Ramana Maharshi Clarifies To Sadhu Arunachala (A. W. Chadwick) About Dream And Waking States

Bhagavan refused to see the least difference between the two states, and in this he agreed with all the great Advaitic Seers.Some have questioned if Sankara did not draw a line of difference between these two states, but Bhagavan has persistently denied it. Sankara did it apparently only for the purpose of clearer exposition, he would explain.

Go beyond both states, all three states including deep sleep,and study them from that point of view. You now study one limitation from the point of view of another limitation. Could anything be more absurd? Go beyond all limitation, then come
here with the problem.”

But in spite of this, doubt still remained.

I somehow felt at the time of dreaming there was something unreal in it, not always of course. But just glimpses now and then. “Doesn’t that ever happen to you in your waking state too?”

Bhagavan queried. “Don’t you sometimes feel that the world you live in and the thing that is happening is unreal?”

Still in spite of all this, doubt persisted.

But one morning I went to Bhagavan and much to his amusement handed him a paper on which the following was written:

“Bhagavan remembers that I expressed some doubts about the resemblance between dreams and waking experience. Early in the morning most of these doubts were cleared by the
following dream, which seemed particularly objective and real:

“I was arguing philosophy with someone. I pointed out that all experience was only subjective, that there was nothing outside the mind.

“The other person demurred, pointing out how solid everything was and how real experience seemed. It could not be just personal imagination.

“ I replied, ‘No, it is nothing but a dream. Dream and waking experience are exactly the same.’

“‘You say that now’, he replied, ‘but you would never say a thing like that in your dream.’”

And then I woke up.

Source: SURPASSING LOVE AND GRACE SRI RAMANASRAMAM By His devotees