Whatever we come up with, we may find it difficult to justify the answer. We cannot come up with any watertight argument.
We cannot know for certain. And for a very good and important reason.
To us, dreams and waking life happens within and as consciousness.
They happen within and as what we are. To us, there is no difference between the nature of the two.
This doesn’t say anything about the nature of waking life or existence itself. It also doesn’t say that we shouldn’t take waking life seriously or not be good stewards of our life. It just says something about how this particular question appears to us when we look into it.
And it says something about what our more fundamental nature is, in our own first-person experience. Which, I assume, is why the question was created in the first place.
Cartoon: Drawing by Schulz, text attributed to Stephen LaBerge.
Am I awake or dreaming right now?
- cannot know for certain
- For a very good and important reason
- Dreams and waking life happens, to us, within and as consciousness, within and as what we are
- There is no difference in the nature of the two, as they appear to us
- Which doesn’t say anything about waking life itself, the nature of waking life outside of our own experience of it, just how it appears to us