<p>As pointed out in the comments, there are many different questions in your post, and it lacks a clear focus and structure, plus you introduce many assumptions that I think are incorrect (e.g., the definition of <em>real</em> is <strong>not</strong> "what we can perceive through our senses").</p>

<p>Having said that, and to cut to the chase, the answer is: yes, our thoughts are real. You seem to accept that thoughts are a sort of information, so <strong>thoughts are real to the extend that information is real</strong>.</p>

<p>According to Steven Pinker in <em>How The Mind Works</em> (I think it's an excellent book to read for the kind of questions you have), the <em>mind</em> is what the brain does, which includes our thoughts, and it is, essentially, information/logic/processes that arise from the physical structure and physical properties of the brain.</p>

<p>In that sense, you can draw an analogy to a silicon-based computer and the software that's on it (which is physically rooted in the arrangement of electrons in the computer's hardware). Just like a silicon computer, our mind uses symbols to represent the physical world, and these symbolic processes (which are not yet well understood) can also allow the representation of things that don't exist in the physical world.</p>

<p>To use an example from the silicon-computer analogy, think of a video game like <em>World of Warcraft</em> or <em>The Legend of Zelda</em>: the whole game is fully rooted in the physical world (the structure of the hardware, the arrangement of electrons on the circuits, indentations on an optical disk etc.), but the game itself (the software) is the information that is encoded in the physical systems. Furthermore, the game can represent a completely unrealistic world (one could say "imaginary", but that word is closely related to what we're trying to understand, so it's best to leave it out of the explanation). But you could never claim that the software, the game itself, is not real.</p>

