interesting take on the ben stiller movie - is it necessarily "better" to trade one narrative (I'm inferior) for another (I have a life others might envy).

In fact, it might be interesting to consider, "What might it be to live a life in which, whatever narratives arise, I don't identify fully with any of them?"

After all, we know that the sense of "I" is ALSO a brain construction (largely due to the working of the medial prefrontal cortex, with much help from other areas of the brain and nervous system, including the enteric nervous system).

Actually, it's not that hard to catch a glimpse of this. If there's a sense that "I am doing this" what is it that has that sense?

Is this an infinite regress? Or is there something that is not "I" - at least, not a limited "I" - that takes in all of this, that is aware of all this?

Perhaps, since you mention lucid dreams, that awareness which transitions out of the waking state, sees the dream state forming, enters into the dream state while aware it is a dream, and can transition out of the dream state while maintaining awareness of what we refer to as deep sleep (this has been done in the laboratory, by the way) - perhaps that awareness is not tied either to any narrative OR a sense of a limited "I"......