Came across the source of the popular anecdote about consciousness and reality, at the British museum yesterday. Butterflies symbolise happiness and longevity and are associated with the Daoist conundrum of whether or not life is an illusion. Zhuangzi (about 369 BC - 286 BC) pondered ...
Once I dreamt I was a butterfly... I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awoke , and there I was, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.
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