Anything that can be proven within the confines of its own domain (locally) --
is only meaningful therein; thus proof of a local matter is meaningless, universally;
nothing can be proven about the universal by locals;
things can only be mentally made to make sense by man which can be
found and examined in their own backyard, and described in the local language;
no knowledge about  what exists beyond their property lines is possible --
but this does not bar the human mind from forming speculative thoughts thereabout;
ordinary men and their ordinary minds are not programmed to make a clear,
continuing distinction between what is and can be actually known by hands-on examination locally, and the never-touchable speculations concerning the universal.
More accurate would be to say the trans-universal, because even the universe cannot examine and describe itself from its own local view, (that is):
the universe cannot comprehend itself from within itself --
it would have to get outside of itself to actually have a universal perspective of itself.
A chicken embryo in an egg has only a local view, and conception of itself
which is the world inside the shell;
in its case, the universal perspective beyond its grasp would be the realm of a postpartum chicken;
then in turn, a fully functioning chicken’s view of life would be local
(what was previously the universal to the embryo), and everything beyond/outside
the conditions to which the chicken is instinctively programmed to respond and notice would be its universal, (in different words):
each creature/thing/being carries with it,  its own local reality,
within which confines, all of its “understanding-of-life” resides, and anything that may exist beyond those confines is its universal, and will forever be beyond its understanding or even meaningful conception.
 

The notion among a few that man is born into a dream but can awaken therefrom
is in essence a desire in the brain to break free of the restrictive situation
infra several ways limned;
wanting to get to the bottom of things is the mind wanting to see beyond
the normal property lines of ordinary consciousness,
which on the verbal surface sounds impossible  --  and yet  --
something much resembling that very thing has been, and is (for a few certain men), not.
 

The first step necessary to pursue this goal is the thoroughly personal recognition of the conditions, distinctions, and natural restrictions above noted
regarding the human mind’s conception of the reality in which man exists
which liberates you from the otherwise life long mental capacity caused by
confusing local reality with any beyond/outside it;
freedom from mixing the knowable world with the unknowable.
 

Men’s brains are wired to dream & speculate about that which is not presently known, but not to recognize any line that definitively divides the knowable from the non;
ergo can the brain produce dream images for instance,
of being alive after the body of which it is a part has died, and after so doing,
take what it has done as meaningful evidence (if not absolute proof) that
this post viable picture of which it has conceived that would exist beyond
its own local reality is a literal possibility.
 

It is not the job of ordinary minds to recognize an absolute distinction between
local reality (which can be mentally touched, measured and known), and
universal reality (which includes everything not contained in man’s locally conceived);
mental dreams merge seamlessly with mental measurements;
myths with facts  --  science fiction with science:
this is the normal state of man’s consciousness,
and is responsible for his ability to alter the physical conditions in which he must live
to better suit his needs rather than the otherwise standard --  other way around.
Not even the certain man has complaint with this  --
the activity of the brain that bothers him is its continued embrace of
indiscriminate co-mingling of imaginary events and actual ones
when it turns its attention to its own mental-only inner world wherein
everything is imaginary to begin with;
its doing so is what entertains common minds, via the arts, literature, religion,
and the other various time killers,
but is also what causes the minds in a few men to be quite annoyed with
their normal state and to seek a refreshed one
(though few of even the few ever recognize the full situation, and what exactly is motivating them).