese philosopher zhuangzi.
here’s how it goes: zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly, freely fluttering about, completely lost in the joy of being a butterfly. in that moment, he wasn’t zhuangzi—he was just a butterfly, living its life. then he woke up. as he lay there, he couldn’t shake the question: was he zhuangzi who had dreamt of being a butterfly, or was he a butterfly now dreaming of being zhuangzi?
at first, i thought, “cool story,” but then it hit me. how do we even know what’s real? dreams can feel so vivid—sometimes even more real than waking life. so, what if everything we call “reality” is just another layer of dreaming?
the more i thought about it, the more it felt like the paradox wasn’t just about dreams but about questioning everything we assume to be true. are we really who we think we are, or are we just playing out some kind of elaborate illusion? and honestly, does it even matter?
this is what i love about philosophy, it doesn’t try to give you neat answers. instead, it leaves you sitting with the questions, that slight unease that keeps your brain turning. zhuangzi’s butterfly doesn’t tell us what’s real; it simply reminds us that the line between dreaming and waking might be thinner than we think.
as someone who loves sci-fi, this idea felt strangely familiar. whether it’s alternate realities, simulations, or the nature of consciousness, the questions are the same: what’s real, and how can we ever know for sure?
i didn’t get much sleep that night, ironically. but maybe that’s okay. sometimes, it’s the questions—not the answers—that make life interesting.