Stepping out of the dream, oil on canvas, 50x50cm

Stepping out of the dream, oil on canvas, 50 x50cm .

This painting was titled "Stepping Out of the Dream" to encourage curiosity about the nature of the world we live in. That title also hints at a deeper philosophical question: Are we, in fact, living in a dream?

In many Buddhist traditions—especially those influenced by Mahayana and Vajrayana thought—there is a profound emphasis on the idea that reality is much like a dream. Our daily experiences feel vivid, convincing, and detailed, but when examined closely, they lack any fixed, independent, or permanent existence. This dream-like quality of life invites us to look deeper, to question what we take for granted as real.

Life as a Dream: The Buddhist Perspective

Buddhism teaches that our perceptions and experiences are shaped by our minds—by our thoughts, emotions, and habitual patterns. The world we experience seems solid and real, but, in Buddhist philosophy, this solidity is a projection of our own mind. The "dream" metaphor is used to point out that just as things in a dream seem real while we are dreaming, so too does the waking world seem real to us, but both are ultimately impermanent and empty of inherent existence ("śūnyatā").

This doesn't mean nothing exists at all, but rather that things exist in dependence on causes, conditions, and our own perceptions. When we awaken (in the Buddhist sense), we see through the illusion and experience things as they are—without clinging, aversion, or delusion.

The Tree Falling in the Woods: Perception and Reality

The question, "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?" is a classic philosophical puzzle about observation, perception, and reality. In the context of Buddhist philosophy, this question gets a unique twist.

From a Buddhist perspective, the "sound" is not an objective thing existing independently "out there." Sound arises from several factors: the tree falling, the presence of air to carry vibrations, and, crucially, the presence of an ear (and a consciousness) to register and interpret those vibrations as "sound." Without someone there to perceive it, there is no experience of sound—just as in a dream, the events are real to the dreamer but have no existence outside the dreaming mind.

 Weaving the Dream and the Woods: Consciousness Creates Reality

Both the Buddhist notion of life as a dream and the tree-falling thought experiment point to a similar insight: reality as we experience it is not separate from our perception and consciousness. The world is not simply a collection of independently existing things, but rather an interconnected, interdependent process involving both phenomena and the mind that perceives them.

• Buddhism teaches that what we take as solid reality is dream-like—dependent on our minds, impermanent, and empty of intrinsic existence.

• The tree-falling question highlights how experience depends on perception: without a perceiver, "sound" as we know it does not arise.

• Both perspectives emphasise the central role of consciousness in shaping the reality we experience and challenge the notion of a fixed, observer-independent world.

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Ultimately, both the Buddhist perspective and the tree-falling thought experiment invite us to question the nature of our experience. When we see that the world is less solid and more fluid—much like a dream—we open ourselves to a deeper curiosity, compassion, and freedom. In the end, perhaps the greatest art is learning to step out of the dream, even as we find ourselves within it.