Is It All in Your Imagination?

Dr. Johnson's idea is more than just a refutation of solipsism, it also illustrates the criterion for reality that is used in science. Namely, if something can kick back, it exists. Kicking back here does not necessarily mean that the alleged object is responding to being kicked to being physically affected as Dr. Johnson's rock was. It is enough that when we kick something, the object affects us in ways that require independent explanation. And so you are just saying that realism is true plus the assumption that you're dreaming that physical reality ends with existence.