The fun of watching a movie is getting lost in it. If I'm not able to cry while watching Grey's Anatomy, I should probably watch something else. I would love to tell my friends about the truth, but I don't want to be the guy ruining a good movie by constantly saying "Why are you crying? It's just a movie. It's not real"
Fortunately, if the movie gets too scary, or sad, we have the ability to remind ourselves of what's real and what's not real.
The images on the TV screen appear to be real. To be certain, I can walk up and touch the screen. I can then run my hand across the screen. I am not touching a bunch people and things on the screen. I am only ever touching one thing: the screen.
I can only touch the screen. There is only screen. We never touch the tree. The reality of the tree is the screen. The movie has no existence outside of the screen.
The images in the night-time dream also appear to be real. However, the characters and the sandy beach in our dream has no existence outside of the dreamer's mind.
Likewise, the images in this current experience also appear to be real. The mountains really look like real mountains and the river really looks like a real river. However, what happens when we touch the mountain or the tree? What do we find?
We discover that our only access to the world is through our senses. If not for the senses, the world would not exist, since we would not be aware of it. The world appears to us as a smell, a taste, a sight, a sound and a texture. All combined into one seamless experience.
When we try and touch the outside world what do we find? We find only our perceptions. We don't perceive a world. We perceive perceptions. What is the reality of our perceptions? What are perceptions made of?
In other words, what is the substance of a smell? What is the substance of a sound? What is the substance of a sensation? All of my perceptions are appearing in the same stuff. The same substance. The same realm. I am only touching consciousness.
In fact, I can only every directly experience Consciousness. It is always only the screen. In other words, the reality of experience, the substance of experience, is 100% Consciousness. We never experience anything but Consciousness. It is the reality of everything. In reality, a thought, and a body and a mountain are all made of the same stuff.
Yes, it appears that the world is filled with a bunch of separate discreet objects with their own independent existence. However, we know that we can be fooled by our senses and we have been conditioned to view the world a certain way. However, when we learn to discriminate our actual experience and trust our intelligence, we understand that the reality of the world is Consciousness.
"It's never real. Even when we are believing its real. Its still not real" Jac O'Keeffe
Someone sent me a poem today that has the same spirit as what you're saying here, especially these lines:
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
"Me" is the ultimate truth. Remember the screen and let the movie keep streaming.
(That's by Rilke, by the way.)