What if all of this is a dream?

"I'm afraid I've got more in common with who I was than who I am becoming."

On a very abstract and real sense dont you think we can identify with the quote given below.

"Once I, Chuang Tzu, dreamed I was a butterfly and was happy as a butterfly. I was conscious that I was quite pleased with myself, but I did not know that I was Tzu. Suddenly I awoke, and there was I, visibly Tzu. I do not know whether it was Tzu dreaming that he was a butterfly or the butterfly dreaming that he was Tzu."

Chuang Tzu

What if all of this is a dream.

What if we are in a 'Matrix' programmed to be alive and feel the senses...does it make any difference?

Another quote that makes sense and kind of takes of from the above,

"The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality.

The permanent defeat of life is when dreams are surrendered to reality"

So what if we are dreaming, does it make living any more different. But isnt it true that we have all in many ways surrendered to the reality of existence and become conformists.

Why does conformism have a negative connotation? Is conformism necessarily bad?

But then right from our formative years we are exhorted, cajoled and pushed to conform to existing rules of societal living. We are lead to look up at and idolize the very path that pushes us to stop being individualistic. We talk about individualism and freedom and liberty and dreams. But when is it we stop that pursuit?

Or is individualism just the pursuit of the very few...

I , myself am struck here in a rut...but why do I not feel that?

I wonder...