Did Arroway travel dreaming to Vega (in the movie Contact)?

In the film Contact, after building the giant machine on Hokkaido, Arroway 'travels' to Vega, landing at the beach where her father is.

However, the capsule never left earth. It's not clear if Arroway had a dream, or that it really happened (as 18 hours of noise was recorded, which is 1 second on earth.)

Did Arroway have a dream or was it real?