Reality is not that different from dreams. We exist as this flow of perception and our minds carry it over to our sleep state.

These sensory perceptions are not only generated by information from the outside, but interpreted by our minds, such that we are constantly creating images of what might be or might have happened, from faces in random patterns to images of what might have happened if other actions had occurred.

As such, consciousness is a constant state of imagination, the function of which is to guide and further inform our more instinctive and automatic reactions to our immediate world.

The big difference with dreams is that our minds are not having to constantly reset to new information, evaporating these flashes of day dreaming. So our dreams simply build on and extend the previous flashes of perception, winding around all the networks of thoughts in our minds.

What is worth considering is this propensity to dream is relaxing, so we like to find ways to let it continue and not have to constantly reset to outside information.

The effect is that in life, we find ways to push back against and avoid dealing with information displeasing to our dream state. It used to be one had to be wealthy and powerful to push back against the outside world, but now that everyone is the master of their own digital feed, we find everyone retreating into these ever more addictive coccoons of self re-enforcing perceptions.

Even in the professional world, from military strategists to mathematicians, once the rules are set, they can get lost playing the games according to those rules, as long as the rest of society is sees some benefit and feeds their particular beliefs.

Unfortunately they tend to go way overboard, before reality does intervene and we end up with everything from a military industrial complex that has come to resemble an autoimmune disorder, to multiworlds and multiverses.