The Dreamer and the Dream

A student once came to his teacher with a question that had been troubling him for many years.

“Master,” he said, “I understand intellectually that all is one, that there is no separation. But in my daily life, I still experience myself as separate from others, from objects, from the world. The understanding doesn’t seem to penetrate my actual experience. How can I make this real?”

The teacher smiled and asked, “Have you ever had a dream?”

“Of course,” the student replied.

“In the dream, were there not people, places, objects, and events? Did you not experience yourself as a character in that dream, separate from other characters and from the dream world itself?”

“Yes, that’s exactly how it feels,” the student said.

“And yet,” the teacher continued, “when you wake up, what do you discover? You realize that all of it—the people, the places, the objects, the events, and even the ‘you’ that was in the dream—were all made of the same substance: the dream itself. There was never any real separation. The dream character and the dream world were not two different things—they were both appearances within the one dream.”

The student nodded slowly, beginning to see where this was leading.

“Now,” said the teacher, “consider this: What if your current experience—what you call ‘waking life’—is also a kind of dream? Not a dream that you have while sleeping, but a dream that awareness is having, appearing as the world, as people, as objects, as thoughts, as the sense of being a separate individual.”

“But this feels so real!” the student protested.

“Didn’t the dream feel real while you were in it?” the teacher asked gently. “Only upon waking did you recognize it as a dream. Similarly, this ‘waking’ experience feels real because you are identified with the character in the dream. But what if you could ‘wake up’ from this dream as well?”

The teacher paused, allowing the question to settle.

“The key is not to try to make the understanding ‘real’ by changing your experience. The key is to recognize what your experience actually is. Just as in a nighttime dream, all the apparent diversity and separation is actually one unified dream, so in this ‘waking’ dream, all apparent diversity and separation is actually one unified awareness, appearing as the world.”

The Three States

In Advaita Vedanta, we recognize three states of consciousness:

Waking state (Jagrat): The state in which we experience the world through the senses
Dream state (Svapna): The state in which we experience a dream world
Deep sleep (Sushupti): The state of dreamless sleep

In each of these states, there appears to be a different world, a different experience. Yet there is something that is present in all three states: awareness itself.

In the waking state, awareness appears as the waking world
In the dream state, awareness appears as the dream world
In deep sleep, awareness remains, though there are no objects

The witness of all three states is the same awareness. It is the unchanging background that is present whether there are objects (waking/dream) or no objects (deep sleep).

The Substance of Appearance

Just as a dream is made entirely of dream-stuff—there is nothing in the dream that is not the dream itself—so too is this waking experience made entirely of awareness. There is nothing that appears that is not awareness itself, appearing in different forms.

The body is awareness appearing as a body. The mind is awareness appearing as thoughts. The world is awareness appearing as the world. The sense of separation is awareness appearing as the sense of separation.

All of it is the same substance, just as all the characters and objects in a dream are made of the same dream-stuff.

Recognition, Not Change

The teacher’s point is crucial: we don’t need to change our experience to recognize the truth. We simply need to recognize what our experience actually is.

When you recognize that you are dreaming, you don’t need to change the dream. The recognition itself is the “waking up.” Similarly, when you recognize that all appearances are awareness itself, you don’t need to change the appearances. The recognition is the freedom.

The sense of separation doesn’t need to go away. It can be recognized as what it is: awareness appearing as the sense of separation. In this recognition, the sense of separation loses its power, because it is seen through. It is recognized as an appearance, not as reality.

The Dreamer and the Dream

In the end, there is no separate dreamer having a dream. There is only the dream, appearing as both the dreamer and the dream. Similarly, there is no separate awareness having an experience. There is only awareness, appearing as both the experiencer and the experienced.

The recognition of this is not an achievement or a state to be maintained. It is simply seeing what is already the case. Just as you don’t need to “maintain” the recognition that you are awake after waking from a dream, you don’t need to maintain the recognition of your true nature. Once seen, it is seen. The dream character may still appear, but it is recognized as a character in a dream, not as who you actually are.

And who are you? You are the awareness in which all dreams appear and disappear. You are the unchanging witness, the ever-present “I” that is the source and substance of all that is.