Everything: A Dream

Sri Ramana Maharshi

26-2-1946 morning

A visitor told B, "Even in my dream I sometimes feel that I am dreaming, i.e., I am conscious that it is a dream and that a fall for instance there cannot hurt me and so on. How is that?"

B: How can that be? Even in a dream there must be hurt consequent on a fall. On the other hand, if you are aware it is a dream, you are no longer dreaming. at the best, it may be the transition stage when you are waking from the dream state. 

Another visitor told B that some of his dream experiences stood very firmly rooted in his mind, while others were not remembered at all. 

B remarked, "All that we see is a dream, whether we see it in the dream state or in the waking state. On some arbitrary standards about the duration of experience, we call one experience dream experience and another waking experience. With reference to Reality, both the experiences are unreal. A man might have such an experience as getting anugraha (grace) in his dream and the effect and influence of it on his entire subsequent life may be so profound and so abiding that one cannot call it unreal, while calling real some trifling incident in the waking life that just flits by, is casual, of no moment whatever and is soon forgotten. Once I had an experience, a vision or dream, whatever you may call it. I am some others including Chadwick had a walk on the hill. Returning, we were walking along a huge street with great buildings on either side. Showing the street and the buildings, I asked Chadwick and the others whether anybody could say that what we were seeing was a dream and they all replied, "Which fool will say so?" and we walked along and entered the hall and the vision or dream ceased or I woke up. What are we to call this?"