Answer: real is what you allow it to be. And since we have all agreed to live in the Wurld, it IS real. The Real question is: Just "how" real is it? Is it - the psy experience --- due to YOU directly? Or are you a just a bystander? And at that point....you make a conscious decision - or an unconscious decision....to get informed, or take action, or run.
By your experiencing the event - - it was not ignored. Many things happen around most of us - every day, that are ignored; and thus - are not part of your experience base. You can't use the experience for any real purpose, other than reading about it in the news - and saying --"Ethel - I was there today."
You would perhaps be surprised at the things that happen just outside your perspective range - each day. The "folks" you might see - walking down the street, or the things - you might see --- in the dark at nite - in the corner of the room.
But to be innocent and ignorant....for the most part, is a blessing for most folks, at first.
Next time you go walking in the nite......and it's quiet; no cars on the street.....pause. Take a breath...close your eyes, consider what I suggest here, tonite....and think to yourself...."I am suspending disbelief"…just for a moment, and slowly open your eyes..... use this as an exercise, at nite....see what happens.....(I won't spoil it fer ya by planting an image in your mind
In order to open yourself up to new opportunities.....ya gotta suspend disbelief for the time you want to experience the 'fantastic' or the not so believable. Ya don't have to make judgments on what you experience. The idea is ---if you are currently closed to certain fantastic things...and ya wanna start being open to them --- without trying to analyze it.... ya gotta suspend disbelief....
For those natural skeptics in the gallery (and I am one) a decent book to read is one by Carl Sagan, "…demon haunted world". It portrays the alternative perspective that things are explainable by science - not hysterics. But Sagan perceived that all science - is constantly being stretched; and our limits of science - are only due to the lack of stretching.
Then try one more book: "Confrontations", by Jacques Vallee, for those of you who are always asking what "aliens" are. See - to get the perspective stretched....ya gotta initially listen to both sides, all sides. Those who scream aliens every time a light appears in the sky...and those that see visions in every single dream - without asking what the sitter had for dinner....and the other side of the fence....those that simply want something tangible to analyze before crying "Gua!" (Sci Fi channel -> first wave)