Just some thoughts, not for believing of course:
Consciousness is devoid of form, of substance, and can't really be found "directly" anywhere IN the universe - hence why if you open up a brain its nowhere to be found - but it is always there, we don't need to "find" it, because we are it - the scene of a brain being opened to find consciousness is happening "within" consciousness already, and so it is easy to see that its right here, and its not going anywhere. If you see something, experience something, it is happening within consciousness. It is this search for consciousness "out there" which can hide the fact that it is right here. It can't be found "out there", only the universe is out there (this applies to the outside of ALL living beings, and what they have "inside" them - inside meaning the turning around of the arrow of perception so that it goes past the mind and into the heart of consciousness). This might sound simple but its quite profound because that which is without form, the reflection of form, the balance of form and formless, is the OPPOSITE to form in every single way. Form has no will, it just "exists", and form can be split up into pieces and named. You can't do that with consciousness because it has no measurements, no dimensions etc. So everyone that you see is actually YOU, because consciousness cannot be divided. Its a paradox - you have done, you will do, and you are doing everything that everyone else is doing including yourself. At some point I will write a reply to myself on this forum, but I don't know what I'm going to say xD
Pretty much everything that we use to identify ourselves is usually a form of some sort, we identify ourselves by what is different about ourselves in comparison to everyone and everything else. But in reality there is no real difference, the only thing is: what you percieve and what you choose "now". The *percieved* differences are due to exactly that - the perception of the universe. Perceptions aren't part of consciousness but part of the universe, they are like locations which you can go to. The only thing consciousness does aside from "experiencing/observing" is choose directions. Like being on a river, it is consciousness that chooses out of the available choices which way to go. The river never goes anywhere, and the choices are still there once we have passed them, the lack of choices even give the impression of time passing, as we have no choice to go back. So, we aren't ever a "location", we aren't ever a human or a profession (ie. a doctor, a mechanic etc.), or a perception. Think back over a period of years and your profession changes, your body changes, your perception changes. What is left of when you now, from when you were one year old, amounts to pretty much nothing, maybe something but we have no way of knowing if that didn't come from something completely different. The point is that "identity" can be very much a subjective thing, it changes all the time and its only really us that keeps the whole thing together in our minds (choosing paths to locations which contain these beliefs as the scenary), instead of knowing the objective identity and seeing the subjective identities for what they are. If you ever faced a big change in your life, you can maybe see how what everyone would identify as "you" is actually two different people, its just that you look the same (or similar), have the same name etc.
So when it comes to dreams its not really any different. The dream self of yours is just "form". Everything in your dreams is just as real as everything that happens in the waking world, its just that theres more, and/or different meanings in the waking world, but basically they are just different "locations" in the same huge universe, they contain different things, different laws, different scenary really thats all - its as "connected" as choosing to watch some TV before you go to sleep - the choice is there as an option, which is available when "feeling tired" is part of the scenary.
If someone you know dies in a dream you would feel bad, but when you wake up you no longer care about that person who died, because they are still around in the waking life. You might say "oh but it was just a dream", but still, someone died - theres no difference there - but the differences are what feelings are there, what memories, what it means etc. Someone still died in their own way (but in dreams they can come back of course). Really the dream world is just different thats all, but its no less "real". When people die or get hurt in dreams, what makes it any different to what happens in the real world, apart from it might look a bit different, and that they can come back later? Its AS real as the waking world but doesn't usually fall into people's definition of real, because it doesn't have "long term effects" on either the waking world or the dream world, for "them" anyway.
The thing that unites the dream world with the waking world is consciousness - its the one thing that stays even though the two places - dream or awake - can be completely different. You can even be different people in your dream. After being lots of different people in different places, not even acting how you would act in the real world, it can change the perception in the waking world on what your identity is, and give more choices in the waking world due to the "option" of a change in perception.
And its not like this means there is definately an afterlife in the sense that we would remember our previous lives, since memories don't have to be there in order for consciousness to exist. Its not something which NEEDS an afterlife with memories to say we never die. Its complete *dettachment" to form, which doesn't mean you stop experiencing it, but it is acceptance that memories, experience - the whole "scene" from thought, to memories, to the planet, can change and there is one thing that is always the same - consciousness that experiences it all. If you believe you are the "items" in the scene, that are exclusive from everything else, then you will believe in death, but when you accept that they come and go (which is only due to limited perception anyway), and that you - the formless, non-exclusive - stays, you can focus less on "surviving" and more on what you want to focus on, seeing as no choice is going to "kill" you.
I think the C's, when they say, "you wouldn't exist unless someone dreamed you up", are talking about structure. I mean, the structure of connections, with relation to what choices can be made from wherever consciousness is. In other words, the way the universe is connected is "through" life and the connections are choices which life makes, and everything that exists, exists through consciousness, and so when they say "you" they mean the "form" of you - it seems to me that they're basically talking in a way which makes no sense, in order to make sense (using our own assumptions as a way of proving them wrong by using them in a situation where they cannot apply). I think they said it because "someone dreamed you up" implies that a seperate form dreamed you up even though forms do not dream, they ARE the dream, and so if a form dreams up a form, what dreams up that form that dreamt up the other form? Points to singular consciousness in my opinion, because if consciousness dreamt up a form, then it is merely in a chosen "location", and the perception of BEING this dreamt up form is the chosen location of the same consciousness before *or* after the previous (in this paragraph) location of consciousness (which was the choice to dream up the form that is being experienced by the same consciousness).
"My dream self wondered if my sleeping self could have multiple, simultaneous dreams with other selves. My dream self wondered about all those other people within the dream. Are they figments of my imagination, formulated for the dream, or are they ‘dream selves’ of other people?"
They could be more than one of those choices I think. It could be real people in a real city who really were alive and living full lives, beyond the boundries your dream. You could have been experiencing part of one of the inhabitants of that cities lives, and so they didn't "die" when you left, they didn't even notice any difference. When you were dreaming of being them, they thought they were just being themselves, but actually that portion of their lives would be remembered and written down in a forum in a completely different reality, by a different person xD And chances are someone is dreaming of reading this right now, and is having exactly the same experience as you, and will wake up, remember it, and write it down in a forum like this :D
"Wide awake now, I began to think about this 3D ‘life’, right ‘now’. Is this all a dream?"
I don't think so, I think its not "only" a dream but a memory of it can be perceived as a dream. But basically its just "what it is", IMO. Calling it a dream leaves out the fact that its a different kind of dream to what you have - its like a "hyper dream" (that our hyper-waking self is having). But I wouldn't get caught up in trying to name it like that, because at the same time as being a "hyper dream" it can be made up of many smaller dreams from many, many, different beings, even just imaginations. In the end though its just forms/sensate/objects which can be accessed by consciousness. Looking it like that is a more open minded approach IMO.
