Which dream in Looking Backward seemed more realistic: When he woke up in 1887 or 2000? First, lets recap the book. Our main character, a man named Julian West, lives in the year 1887. He is thirty years old. One night after a attending a party, he falls asleep and when he wakes up, it is the year 2000!  The assumption is that Julian has been asleep for one hundred and thirteen years! The crazy thing is that he did not age at all while he was asleep, he was still 30 years old. Julian was forced to learn how to live in the future. There many strange things that Julian saw in the year 2000, like computers and electronics.  After a few days of living in the year 2000, he falls asleep again and this time when he wakes up, he is back in the year 1887. It seems it was all a dream. It must have been an extremely realistic dream because Julian has to relearn how to live in the year 1887 where there are no computers, no electronics, and no cars. He was quite thankful to be back in his own time, especially since he had a girl that he was going to marry. She did not exist in his dream, nor did his friends or his family. 

When I began reading this book I actually thought that he was in the year 2000 when he woke up the first time. It was all so realistic, the things he saw, the things he heard, and the things he experienced. The plot line was a little bit hard to believe though, but then I realized that the book was science fiction so that made it a little more believable. The one thing that I had a hard time believing is the fact that he did not at all age. It is just not humanly or physically possible for someone to not age. The book did not even have some science twist to it. The book did not explain how he did not age. It is not like somebody cast a spell on him like in Sleeping Beauty. And he definitely did not get frozen in ice like in Captain America. So that really confused me. But near the end of the book he woke up from the dream and I finally understood how he could sleep for that long. It was all a dream! He never really slept for that long. Besides, who could!? It is more believable he experienced a really long dream that lasted days, but it his own time, it has only been a short time. If normal time and dream time went at the same rate and you had a dream that lasted days, than you would have been asleep that lasted days, and there is no way that you could be asleep for days because you have to wake up at some point. I have never had a dream that lasted days and I hope that I never do, but it is fun to imagine it.