The Great Multi-Layered Hoax

Now, you see, we have a very peculiar habit. We wake up in the morning, rub our eyes, and say, “Well, thank goodness that’s over. Now I’m back in the real world.” We assume that the phantasmagoria of the night – the flying green elephants and the sudden ability to speak fluent French to a toaster – was just an “inaccurate perception,” a bit of neurological static. But if we look at this with a bit of a twinkle in our eye, we might discover that we haven’t actually woken up at all. We’ve simply changed the channel.

Most of us have several dreams a night. We pass from one to the next like a traveler moving through different rooms in a vast, dark mansion. We don’t remember the earlier ones; we only catch the tail end of the last one before the alarm clock goes off. And the staggering implication here is that this “waking life,” this serious business of paying taxes and wearing neckties, is just another room in that same mansion. It is the “waking dream.”

The Three Rooms of the Mind

If we look at the ancient maps of consciousness, they tell us there are three kinds of dreams. There is the dream we have when we are asleep, which is fluid and unpredictable. There is the deep sleep, which we think of as a “blank,” but is actually just a dream of such profound stillness that there’s no “content” to report back to the ego. And then there is this – the waking state.

We think this state is “real” because it’s persistent. It has a certain “hardness” to it. But from a certain altitude, even heaven, hell, and the entire cycle of rebirth – the recurring merry-go-round of coming and going – are just different layers of the same dream. Whether you are dreaming you are a beggar in a ditch or a king in a celestial palace, you are still dreaming. You are still being “taken in” by the show.

The Narrow Slit of the Senses

Why do I call this a dream? Because of the way we perceive. You see, our senses are not windows; they are filters. Your eyes only pick up a tiny, infinitesimal slice of the electromagnetic spectrum. Your ears only hear a narrow range of vibrations. Most of what is “out there” is completely invisible and inaudible to you.

Then comes the mind. The mind isn’t a transparent lens; it’s more like a piece of stained glass. It is colored by your past, your prejudices, your language, and your fears. It judges everything before you even “see” it. So, what you are experiencing right now is not “the world as it is.” It is a highly edited, narrow, and colored version of reality. If we define a dream as an “inaccurate perception,” then every single thing you have ever experienced through your mind and senses is, by definition, a dream.

The Ghostly Actor

The fascinating thing about a dream is that everything in it is a phantom, except for the dreamer. In your sleep, you might dream of a mountain. The mountain isn’t real, but the experience of the mountain is real. The one seeing the mountain is real.

In this “waking dream,” your body is changing. Your cells are dying and being replaced every few years. Your mind is evolving – your thoughts today are not the thoughts you had ten years ago. Nothing about your physical or mental makeup is stable, unchangeable, or eternal. And if it isn’t stable, it isn’t “real” in the ultimate sense. It’s a whirlpool in a river; it looks like a “thing,” but it’s actually just a pattern of moving water.

The Big Awakening

So, what is the goal of this whole game? The goal is to wake up. We use the word “awakened” to describe those rare individuals who have finally stopped being fooled by the scenery. They have realized that the show is a show.

When you wake up from a dream at night, you don’t go anywhere. You stay in the same bed, but your relationship to the dream changes. You realize you were never in danger from the dream-monster. In the same way, “waking up” in this life means discovering that which is truly stable and eternal – the dreamer behind the dream.

As a famous philosopher once exhorted: “Arise! Awake! And stop not till the goal is reached.” The goal isn’t to get into a better dream, or a more “heavenly” dream. The goal is to stop dreaming altogether. To see the reality unfiltered by the mind’s prejudices and the senses’ limitations. When you do that, you find a freedom and a happiness that doesn’t depend on the “plot” of the dream. You find the peace of the one who knows it’s all a play.