Are you awake or are you dreaming?

Are you awake or are you dreaming? When I seriously consider that I might be in a dream right now, I become intently aware of my experience. I wake up a bit. If this is a dream right now, that’s really interesting! Particularly to be aware that I’m dreaming while I’m dreaming. I don’t experience many lucid dreams at all. I wonder what strange things I could try out that I couldn’t do normally?

If this isn’t a dream, what is it? What is it really? How does it work? I think I know what’s going on, but maybe I’m blundering through it half asleep?

The point of this question is not to determine whether you are in the middle of a lucid dream or not (though it’s awesome if it can do that for you). The deeper purpose is to look more closely at reality and question it. Not in a philosophical way, but in a concrete, right-here-and-now kind of way. What is this that I’m experiencing right now and how does it all work?