He fully understood all this, but, like a man unable to resist arguing with a hallucination, even though he knows perfectly well that the entire masquerade is staged in his own brain, Cincinnatus tried in vain to out-wrangle his fear, despite his understanding that he ought actually to rejoice at the awakening whose proximity was presaged by barely noticeable phenomena, by the peculiar effects on everyday implements, by a certain general instability, by a certain flaw in all visible matter - but the sun was still realistic, the world still held together, objects still observed an outward propriety.
-Vladimir Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading