row, rowing boats

[The Middle Way]

What is/are the difference(s) between the dreaming state and ordinary waking experience? how sure can we be that the latter is real, and the former, not so much?

[VeryGnawty]

The only real difference is the type of perception and conscious activity between the two.  But this can be changed.  Through meditation you can experience waking life as if it were a dream (very trippy, I assure you).  On the flipside, you can teach yourself to become conscious while dreaming.

In each case, you recognize what is real from what is not real by your environment.  This is why lots of dreams seem real even though they aren't logical.

Of course, this is just for reference.  I don't believe in the concept of reality in the first place.

[The Middle Way]

Me neither, or not so much, thus such a topic as this.


IE: they say there is a difference between dreams and 'concrete' reality, but that this is a non-essential difference.

We tend to be attached to the latter because of the concreteness, one might be more or less detached in the dreaming 'reality'.

[VeryGnawty]

Here's the way I see it.  Everything is experienced in the mind.  There is no difference between dream and reality.  The only reason we call this world real is because it is recurring.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that every single night you dreamed of the same dream world.  It had the same rules of physics and logic every night.  It had the same characters every night.  You perceived yourself as being the same person every night.  And it seemed just as real as this world.

In such a case, how can you say it is any less real than this world?  Every night when you go to sleep, you wake up in the same other world with the same sense of realism.  You interact with the same characters, and you explore the world in the same way.  You conduct your life in the same way you would any other recurring world (i.e. reality)

At what point would such a dream become more real to you than this world?  And when it did, how would you tell the difference between the dream world and the real world?

[The Middle Way]

Great argument. "I concur".

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