Metaphysics, Metafiction & The Nature of Reality

Plato asks us to imagine a dark cave in which people are imprisoned since birth, tied up facing the back wall. Behind them is a fire, which casts shadows on the wall. Between the prisoners & the fire, people walk up & down, holding various objects which cast shadows on the wall. Only these shadows on the wall are seen as the world by the prisoners. If one of the prisoners unties himself & looks around, he will see the real objects & the world. (These untied people are the enlightened ones.)

In the rare sub-genre of children's metafiction, probably the best known example is Roderick Townley's "The great good Thing." This book is also a paean to books, their characters & most importantly, the Readers. It explores the possibilities of the characters in a book getting out of the book & interacting with a sympathetic reader. The readers are the very life breath to the characters in a book, without whom they die. So the grandchild of the girl who was the first reader of the eponymous book, helps Princess Sylvie, the heroine of the book (which has gone out of print with only one copy possessed by the grandchild) remain in existence after the book is mischievously destroyed by fire. 

After the destruction of the physical book, the characters live only so long as they remain in the memory & dreams of the readers. So Princess Sylvie (who doesn't age as she is only a character in the book) frantically traces the descendant of the first reader, insinuates herself into her memory (with the help of the first reader's grandchild) & triumphantly goes on to live, as the descendant recreates the eponymous book from her memory.

So both in Plato & Townley, the nature of reality & existence is analysed & also the resultant doubt of whether our life is real or a figment of someone else's thought or dream.

Of course, this is also close to "Brahma Satyam Jagat Mithya" of Advaita Philosophy.