[Advaita-l] Dreams and Reality

[Suresh]

Dear Friends,

In advaita, we're often given the dream analogy so we can make sense of why we mistake an illusory world as real. But there's one thing I don't get. Why do we mistake the dream (the dreams we have while asleep) for reality? For instance, we may dream of someone flying or something even more bizarre like some long dead historical personality. Yet, while dreaming, we never once get suspicious, we never once get the feeling that something's odd (except of course in rare cases of lucid dreaming).

My question is, Why is it this way? In the normal waking state, we all know that it'd be impossible to see a flying guy, we laugh at the very idea. But while dreaming, we do the exact opposite, in that we believe every bit of it. How is this possible, when the 'waker' and the dreamer are one and the same person, and with the same knowledge and awareness. 

I am a guy with the awareness that X is an impossible event, and with that same awareness I go to sleep. Yet I believe X totally while dreaming. Why? How can awareness vanish like that, or be replaced by some other type of awareness? What's it about the dream that makes us fall for it completely, even when it's totally illogical?

I look forward to reading your views on this.

Warmly,
Suresh