Some days, the dreams are absent. I don’t know what to make of those. It’s as if access to this other dimension is fleeting, available only when it wants to be. Are there dreams locked away, that I just can’t access? Or are they there, but I just can’t recall? Or is it all just some kind of illusion, some kind of augmented reality that exists in my head but nowhere else?

Is there a cause for when the dreams appear? For when I can recall them? Is there a cause for their enchanting parallel to my waking life? Is it just nonsense? Or coincidence? Is it just random conscious awareness of relatively recent memories, and story making from them?

What brings it on? What settles it? Why sometimes mundane and other times so bizarre?

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This organic brain is like two beings. One that controls the body’s general physical needs, and another that constructs complex motivations to get the body in trouble. It’s this second one that suffers emotions and stress, euphoria and devastation. But this second one is just a manifestation of the physical body, of the physical mind. It’s relatively easily tamed with pharmaceuticals and alcohol. It’s when it’s not tamed that the seams begin to break and the nougat of negative self-image oozes out.

And what a mess it makes. It’s so hard to clean up.

But what is this moment? Is it an organic, analog reaction to a realistic world? Is it an algorithmic effect, a result of some algorithmic cause? Why does this moment exist? What is its cause? Does it even subscribe to cause and effect? Can our brains even process a phenomenon that doesn’t?

How does one probe reality to determine if it’s real or just a simulation?