It might be asked, 'what then happens to matter, if everything is mental?"
Matter, like any other kind of object, must be brought into being by the mind, since mind precedes existence. It does not follow from this, though, that matter is not 'real' just because it depends for its existence on the operation of the mind.
If we take it that the mind is real, and that what we experience of the world with our minds is real (after all we could not have experiences of the world without a mind) then the materials we confront within that world are clearly also real.
Where confusion might occur is in those distinctions we make between objects of imagination and those of corporeality (such as between forests conjured up in our dreams and physical forests). A dreamt forest feels just as real as a physical forest during the dream, but we cease to regard it as such when we wake up. Likewise, we might vividly imagine unicorns, without committing ourselves to the belief that they exist outside of our imagination.
The distinction between the imaginary and the corporeal is a valid and useful one (and indeed necessary if we are to socially integrate), but it is also a product of the self-same mental processes that allow us to distinguish between, say, a memory and a fantasy (although not infallibly), or between yesterday and now.
In other words, although the distinction between the 'real physical' world and the 'imaginary mental' world is habitual, valid and necessary it does not point to some deeper underlying bifurcation within the universe. Rather it is but one of the many distinctions we make as part of our moment to moment operation, a conventional way of organising our beliefs and behaviours — one that is so conventional that we find it very hard to think of ourselves and the world without it.
