What is Real?

The present moment is the only thing in existence; therefore everything comes down to the contents of this moment.
But it is steadily changing from one mood to another, from one state of consciousness to another, and though we can categorize and name a good part of it, it still fundamentally remains a mystery.

There is a tendency to take some states as being more 'real' than others. For instance an event in the full light of day is taken for more 'real' than a dream.
I don't believe in this distinction.
If there are different levels of reality, I believe that they depend on the intensity of the experience. The reason that the waking state seems more 'real' than a dream is that we can think of it in conventional language. A recurring nightmare, that I had when I was a child, could not be conveyed because there were no precise words for the sensations and feelings it involved. It had the quality of a ride in an amusement park; there was simultaneous terror and elation at its relentlessness. I wanted it to stop but even as I woke up it had me in its grip.

Looking back, I think this nightmare was maybe one of the most 'real' things that happened to me at the time. I now believe that it contained a vision of the true reality, and it became a nightmare because it threatened to dissolve my emerging illusion of separate identity. I think that if I had been able to accept it and merge with it, it would have turned blissful.

What is most real is hardest to convey because it is furthest from language. I had an experience on the top of mount Shivapuri on the rim of the Katmandu valley that was to me a unique view into wordless reality.
We were a few friends who had climbed the mountain to pass the night on its top in view of the high Himalayas. We were only two at our campsite; the others were exploring the surroundings. Bob was playing the flute and I was making a fire. When I stood up after blowing on the fire I felt I was going to faint but I wholeheartedly accepted it and concentrated on the point between the eyes.
What followed were moments of reality that cannot be described, but their intensity has not diminished in memory.

I was aware and full of wonder like a new born. I knew nothing, I thought nothing, but things were happening that filled me with intense wonder.

Then, suddenly, I felt a pain in my shoulder, and with the pain came knowledge: I was lying down looking at the snow mountains but the perspective, of course, was unusual because I was lying down. The strange thing that moved my whole being was the sound of the flute, for Bob had continued playing though he saw me fall like a log, as he said.
I was lucky too. I could have easily hit a boulder when I fell, for the grassy terrain was full of them. But when I accepted my dizziness I consciously gave myself over to the Spirit with full trust.