What is Real?

Life In Flow Podcast

What is Real?

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What is Real?

Is the world we are presented with the real world? With everything else trashed to the bins of our imagination? Or is it time for us to stand by the legitimacy of pluriverse worlds?

Life In Flow, Yulia Bogdanova, Irina Mishina, and CoachingbyPolina

Jun 25, 2026

Greetings!

Have you ever caught yourself wondering if something is real?

The three of us have lived through experiences where this feels like a life-scale conflict.

The conflict is referring to a very definite unified structure of the modern world that we are asked to acknowledge and inhabit. It says:

“This is how the world is, per measurements that we accept as legitimate. We are fine with you imagining otherwise. But don’t expect us to take it seriously. Or to grant legitimacy to those worlds that don’t fit the consensus a few of us have come up with.”

“Who said so” is our question. Since we rarely if ever have definitive answers. Come ponder with us. Let’s be real together. Even in perceived unrealness.

And here are some quotes that have stayed with us:

Irina:

“For my whole life, my imagination and what is happening in my head had been always more real than the physical reality.”
“Our shared illusion is so powerful that we start believing that something is real just because the other people say that it’s real.”
“The reality stops responding to my attempts to manifest whatever in my illusion, if I’m coming from the motivation to prove that the world is wrong and I’m right.”
“I simply don’t want to live in the world without magic.”
“The more I allow myself to be guided by this feeling of aliveness, the more I find these experiences of shared reality.”

Yulya

“Every time I would discover that the things that make me alive somehow have to do with other states of consciousness or other perceptual planes.”
“Inhabiting a different persona in a really emphatic way creates almost an instantaneous shift in who you are in the waking reality.”
“If I live in another world that for me is real — be it imagination, be it dreams, be it traveling into the underworld — it creates a lot of tension with this world. If they do not recognize it, it’s as if I lose a little bit of my legitimacy.”
“My Bushcraft knife is always with me. You can cut trees with it, you can dig. It’s just something that is always there to remind me who I am and what I’m capable of.”
“Putting on a persona you don’t usually wear — it’s as if an excuse for a part of you to come alive.”
“If we each inhabit different perceptual worlds — what is real, so we can each live a happy life?”

Polina

“I both simultaneously believe nothing is real and everything is real.”
“Reality is something we choose to dress in the morning.”
“If perception is changeable, how can there be a reality?”
“If there’s many realities, why would I choose one that doesn’t excite me?”
“It brings me so much joy when the people that I interact with have range.”

In Flow,

Irina, Polina and Yulia

We cherish your presence, and joining us in flowing.

These conversations are open explorations, that become richer with time and participation of others. We’d love to hear if anything touched you.

Life in Flow is a reader- and listener-supported publication. If you enjoyed flowing with us, pls share with someone who might like it as well. It’s how this work reaches more people.

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