<p>In that sense, I would say that thoughts are real, even though they may represent things that are not.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T05:38:37.587Z
@Ratler- As you said the game is produced from the electronic circuits,etc ie its rooted in the physical world. What we refer to when we say 'game itself'? I think its the visual changes on the screen. But if you think deeper, even that occupy a space. Its basically photons(particles of light) hitting a fluorescent screen & causing a dynamic pattern. When this pattern changes over time it gives us a sense of movie or game. So the visual changes occupy space on the screen. So its not analogous to visual thoughts we have in our mind. Because 'where' does latter exist? No where physically!
CuriousMind9
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T05:48:23.340Z
..and so the game itself is real (as it occupies space on the screen).But the imagery it produces in our mind,is that real? That's the issue I am talking about! It exists in our 'mind' which itself in turn has no 'physical' existence or doesn't occupy space. I mean you cant point here or there & show that 'this is my mind'. So if something has no physical existence how can we say its real?
CuriousMind9
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T17:04:07.257Z
@CuriousMind9 No where physically? Why not in your brain?
Bryan Krause
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T17:20:09.577Z
@Bryan Krause- I refer to the image per se of the object in our mind;not the information that produces the image. The image per se appears to us just like the real object.The real object occupies space. The image in our mind appears to do so but not in real world.What we have in our brain is the information in the form of dynamic arrangement of molecules that has the capability to produce the image;not the image itself.I am talking here about the image itself.
CuriousMind9
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T17:30:08.403Z
@CuriousMind9 Like Steven has said, what you are talking about is strictly in the realm of philosophy. The image in your mind is that: an image in your mind. That's a real thing.
Bryan Krause
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-27T00:57:11.177Z
@CuriousMind9: to simplify what I said in my answer (_thoughts_ [...] _arise from the physical structure and physical properties of the brain_): thoughts are excitation of networks of neurons, so this is how they occupy space and time in the physical world.
Ratler
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-27T01:08:07.257Z
@CuriousMind9, we could get drawn into a lot of back and forth with this topic, but the main problem is that you keep making a lot of incorrect assumptions (e.g., video games are **not** the visual changes on a screen--that's part of rendering, and it's one of the ways the game interacts with humans), and you talk about a lot of different things at the same time. At the end of the day, as Steven Jeuris said, this is not the place for this discussion. There are plenty of people here happy to help you clarify your thoughts, but you need to ask a single, clear and answerable question at a time.
Ratler
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-09T11:06:09.210Z
@Bryan Krause- Whether the image you see in your mind is real - it all depends on what you define as real. You can think yourself to be the president of USA.But is that real?
CuriousMind9
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-09T13:58:13.573Z
@CuriousMind9 Yes I think a "dream" that you are president of the USA is real. That doesn't make you president, but the dream is a thing that actually happened. Things don't become not real just because they are false. When you take an exam, you might get some answers wrong - that doesn't make your answers or the thoughts behind them "not real".
Bryan Krause
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-09T15:18:59.793Z
@Bryan Krause- the biological processes leading to our feeling of a dream is real. It happens in our brain. According to me its 'your experience of the dream' that's real; not the dream itself.
CuriousMind9
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-09T15:19:31.240Z
@Bryan Krause- Is the 'dream itself' real enough to influence 'by itself' anything in our reality 'directly'? Or is it real enough so that more than 1 person experience/see/touch it ? Well according to you it is. Not for me.
CuriousMind9
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-09T15:19:57.900Z
@Bryan Krause- Like I said it all depends on one's definition of what is 'real'. If you say there is a demon in the room & no one else agree on it, I am afraid I cant call it as real. But you may. And it seems now this is philosophy (like you & others said).
CuriousMind9
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T00:36:45.300Z
2019-10-26T00:36:45.300Z
Ratler
<p>We think anything as real if we can perceive it through our senses. But I think generally speaking, anything <strong>is</strong> real if it occupies space (ie familiar 3D world/space)&amp; have a 2 way to &amp; fro interaction between it &amp; us. So the latter definition excludes things in the past &amp; future that <strong>were</strong> or <strong>will be</strong> real. So what about our thoughts or the mind? Mind is the arena where we have thoughts. The thoughts we have in our mind can be visual/tactile/auditory /olfactory/gustatory, etc. For instance, we can reproduce an image of a real world object in our mind. We know that the imagery is in our mind &amp; not in the real world, though there is an exact replica in the real world. These imageries can be static or dynamic according to we wish. I mean we can even run a movie in our mind in such a way that's virtually indistinguishable from reality. Just think about dreams. Sometimes after waking up, we think the events that occurred in our dreams really did occur. The complicated biological processes happening in our brain cells create what you call as thought. These biological processes can be thought of as an information or information changes. This information hence definitely occupy space. They occupy space in our brain cells. But where does the imagery or the virtual 3-D hologram itself that this information produces exist? For sure this imagery doesn't exist in our familiar 3 dimensions.If it did,it would be real as any other real object. But we know our mental imageries are 3-D.So why I believe these visual thoughts has to occupy some dimension or space? Because we experience it.Experience is mediated through interaction by some signal.Signal can travel through some medium only. By medium I mean space or higher dimensions; not a physical matter substance. So I think even though on how to produce an imagery in the mind is encoded as information in our brain cells, the information about the imagery itself has to geometrically occupy space &amp; time. That space maybe the higher dimensions. Thats why even though we don't feel these visual thoughts to be real, it appears as if they are real.In short I think they aren't real because of my definition I believe of  whats real  (anything real should occupy our familiar 3D space &amp; have 2 way to &amp; fro interaction). So in short this is what I want to know- is there any evidence in neuroscience that suggests visual thoughts (possibly auditory,tactile,etc) or some aspects of the mind occupy higher dimensions? (Maybe something anomalous that suggests leakage of energy or info)</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-25T22:50:49.917Z
Are you at all interested in a neuroscientific perspective of perception, or is this more of a philosophical question? I can migrate your question to [Philosophy.SE](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/) in case it is the latter. Either way, you will have to structure your thoughts a bit better and try to stick to one question at a time.
