The Swimmer: Reality or Illusion

In the short story The Swimmer by John Cheever the reader is taken on an adventure down the 'stream' the Lucinda but what started off as merely a fun afternoon activity for Ned turned into a truth seeking reality check.
When the story began I had no doubt that the events were actually unfolding in 'real' life, I believed Ned was actually hopping from one pool to the other conversing with his neighbors and trying to get home. It wasn't until Ned arrived in the Lindleys' backyard and his memory was seeming to fail him that I got the feeling that something wasn't right and that this swimming adventure may not even be real. As the story continues Ned has an even harder time remembering important events about his life and his neighbors (and friends) lives, it starts out with little details, not being able to remember whether his neighbors moved or are just away for the summer to forgetting that his friend had major surgery, Ned even says himself "was his memory failing or had he so disciplined it in the repression of unpleasant facts that he had damaged his sense of the truth?" His forgetfulness gets more serious when Ned is in the Halloran's pool and Mrs. Halloran talks about his misfortunes (selling the house and that his children have moved out) but Ned assures her that none of those things has happened. When Ned arrives at the Biswangers’ to have a drink Ned overhears Mrs. Biswanger say “They went for broke overnight—nothing but income—and he showed up drunk one Sunday and asked us to loan him five thousand dollars" however this information doesn't seem to affect Ned at all and he goes on to  continue his cross country swim.
When Ned finally arrives at home the windows are dark and the gate was locked, Ned could not remember where his family could have gone until he finally realised that nobody was home and everything Mrs. Halloran and Biswanger had said was true. The first steps for Ned to recover from his apparent illness is to understand what has happened and know that his family is gone. This swimming adventure of his may just have been an exercise to do just so, and that it was all in his head.