Dreams, Dragons and John Lennon

"I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?" John Lennon

How can we believe in things that we are not certain of their existence? I quoted John Lennon because his approach toward existents seems quite different from the general view. As humans, we doubt. Even Descartes who was eager to prove the existence of God started his study with doubting everything first. Then, what does it mean to exist, anyway? It is impossible to make a clear answer to this question, but we can approach closer to the answer by proving our existence. First, it is important to recognize that we are the ones who perceive existents. Think of dreams. Everything presented in a dream is a projection of our mind. It does not matter how real they look. The fact that they are just false images does not change. How about us? Now we know that we are surrounded by those false images while dreaming. Does it make us fake, too? No. Then what distinguish us from them? Consciousness. Even in a dream, we have consciousness since we are able to think, see and listen. And that consciousness is what proves our existence. In other words, although our world surrounding us might not be real, nothing can disprove our existence as long as we have consciousness.

Once we recognize our existence, the next thing we do is to perceive other existents. This is when our individuality comes in. When we are dreaming, our minds are deceived by false images but we cannot never be sure whether they are real or not until we actually wake up. We have no choice but to decide what to believe and what not to believe based on our own judging system. Some based on senses, some based on knowledge, etc. In my case, I always make that decision based on my experiences. So, unlike John Lennon, I do not believe in dragons or fairies. I do not agree with his idea that things can exist as a concept. People ask me, "Why do you believe in God then?" It was not because someone told me to believe. It was a decision that I carefully made based on what I have experienced through my life. Without those experiences, like fairies or dragons, God would have been just another concept to me. Some people would disagree with me. Like I said, everyone has his or her own rule and opinion on existence of certain things. Existence can only be defined by each individual.