Steven Jeuris
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T05:13:04.513Z
I seek a scientific explanation. As you said, I have to structure my thoughts better.
CuriousMind9
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T07:36:45.333Z
“We define anything as real if we can perceive it through our senses.” No, that’s not the way scientists define what is real (in the sense that it does exist). For example, we cannot perceive the weak force, the strong force, many subatomic particles (neutrinos, muons, quarks, etc.), etc. through our senses, but we define them as real entities. The discipline that studies what is real is called ontology. I don’t think we have space to discuss it in detail here. Practically, one can say that something is real (does exist) if that thing has specific properties that are consistent and testable.
user287279
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T07:39:00.397Z
“But where does the imagery or the virtual 3-D hologram itself that this information produces exist?” Well, it can be argued that the information itself is the visual imagery in your mind; no novel or separate entity occurs to be the visual imagery. So, the visual imagery exists where the information exists – in the signaling patterns that neural circuits communicate among each other. If interested, you can read about this argument at [this website](https://mindtheory.net).
user287279
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T08:39:01.797Z
@user287279- Could this statement-' I think generally speaking, anything is real if it occupies space & have an interaction between it & us' include weak or strong forces,subatomic particles?
CuriousMind9
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T09:03:08.727Z
@user287279- You are correct that visual imagery itself is information. Whatever produces it is also information. But what I am trying to say is that because the information of visual imagery is geometrical, isnt it sensible to think that it occupy space in some way like evoking physically inaccessible higher dimensions?
CuriousMind9
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T12:12:48.307Z
@CuriousMind9 A scientific explanation of what? What is your _main_ question? Possibly: How are thoughts represented in the brain? Or, perhaps you are hinting at the age-old belief in [mind-body dualism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_dualism)? In case of the latter, I still think you will get better answers on Philosophy.SE.
Steven Jeuris
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T13:35:12.880Z
@CuriousMind9 I think the statement you asked includes the weak & strong forces & subatomic particles. But that may not be the necessary requirement for things to be real. The obvious example is time. It doesn't occupy space (it's an independent coordinate, separated from spatial coordinates), yet it's real.
user287279
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T13:54:31.927Z
And If you evoke an additional dimension, you'll face the tasks of explaining its nature, how it coexists with the other 4 dimensions, why we haven't observed it before, what else can exist in this dimension other than the visual imagery, etc. If the evoked dimension can or has the potential to explain other phenomena too, it may be justifiable. If not, (i.e, existing solely to give a place for visual imagery to exist) it'll be just a post-hoc assumption and will not be of real use.
user287279
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T13:56:11.380Z
@user287279- If time is real why we use imaginary coordinate for it in Einstein's general theory of relativity? I mean something that's not real can still be present as a concept in our minds. I am not telling time doesn't exist. Time exists but outside our familiar 3D world/space. Its orthogonal to our familiar 3 dimensions. We ourselves exist in this familiar 3D world or space & I believe we tend to think anything as real if it exist within this 3D world framework or space; not outside it.
CuriousMind9
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T13:57:11.187Z
@user287279- Time is joined with the space as spacetime. But it doesn't exist within the space. We can sense time & appear to feel its real (though I believe its not because of my personal definition of whats real) because we have intrinsic biological clocks inside our body.
CuriousMind9
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T14:01:46.570Z
@user287279- The extra dimensions could explain auditory/tactile/etc thoughts too because all of these require geometry to manifest.The sound waves exist as patterns in the air in our 3D world.Therefore it needs geometry.You can extrapolate this to other senses as well.
CuriousMind9
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T14:06:11.877Z
@ Steven Jeuris♦ -In short this is what I want to know- is there any evidence in neuroscience that suggests visual thoughts (possibly auditory,tactile,etc) or some aspects of the mind occupy higher dimensions?
CuriousMind9
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T15:17:46.463Z
Stack Exchange has a general rule (which you can learn by having a look at the faq) that you should stick to a _question_ in your question. Somewhere around _"For sure this imagery doesn't exist ..."_ you start _answering_ your own question. Therefore, for starters, I suggest you remove everything after that.
Steven Jeuris
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T15:21:11.287Z
In addition, on this site, we also expect you to reference prior research for claims upon which your question is based. So spinning off new questions on previously unanswered ones is also problematic. Right off the bat, you state: "generally speaking, anything is real if it occupies space". This is a very _philosophical_ stance to which a whole branch of philosophy is dedicated: [epistemology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology). But, it is [_not framed in psychology or neuroscience_](https://psychology.meta.stackexchange.com/q/2277/21). I still think this is better off on phil.SE.
Steven Jeuris
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-26T21:42:52.993Z
@CuriousMind9 "is there any evidence in neuroscience that suggests ... some aspects of the mind occupy higher dimensions?"  No.  Higher dimensions are not studied in any cognitive science.  [Additional dimensions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimension#Additional_dimensions) have been proposed in several prominent theories in physics (eg, string theory), but no evidence is available as of yet.  Does that answer your question?
Arnon Weinberg
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-27T05:00:11.937Z
@Arnon Weinberg- yes
CuriousMind9
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-27T06:01:37.903Z
“If time is real why we use imaginary coordinate for it in Einstein's general theory of relativity?” The answer: because that’s just a convenient convention for calculation things in Einstein’s relativity theory. This convention is more widely used than the other convention, which uses imaginary coordinate for the 3 space coordinates and is less convenient. The two conventions predict identical results. Either convention doesn’t mean that time or space is imaginary.
user287279
<dreams><thought>
Is there any evidence in neuroscience that suggests visual thoughts (possibly others) or some aspects of the mind occupy higher dimensions?
CuriousMind9
# Is there any evidence in neuroscience that suggests visual thoughts (possibly others) or some aspects of the mind occupy higher dimensions?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2019-10-25)

