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 ^{(it's beta!)}

There's a basic philosophical standard that basically everyone with any interest in the subject must be able to grasp:

The idea that my consciousness is the only thing that I can be assured is real. Everything else is interpreted through various senses that my physical body has fabricated in order to navigate my bio-material safely through this realm of existence. Taking that as a fact, I can then assume that my consciousness can be referred to as a self, apart from the physical "reality" that surrounds me.

If that is true, then I can't be certain that my physical birth - or even conception - was in fact the beginning of my conscious existence. To jump forward a bit, my sentient self may have just always been.

This of course opens an awkward question: Where does the consciousness exist, and how/why does it host a human body?

The answer somehow lies in how I experience reality. I can't sense anything physical in my void-realm, or maybe I can't even comprehend the idea of a "something". Yet with the miracle of transporting my consciousness into a physical, biological, sense-filled organism, I am able to experience a tremendous amount of incredible sensations that I literally could not have otherwise comprehended; such as the various tangible objects and forces that my physical senses can interpret, as well as the steady flow of such a ridiculous concept as time. Whether or not I wound up in this physical manifestation of my own volition or via external forces is completely beyond me right now, but I have steps for reaching this.

I've essentially come full circle anyway, because now I am a consciousness attempting to sense something that I have already convinced myself is not real, or at least doesn't have to be real. The only problem is, deep down, my mind has already been ingrained with the concept of this reality, and I can't seem to simply disregard it. No matter how I try, I can't completely convince myself that these walls I'm seeing around me aren't actually there, and that the world beyond them is simply a construct of my senses.

The trick, perhaps, is finding someone who can be convinced; Someone who has already long-ago broken their ties to "our" idea of reality, someone with a history of trying to rewrite their own brain to interpret things differently.

I just so happen to know such an individual. An old high school friend of mine has been in and out of a psych ward at least three times that I know about. I'm not sure on the particulars of each situation, but on one occasion he had it in his mind that his brain was a computer, and that he could simply flip a switch and basically go on autopilot, performing tasks without any real awareness of self. From his perspective he had completely blacked out and woke up several days later just walking down some back road miles from his house when his family finally found him. No one's quite sure what happened in the meantime. He's living with his grandparents now and is on various medications, though I know him. He'll gradually stop taking them, and hanging out with his friends again. It'll be just like old times, for a while. Until his next episode.

But maybe this time I can direct the episode.

Best case scenario, I may somehow prove that there doesn't have to be a physical realm if we simply disregard that it is there. Worst case, I get to watch a crazy man convince himself that there isn't a physical realm because he's disregarded that it is there. And really, what's the difference?