Mandukya_Upanishad

is a complicated case for investigation, a commissionwherein very competent persons are appointed, we seem tobe under the necessity of putting ourselves in the positionof a dispassionate commission of enquiry into the casespresented by the two states, waking and dreaming. We donot belong to the waking state, wholly; we do not, also,belong to the dreaming state, wholly. By a dispassionatedissociation of the judging consciousness from theexperiences of waking and dream, we place ourselves in asituation where analysis is practicable.When we judge the two states without any prejudice inour minds, the prejudice that waking is, perhaps, betterthan dream – without this prejudice, if we approach thismatter – we arrive at wholly startling conclusions. Why dowe say that the objects of waking are real? Because theyhave a utilitarian value. The food of the waking state, notthe dream food, can appease our hunger of the wakingstate. That is why we say that the dream food is not real andthat the waking food is real. But we forget that the dreamfood can satisfy our dream hunger. Why do we make acomparison of the two stales wrongly? We confine thedream food to the dream world and make a comparison ofthe dream hunger with waking hunger, not equally, also,making a comparison of the other aspect of the matter,namely the food aspect. If we say: we see people in thewaking world in relation to whom we can speak and havedealings, in dream, too, we can have the same dealings withthe dream people. We can shake hands with a dream friend,fight with a dream enemy, and experience even a dreamdeath in a battle of dream. We can have a dream court case.71