We think anything as real if we can perceive it through our senses. But I think generally speaking, anything **is** real if it occupies space (ie familiar 3D world/space)& have a 2 way to & fro interaction between it & us. So the latter definition excludes things in the past & future that **were** or **will be** real. So what about our thoughts or the mind? Mind is the arena where we have thoughts. The thoughts we have in our mind can be visual/tactile/auditory /olfactory/gustatory, etc. For instance, we can reproduce an image of a real world object in our mind. We know that the imagery is in our mind & not in the real world, though there is an exact replica in the real world. These imageries can be static or dynamic according to we wish. I mean we can even run a movie in our mind in such a way that's virtually indistinguishable from reality. Just think about dreams. Sometimes after waking up, we think the events that occurred in our dreams really did occur. The complicated biological processes happening in our brain cells create what you call as thought. These biological processes can be thought of as an information or information changes. This information hence definitely occupy space. They occupy space in our brain cells. But where does the imagery or the virtual 3-D hologram itself that this information produces exist? For sure this imagery doesn't exist in our familiar 3 dimensions.If it did,it would be real as any other real object. But we know our mental imageries are 3-D.So why I believe these visual thoughts has to occupy some dimension or space? Because we experience it.Experience is mediated through interaction by some signal.Signal can travel through some medium only. By medium I mean space or higher dimensions; not a physical matter substance. So I think even though on how to produce an imagery in the mind is encoded as information in our brain cells, the information about the imagery itself has to geometrically occupy space & time. That space maybe the higher dimensions. Thats why even though we don't feel these visual thoughts to be real, it appears as if they are real.In short I think they aren't real because of my definition I believe of whats real (anything real should occupy our familiar 3D space & have 2 way to & fro interaction). So in short this is what I want to know- is there any evidence in neuroscience that suggests visual thoughts (possibly auditory,tactile,etc) or some aspects of the mind occupy higher dimensions? (Maybe something anomalous that suggests leakage of energy or info)

