Life as Dream

Sometimes while surfing the web for themes in this class, I stumble on hidden gems. Today, I found a play, La Vida es Sueño (or Life is a Dream) by the celebrated Spanish author Pedro Calderón de la Barca. This play analyzes the idea of life as illusion or dream throughout. This dilemma is brought to a breaking point in one speech delivered in prison by the main character, Sigismundo. Several sources state that this speech is the "To be or not to be" of Spanish literature:

"I dream that I am here/ of these imprisonments charged, / and I dreamed that in another state/ happier I saw myself. / What is life? A frenzy. / What is life? An illusion, / A shadow, a fiction, / And the greatest profit is small; / For all of life is a dream, / And dreams are nothing but dreams"

Here, the main character questions the very fact of his existence. Perhaps this is all a vivid dream? If so, what happens when we wake up? If this is true, then what happens when we finally hear the narrator, summing up our own actions??