"[you] have recommended I undertake some form of meditation in order to seek the self-realisation"

Yes, but as I said, only to study the nature of perception (which is IMO essential) as there is no experience that automatically leads to / means / is self-realization. Self-realization is not an experience. It's literally just a realization.

"some tentative suggestions"

Pushing this game of discarding belief systems further -- you can obviously discard what traditions and teachers say about appearances and illusions or anything else for that matter. By that I mean, discard even the information that you are consciousness or what's the purpose of brain.

Furthermore, where did you get the idea of various levels of reality? If it's just an assumption supported by concurring "third parties", you can discard those too as that's not something you can be 100% sure about in this scenario.

And finally, we can obviously tell when we are awake and when we sleep, but what's the difference? Did you happen to have a dream within a dream? How do you know you are not dreaming right now?