**Tags:** dreams, thought

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Are you at all interested in a neuroscientific perspective of perception, or is this more of a philosophical question? I can migrate your question to [Philosophy.SE](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/) in case it is the latter. Either way, you will have to structure your thoughts a bit better and try to stick to one question at a time.  
> **username_0**: I seek a scientific explanation. As you said, I have to structure my thoughts better.  
> **username_2**: “We define anything as real if we can perceive it through our senses.” No, that’s not the way scientists define what is real (in the sense that it does exist). For example, we cannot perceive the weak force, the strong force, many subatomic particles (neutrinos, muons, quarks, etc.), etc. through our senses, but we define them as real entities. The discipline that studies what is real is called ontology. I don’t think we have space to discuss it in detail here. Practically, one can say that something is real (does exist) if that thing has specific properties that are consistent and testable.  
> **username_2**: “But where does the imagery or the virtual 3-D hologram itself that this information produces exist?” Well, it can be argued that the information itself is the visual imagery in your mind; no novel or separate entity occurs to be the visual imagery. So, the visual imagery exists where the information exists – in the signaling patterns that neural circuits communicate among each other. If interested, you can read about this argument at [this website](https://mindtheory.net).  
> **username_0**: @username_2- Could this statement-' I think generally speaking, anything is real if it occupies space & have an interaction between it & us' include weak or strong forces,subatomic particles?  
> **username_0**: @username_2- You are correct that visual imagery itself is information. Whatever produces it is also information. But what I am trying to say is that because the information of visual imagery is geometrical, isnt it sensible to think that it occupy space in some way like evoking physically inaccessible higher dimensions?  
> **username_1**: @username_0 A scientific explanation of what? What is your _main_ question? Possibly: How are thoughts represented in the brain? Or, perhaps you are hinting at the age-old belief in [mind-body dualism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_dualism)? In case of the latter, I still think you will get better answers on Philosophy.SE.  
> **username_2**: @username_0 I think the statement you asked includes the weak & strong forces & subatomic particles. But that may not be the necessary requirement for things to be real. The obvious example is time. It doesn't occupy space (it's an independent coordinate, separated from spatial coordinates), yet it's real.  
> **username_2**: And If you evoke an additional dimension, you'll face the tasks of explaining its nature, how it coexists with the other 4 dimensions, why we haven't observed it before, what else can exist in this dimension other than the visual imagery, etc. If the evoked dimension can or has the potential to explain other phenomena too, it may be justifiable. If not, (i.e, existing solely to give a place for visual imagery to exist) it'll be just a post-hoc assumption and will not be of real use.  
> **username_0**: @username_2- If time is real why we use imaginary coordinate for it in Einstein's general theory of relativity? I mean something that's not real can still be present as a concept in our minds. I am not telling time doesn't exist. Time exists but outside our familiar 3D world/space. Its orthogonal to our familiar 3 dimensions. We ourselves exist in this familiar 3D world or space & I believe we tend to think anything as real if it exist within this 3D world framework or space; not outside it.  
> **username_0**: @username_2- Time is joined with the space as spacetime. But it doesn't exist within the space. We can sense time & appear to feel its real (though I believe its not because of my personal definition of whats real) because we have intrinsic biological clocks inside our body.  
> **username_0**: @username_2- The extra dimensions could explain auditory/tactile/etc thoughts too because all of these require geometry to manifest.The sound waves exist as patterns in the air in our 3D world.Therefore it needs geometry.You can extrapolate this to other senses as well.  
> **username_0**: @ username_1♦ -In short this is what I want to know- is there any evidence in neuroscience that suggests visual thoughts (possibly auditory,tactile,etc) or some aspects of the mind occupy higher dimensions?  
> **username_1**: Stack Exchange has a general rule (which you can learn by having a look at the faq) that you should stick to a _question_ in your question. Somewhere around _"For sure this imagery doesn't exist ..."_ you start _answering_ your own question. Therefore, for starters, I suggest you remove everything after that.  
> **username_1**: In addition, on this site, we also expect you to reference prior research for claims upon which your question is based. So spinning off new questions on previously unanswered ones is also problematic. Right off the bat, you state: "generally speaking, anything is real if it occupies space". This is a very _philosophical_ stance to which a whole branch of philosophy is dedicated: [epistemology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology). But, it is [_not framed in psychology or neuroscience_](https://psychology.meta.stackexchange.com/q/2277/21). I still think this is better off on phil.SE.  
> **username_3**: @username_0 "is there any evidence in neuroscience that suggests ... some aspects of the mind occupy higher dimensions?"  No.  Higher dimensions are not studied in any cognitive science.  [Additional dimensions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimension#Additional_dimensions) have been proposed in several prominent theories in physics (eg, string theory), but no evidence is available as of yet.  Does that answer your question?  
> **username_0**: @username_3- yes  
> **username_2**: “If time is real why we use imaginary coordinate for it in Einstein's general theory of relativity?” The answer: because that’s just a convenient convention for calculation things in Einstein’s relativity theory. This convention is more widely used than the other convention, which uses imaginary coordinate for the 3 space coordinates and is less convenient. The two conventions predict identical results. Either convention doesn’t mean that time or space is imaginary.  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_4 on 2019-10-26. Score: 1

As pointed out in the comments, there are many different questions in your post, and it lacks a clear focus and structure, plus you introduce many assumptions that I think are incorrect (e.g., the definition of *real* is **not** "what we can perceive through our senses").

Having said that, and to cut to the chase, the answer is: yes, our thoughts are real. You seem to accept that thoughts are a sort of information, so **thoughts are real to the extend that information is real**.

