Just Wondering...

Is a headache like a tree falling in the forest? I mean, does it exist when there's no one around to (consciously) experience it? I ask myself this because I woke at 1:15 or so with a furious attack of what I have been calling my cluster headaches--that's what I believe they are--but managed to get back to sleep fairly quickly. Then I woke at 5:30 or so and the headache was still there. So the question is, did I actually have the headache all that time?

I'm inclined to believe I did, since I woke up feeling less than fully rested, as though I had been in pain all night. Is pain some kind of objective reality, existing whether it's perceived or not? Or is it in the mind of the perceiver? Or part and part? I know that we all experience pain in our different ways--some are more, some less tolerant to it. And it sure seems real when I'm experiencing it. But if I use what meditation skills I have developed over the years to detach from it, I can experience it without the suffering that can prolong it and make it worse.

This morning--now seven-thirty--the pain persists. I'm down to wishing it would go away!