Between Reality and Illusion - A Study of Conscious Dreaming

 The Vivid Moment

It was one of those dreams that felt too real to question. The air warm, the light soft, everything perfectly ordinary and yet slightly enchanted.

The One I once called mine was there and we were smiling and speaking in that quiet language only memory understands. There was a gentle peace between us, the kind that used to exist before words, before endings.

Everything felt safe and almost sacred.

Until something small in the landscape, the unfamiliar streets, the way the walls seemed to shift when I turned it broke the spell.

A quiet unease stirred within me and then came the thought:

“Wait… this isn’t real.”

The moment I said it or thought it, the dream changed texture. It was as if I had stepped behind the curtain of my own mind and found myself both inside and outside the scene. I could feel the warmth but I could also see the illusion.

From that realization, I began to notice how often my nights carried me into these vivid worlds. Over the past few years, such dreams have become more frequent just like soft echoes of something unresolved.

Sometimes, I find myself returning to the same dream again and again: one where my mother, who left far too quickly because of cancer, is alive and radiant.

To be sincere, I have always cherished those dreams.

There’s a comfort in the illusion of the warmth of her presence and the way her smile lights the space. It feels more alive than memory itself, as if I am granted a few stolen moments beyond time. Watching her in those dreams isn’t like watching a Movie. It’s being there, held in the tenderness of what once was and what still lives quietly within me.

The Shift in Realizing You Are Dreaming

Psychologists describe this moment as lucid awareness, a rare bridge between sleep and consciousness. It occurs when parts of the brain’s prefrontal cortex—responsible for logic and self-recognition reactivate during REM sleep, the stage of vivid dreaming. According to research led by Stephen LaBerge at Stanford University, this reactivation allows the dreamer to perceive the illusion without breaking it. In such moments, the mind becomes both the creator and the observer, able to question reality while still feeling its emotions as truth. It’s as if consciousness briefly awakens within the architecture of memory and desire turning the dream into a living dialogue between science and soul.

The Meaning where Science Meets Soul

To wake up inside a dream is more than a neurological phenomenon. It’s a metaphor for the soul’s own awakening. Psychologically, such moments often appear when the mind is ready to integrate emotion and awareness, when what we feel and what we know finally meet. To see love inside illusion, as I did, may symbolize the recognition that even our most beautiful memories can hold both truth and fantasy.

In the dream, happiness was real yet the place was not. Perhaps that is what our consciousness tries to show us: that love, grief and longing do not end but evolve shifting from form to essence. Awareness within the dream becomes a mirror of awareness in life. The courage to open our eyes gently to what is, while honoring what was.

“Sometimes, awakening doesn’t mean opening your eyes, it means realizing you’re still dreaming.” 

Essence — Reflection for the Reader

* When was the last time you realized that something you believed real was only a reflection of desire or memory?

* Have you ever awakened inside a feeling, Recognizing it and yet knowing it no longer belongs to the present?

* What if your dreams are not escapes but gentle mirrors showing you what your waking self is not yet ready to see?

* Do you believe, as I do, that dreams are conversations between the mind and the soul, messages wrapped in symbols waiting for us to listen?

Continue exploring Essence:

• Essence — First Page
• Reading Room in Silence
• No Intention
• How Hues Shape What We Feel, Remember, and Become
• The Day I Learned My Skin Had Emotions
• Skin — Myths vs Facts