According to Steven Pinker in *How The Mind Works* (I think it's an excellent book to read for the kind of questions you have), the *mind* is what the brain does, which includes our thoughts, and it is, essentially, information/logic/processes that arise from the physical structure and physical properties of the brain.

In that sense, you can draw an analogy to a silicon-based computer and the software that's on it (which is physically rooted in the arrangement of electrons in the computer's hardware). Just like a silicon computer, our mind uses symbols to represent the physical world, and these symbolic processes (which are not yet well understood) can also allow the representation of things that don't exist in the physical world.

To use an example from the silicon-computer analogy, think of a video game like *World of Warcraft* or *The Legend of Zelda*: the whole game is fully rooted in the physical world (the structure of the hardware, the arrangement of electrons on the circuits, indentations on an optical disk etc.), but the game itself (the software) is the information that is encoded in the physical systems. Furthermore, the game can represent a completely unrealistic world (one could say "imaginary", but that word is closely related to what we're trying to understand, so it's best to leave it out of the explanation). But you could never claim that the software, the game itself, is not real.

In that sense, I would say that thoughts are real, even though they may represent things that are not.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: @username_4- As you said the game is produced from the electronic circuits,etc ie its rooted in the physical world. What we refer to when we say 'game itself'? I think its the visual changes on the screen. But if you think deeper, even that occupy a space. Its basically photons(particles of light) hitting a fluorescent screen & causing a dynamic pattern. When this pattern changes over time it gives us a sense of movie or game. So the visual changes occupy space on the screen. So its not analogous to visual thoughts we have in our mind. Because 'where' does latter exist? No where physically!  
> **username_0**: ..and so the game itself is real (as it occupies space on the screen).But the imagery it produces in our mind,is that real? That's the issue I am talking about! It exists in our 'mind' which itself in turn has no 'physical' existence or doesn't occupy space. I mean you cant point here or there & show that 'this is my mind'. So if something has no physical existence how can we say its real?  
> **username_5**: @username_0 No where physically? Why not in your brain?  
> **username_0**: @username_5- I refer to the image per se of the object in our mind;not the information that produces the image. The image per se appears to us just like the real object.The real object occupies space. The image in our mind appears to do so but not in real world.What we have in our brain is the information in the form of dynamic arrangement of molecules that has the capability to produce the image;not the image itself.I am talking here about the image itself.  
> **username_5**: @username_0 Like Steven has said, what you are talking about is strictly in the realm of philosophy. The image in your mind is that: an image in your mind. That's a real thing.  
> **username_4**: @username_0: to simplify what I said in my answer (_thoughts_ [...] _arise from the physical structure and physical properties of the brain_): thoughts are excitation of networks of neurons, so this is how they occupy space and time in the physical world.  
> **username_4**: @username_0, we could get drawn into a lot of back and forth with this topic, but the main problem is that you keep making a lot of incorrect assumptions (e.g., video games are **not** the visual changes on a screen--that's part of rendering, and it's one of the ways the game interacts with humans), and you talk about a lot of different things at the same time. At the end of the day, as username_1 said, this is not the place for this discussion. There are plenty of people here happy to help you clarify your thoughts, but you need to ask a single, clear and answerable question at a time.  
> **username_0**: @username_5- Whether the image you see in your mind is real - it all depends on what you define as real. You can think yourself to be the president of USA.But is that real?  
> **username_5**: @username_0 Yes I think a "dream" that you are president of the USA is real. That doesn't make you president, but the dream is a thing that actually happened. Things don't become not real just because they are false. When you take an exam, you might get some answers wrong - that doesn't make your answers or the thoughts behind them "not real".  
> **username_0**: @username_5- the biological processes leading to our feeling of a dream is real. It happens in our brain. According to me its 'your experience of the dream' that's real; not the dream itself.  
> **username_0**: @username_5- Is the 'dream itself' real enough to influence 'by itself' anything in our reality 'directly'? Or is it real enough so that more than 1 person experience/see/touch it ? Well according to you it is. Not for me.  
> **username_0**: @username_5- Like I said it all depends on one's definition of what is 'real'. If you say there is a demon in the room & no one else agree on it, I am afraid I cant call it as real. But you may. And it seems now this is philosophy (like you & others said).  

---

