Wondering out loud

Poe said "Is all we see or seem, but a dream within a dream?"
So, I'm sitting here wondering if consciousness just ***poof***, disappears when our bodies die, or does it like so many other things in nature go on? Does "I" poof? Or just a fragment of "I"? Does consciousness stop functioning, and if so, when?

If there is a fine line between genius and insanity, could a person stand with a foot on each side? Is this as uncommon as is thought? (I've found myself often having a leg on each side & my mind in the middle.)

I recently watched a piece on pbs with Allen Alda. "Independent Lens" I think, on dreams. And in the past, I've peeked into dream interpretation books. The researchers that were with Mr. Alda somewhat concluded that our dreams are 'fragments' of all kinds of symbols, and in REM, our mind is trying to make sense of it, but that there may be no sense to it. (Leg on each side, mind in middle.)
I've recently been 'wondering' about dreams a lot lately. Not just my own, which finally have returned, but those of a family member. She has been showing signs of Gulf War Syndrome (as has her daughter, my granddaughter), and her dreams have been...not good. They have traced GWS back to a packet of pills that the troops were forced to take. (Agent Orange just *popped* into my mind.)
She has had some symptoms, and is persuing it through the VA now. I still worry...it's my nature, and my disease: GAD...generalized anxiety disorder. I've got it under control. If the GAD isn't bad enough, add depression and you get a comorbidity. Then, after the trauma, I suffered, and still do, from PTSD. I thought a person only got this after combat, but that's not true. Any trumatic experience can take you there, and it depends on so many influences as to the degree of the disease. Meaning. Control. Predictability. Coping strategies.... I am familiar with PTSD to the degree of my own experience. And now young men and women are coming home from Iraq and Afganistan with it...afraid to own it, as that would be displaying weakness. They've been contaminated and brain washed. And it doesn't end when their tour is over.

"Y" do there have to be wars?

How can humans be so...brutal? Mean? Where does that come from? I don't understand. I don't want to.