What is real?

These lines are from Paul Auster's recent novel, Man in the Dark (as gleaned from a review in the WaPo):

There are many worlds, and they all run parallel to one another, worlds and anti-worlds, worlds and shadow-worlds, and each world is dreamed or imagined or written by someone in another world. Each world is the creation of a mind.

Hmm... sounds very similar (conceptually) to something I wrote recently! Here's what I wrote for the writing workshop assignment, as it read in the first draft; which I should have re-worked based on feedback but have not had the discipline to work on yet!

You begin to wonder if she was even real. When you lose track of time, memories deceive and the mind imparts a certain lucidity to our experiences that touches the innermost recesses of our being. What is real – the seen or the more deeply felt and imagined?

...

You delude yourself into believing that large streams of people’s unlived lives float around in negative space, in worlds that scientists cannot see but know exists and classify as dark matter, which is held together with dark energy. So, maybe the lives we live, the ones we remember, are illusions too? You snap out of this reverie, knowing that taking these long flights distort a man’s sense of time and memory.

The assignment was to write a short piece in the form of instructions and I somewhat overdid the use of the 'You's' in the piece! Like I said...it's only a first draft and was written in response to the assignment in short bursts over two weeks. I liked the piece (as did the class) but I *know* that some day I will cringe when I read what I wrote. I'm already cringing a little bit reading the above sentences! My apologies for subjecting the few passersby to this blog to this unseemly mess!