Night Dreams, Waking Dreams, Reality
Charlie Hayes

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(The following is Chapter 41 from the above book.)

Who, or what, awakens a dream character from the dream at night? Can that character know he is a dreamed character? No. Only the body-mind dreamer can awaken and see that it was in fact only a dream, not real. And that the subject-character and all the objects - scenery, other characters etc - were never actually real at all. It only seems real to a dreamed character, never to the body-mind dreamer.

So who awakens the “person” to the realization that what he thinks of as his or her life is actually only a dream, exactly like the sleeping-dream, except with more seeming persistence and solidity? Can a person… a dreamed character arising in the Self - the Dream-er in this metaphor - ever wake itself up?

Upon awakening in the morning, perhaps a vivid dream is remembered - sometimes even with fondness for the characters. (I recall a number of such dreams where there were wonderful lovers!) But there is no delusion about these characters having any substance or existence whatsoever.

I also recall a series of night dreams where there was a seeming continuity - some character from previous dreams reappeared, and all sorts of prior dream-events were remembered, giving seeming continuity to a story that seemed real and alive. But only to the “me” in that dream.

This waking dream is precisely the same with the added dimensions of apparent persistence and solid sensible continuity. This appearance, called Maya in the East, is the magical dark woolen veil of the Dreamer pulling the wool over the eyes of its own True Nature, so to say. Why? It just happens.

No one can answer why (though many try, doomed to the ultimate realization that it is a mystery of magnificent proportions.)

In Reality there is no dreamed character. How could there be? The "you" that you think you are blows totally away in the seeing that all there IS, is the Dreamer - the Self - and nothing else has any actual solidity or persistence, any more than the at-night-asleep-dream does.

The search for joy and peace, or liberation, is all over then.

The play continues as long as the organism lives. But there is no possibility that once the Dreamer has awakened to its Self so to speak, that any belief that all of this play is real and separate from the Dreamer can be sustained. Even if a delusion arises it is quickly – or eventually - seen as what it is - by the Dreamer - as insubstantial.

And Poof. It’s gone. (Again, 'so to speak;' the Dreamer is not separate from what is seen; words always fail!)

The pointer is that all efforts by a dream character to wake himself or herself to what REALLY IS cannot possibly succeed, any more that a nighttime dream-person can satisfy an urge to empty the bladder by peeing into a dream toilet. (I have had the experience of attempting that as a dreamed character many times; fortunately the body-mind wakes up and shuffles off to the bathroom just in time to avoid ruining the bed sheets!)

The dream-reality at night is only real to the dreamed character, never to the body-mind dreamer.

The bigger longer more seemingly connected event-by-event called the “waking state” is exactly the same only much more elaborate. That’s all.

When the Dreamer wakes her Self to her Self, then it becomes a celebration of aliveness, but not for the person. There is no enlightened meat. Only the Dreamer - Oneness, The Self, True-Nature, whatever concept you like, can know that there never was a dream. 

The Dreamer Her-Self arises in thought as Self Inquiry. Asking the last question, the one that counts, dissolving Her dream - Who Am I?

We think we do it.

And so it does seem! The belief that we cannot do it is leads to just as much suffering as the belief that we can, in the so-called process.

In fact, we do nothing. But that - as a belief - can create a load of despair.

Doing happens. Including for some fortunate patterns, Inquiry. Call it Grace, or any other label - it is simply Self arising to see Self, One becoming many, folding back into One … the Dream of the Source.

Paradox.

Beautiful stuff, this apparent creation.

Literally incomprehensible in magnitude.

To me, awe and humility are inevitable when this Magnificence arises and there is no one to see it.

Loving to be. Just that, and all is well.

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