Philosophers have wondered whether it is possible for one to ever be certain, at any given point in time, that one is not in fact dreaming, and never experience reality of wakefulness at all. Our senses allow us to perceive our environment, but is our environment part of objective reality?

Quantum fluctuations and multiverse theory suggest the possibility of multiple iterations of “you” performing different objectives at the same time. While you drove to work this morning, another version of you went to the park and took a walk. The objective reality that we experience is only a fraction of an infinite amount of possible outcomes.

Consider a raindrop and its propagating waves after a collision. Imagine the raindrop is your observable conscious system, and that each wave that it creates is an iteration of your reality. Perhaps during our REM sleep stage, which allows us some of the most intense dreaming, your current dream state isn’t a fabrication of the mind, but an observation of an alternate iteration of you in another place in space and time. Perhaps this dream state awareness or pseudo-simulation of ourselves is actually a training neural network type system that allows us to function more efficiently in our waking state.

Could datasets from dream blogging or dream recollection allow a predictive model of a more efficient self? The correlation between dreams and waking life focus could introduce a new era of self improvement and give credence and pathways to self-conscious AI.