Consciousness is a tricky subject...something I've always had fun with my entire life....

When I was 8 years old...I learned how to lucid dream (to be aware of the fact that you are dreaming and be able to consciously control your dreams) . Constant nightmares forced me to realize when I was dreaming so I could wake myself up and escape the terror. Then from that I learned to realize I was dreaming in normal dreams, and I started experimenting. After countless dreams I realized that no matter what I did, dreams never seemed less real to me than real life. I could have detailed conversations with people in my dreams, and do everything I could in real life...the only difference was that I could also do things that normally are impossible in real life.

Being somewhat of an extremist...one of my favorite things to do was jump off of the highest thing I could find in my dreams. I loved the rush I would get from free falling. Later in life when I bungee jumped, I got the same exact feeling from free falling...and it really made me wonder as I never fell from any heights before in real life to know that's what it really felt like.

For a while, even with lucid dreaming, I just accepted dreams as my brain making up a false reality for me to be in. But then I realized that I would never be able to prove that I'm not doing the same thing while I'm awake...and I knew that I could very well just be making reality up...and that's where it started getting pretty confusing. How could I ever prove that I'm really awake and not just dreaming? I would even tell people in my dreams that this was just a dream and they would laugh at me and not believe me...and I would argue with them trying to convince them but apparently I was the only one who knew I was dreaming.

I know this is a little off topic but I think it has connections with the soul and spiritual realms...as those are very hard to prove to anyone who didn't experience it for themselves...and even then it could be regarded as a hallucination...