# Reality:  There is No You.  Just States of You.

Source: https://geoffblades.com/reality-there-is-no-you-just-states-of-you/
Published: 2010-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-11
Author: Geoff

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In [The Untethered Soul](http://www.untetheredsoul.com/), Michael A. Singer writes, “Lao Tzu fell asleep and dreamt he was a butterfly. Upon awakening, he asked himself, ‘Am I a man who has just been dreaming that he was a butterfly, or a sleeping butterfly, now dreaming that he is a man?'”  It would seem the question is rhetorical; surely he is a man dreaming?  After all, we *know* he is a man, right?  Nope.  We’re just more likely to assume it because we *know* we too are human.  **What if instead we*****knew*****we were butterflies dreaming we were human? **

**I’m holding out that I may be from the future** but I for one don’t think I’m a butterfly. My arms and perception of reality don’t stretch that far.  But the concept speaks to one aspect of the perception of reality – the observer of reality.  To who we are when we observe reality.  **We are of course [perhaps] static, you are always you, I am always me, but the way we feel is not static, it is state-based.**  That is, the way we feel changes based on our emotional state – sadness, anger, happiness, etc. – and therefore our perception of reality is also state-based.  

For instance, to most of us a blue pen is likely *just* a blue pen.  An instrument with which to write in blue ink. **The reality is that it’s just a blue pen.**  But what if you’d had a childhood that involved someone writing profanity up and down your arms in blue ink? The reality may be that it’s just a blue pen.  But to you, your emotional reality is likely quite different. ** The sight of a blue pen likely changes your emotional state.  **To you, it is likely *more* than *just* a blue pen.  

**Similarly, if you showed up at a wedding a week after your own bitter divorce**, you are probably far less likely to get into the emotional state of the wedding – love – than if you had arrived at the wedding a week after your own wedding.  Again, you are still at the same wedding, the reality of the wedding remains the same, but your perception of reality, **your experience of the wedding, will likely be influenced by how you feel when you arrive – bitter from divorce or excited about marriage.**

**Both of these are examples of one of the [five types of reality](http://www.geoffblades.com/main/2010/10/21/there-is-no-such-reality.html), Emotional. ** The first example would suggest a deep emotional pattern associated with blue pens.  The second is more immediate – how we might experience the reality of a wedding based on how we feel a week after our own divorce or wedding.  Both examples highlight the role that our emotional state plays in our perception of reality. Said differently.  **There is no such thing as reality.  Reality is state-based.  You are state-based.**   

**There’s a powerful conclusion from all this gibberish**.  You may not be able to change your reality.  But if your perception of reality is state-based then you can change your perception of reality by changing your emotional state.  Put simply.  **If you want a happy reality, choose a happy emotional state**.  Easier said than done, right? Perhaps.  But said is the first step to done.