Is This World A Dream?

The question came to mind one day when I was wondering what is the nature of reality. So it seemed that I was some how connected to this reality because without knowing the question who am I... we cannot understand the nature of reality.

Kant makes it clear that all knowledge begins with experience and so we are locked into understanding the world from this perspective.

Three definition of what this me really is are represented by materialism, dualism and idealism.

materialism:

everything is made of physical stuff I am just a biological robot.

dualism:

My mind is separate from my body and exists outside of the physical world.

idealism:

Thoughts, ideas, feelings are real, matter is no more real than the phantom physical things we seem to touch and see in dreams. Material objects are projections of the mind, clusters of sense data which give the false appearance of being separate hard reality.

This innocent question has brought up the age old questions that have had philosophers scratching their head since time began.

What am 1? Of what am I made? Where am 1 going? What is the right way to live? It is to these questions that the mind-body problem, with its ions history and vast literature is intimately related. What could be more important questions than these?

It would seem that the nature of reality is relative to the observer. This maybe be our reality and yet only just a dream within the mind of the great infinite creator.