What is Magic?

When only the two sun signs are disharmonious (with harmony between the two moon and rising signs), then there is likely to be disagreement with regard to life philosophies, and ultimate aims and goals.  Often the backgrounds and upbringings contrast; in any case the two parties have very different views of the world and their places in it, and they shape their lives toward different ends. There may be some possessive­ness, or a tendency for each to try to force the relationship to fit their own image of how it ought to be.  The resulting conflict of wills can make mutual commitment over the long haul a matter of concern, especially in the initial stages of the relationship.  In the case of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, “Elvis would ‘lock’ his women in.  It was rough for her because Elvis was a pretty jealous man, too, and with a woman as beautiful and fine as Cilla, you could see why. … Hence the double standard that developed in Elvis’s treatment of his wife.  (Elvis’s producer) wanted to cast Priscilla in movies.  She also had numerous other opportunities.  Nobody knows exactly what happened to these opportunities, but it is assumed that she disregarded them at Elvis’s command.”(7)  In counterbalance to this separative tendency on the ideological level, there is a strong emotional bond and usually a shared set of everyday interests and tastes.  Both like to do the same sorts of things, and they like to do them together. When only the sun signs are harmonious, it is everyday functioning that becomes a problem; when only the sun signs are disharmoni­ous, it is the overview, the question of where the relationship is heading in terms of each party’s indi­vidual aspirations, that is at issue.  Each must learn to let the other make their  own way in life, and respect the other person’s choices. 

When two people have their moons in harmonious signs (while the two sun and rising signs are dishar­monious), then their personalities and temperaments are in accord. Their reactions to things and feelings about life are similar, so they can be perfectly candid and reveal their deepest feelings to one another. There is a strong empathy and tenderness between them; rarely do they need to explain themselves or justify their actions to one other.  Each intuitively understands the other’s motivations and accepts them for what they are, rather like a mother accepts her children for what they are, unquestioningly.   And like a mother who knows her children will leave her when they grow up, these people are aware that their life paths diverge, and that each will want to make their own place in the world. There is a recognition that there are limits to what they will able to accomplish working together, that they can help each other best by providing moral support, and cheering the other on in their struggle with life’s vicissitudes. They know they always have someone who is receptive and kindly disposed towards them to whom they can return to unburden themselves and rest their spirits.  For example, after Jane Fonda’s separation from Ted Turner after eight years of marriage, she commented: “Ted is a soul mate. I care about him. He means the world to me. He taught me to be happy.” They separated, she said, “because we changed. I changed. … Are we happier by ourselves than we were together? It’s not clear.”(8) 

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The converse situation, when all three pairs of vital centers are in disharmonious signs, makes for rather intriguing relationships, on the principle that oppo­sites attract. People who are quite unlike us can provide us with a fascinating complement by helping us to recognize exactly where our strengths and limitations lie. They embolden us to exhibit different facets of ourselves, to try out different roles, to experiment. We can learn a great deal from these people, not only because they present us with an alternative point of view and way of doing things, but also because in the mirror of their reactions to us we see ourselves and our aspirations standing out in bold relief. There is a sense of newness and freshness that grows out of the continual awareness of differences – ­you never know what to expect next!  As an example, consider the first meeting of Isadora Duncan and Gordon Craig:  “Here stood before me brilliant youth, beauty, genius; and, all inflamed with sudden love, I flew into his arms with all the magnetic willingness of a temperament which had for two years lain dormant, but waiting to spring forth.  Here I found an answering temperament, worthy of my metal (sic).  In him I had met the flesh of my flesh, the blood of my blood.”(5)  This type of relationship, however, is generally better for romance than for marriage, since the fact that none of the pairs of vital centers is harmonious means that the paths in life diverge sharply, and so a frustrating gap between the two people can come into being.  At every turn there are differences of approach that must be reconciled; one or the other must always give way.  Hence an exceptional amount of inner adjust­ment is incumbent on both parties in order to make the relationship work.  Each must learn to recognize when the other is more in tune with the situation at hand, and forgo their own inclinations and impulses at such times.  By the same token, each must learn to sort out their own ideas and feelings to determine where they must “draw the line” and let their own desires prevail. These relationships both bestow and require a peculiar fluidity and ability to adapt.    

When the two sun signs are harmonious, while the two moon and rising signs are disharmonious, then there is a basic similarity of outlook on life, or a sense that the two lives are heading in the same direction. These people can come back together again after years of separation and pick right up where they left off, because the essential thing is the long view:  life in its more ultimate or long-range aspects.  Friendship, therefore, seems to be the most pronounced feature of the relationship.  However, there are numerous areas of more superficial division:  the two personalities are quite distinct, and opinions are apt to differ on how things are to be done in actual practice.  Nonetheless each is willing to free the other to go their own way and do what they feel they must do to fulfill themselves.   Whether they cherish or obey is moot, but they certainly honor one another.  An example consider  John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy:  “The marriage had become, by now, little more than a matter of mutual convenience – a union of two mercurial, strong-willed, stubborn people who, like so many children of the rich, were rather used to getting their own way, and were not happy when they didn’t.  Any romantic love that might have once existed between them had long since evaporated.  …  And so a perfectly sensible business deal was struck during those first White House months.  She would supply the elegance, the charm, the class that he wanted.  And he, in turn would let her do pretty much whatever else she chose.”(6)

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The converse situation, when all three pairs of vital centers are in disharmonious signs, makes for rather intriguing relationships, on the principle that oppo­sites attract. People who are quite unlike us can provide us with a fascinating complement by helping us to recognize exactly where our strengths and limitations lie. They embolden us to exhibit different facets of ourselves, to try out different roles, to experiment. We can learn a great deal from these people, not only because they present us with an alternative point of view and way of doing things, but also because in the mirror of their reactions to us we see ourselves and our aspirations standing out in bold relief. There is a sense of newness and freshness that grows out of the continual awareness of differences – ­you never know what to expect next!  As an example, consider the first meeting of Isadora Duncan and Gordon Craig:  “Here stood before me brilliant youth, beauty, genius; and, all inflamed with sudden love, I flew into his arms with all the magnetic willingness of a temperament which had for two years lain dormant, but waiting to spring forth.  Here I found an answering temperament, worthy of my metal (sic).  In him I had met the flesh of my flesh, the blood of my blood.”(5)  This type of relationship, however, is generally better for romance than for marriage, since the fact that none of the pairs of vital centers is harmonious means that the paths in life diverge sharply, and so a frustrating gap between the two people can come into being.  At every turn there are differences of approach that must be reconciled; one or the other must always give way.  Hence an exceptional amount of inner adjust­ment is incumbent on both parties in order to make the relationship work.  Each must learn to recognize when the other is more in tune with the situation at hand, and forgo their own inclinations and impulses at such times.  By the same token, each must learn to sort out their own ideas and feelings to determine where they must “draw the line” and let their own desires prevail. These relationships both bestow and require a peculiar fluidity and ability to adapt.    

When the two sun signs are harmonious, while the two moon and rising signs are disharmonious, then there is a basic similarity of outlook on life, or a sense that the two lives are heading in the same direction. These people can come back together again after years of separation and pick right up where they left off, because the essential thing is the long view:  life in its more ultimate or long-range aspects.  Friendship, therefore, seems to be the most pronounced feature of the relationship.  However, there are numerous areas of more superficial division:  the two personalities are quite distinct, and opinions are apt to differ on how things are to be done in actual practice.  Nonetheless each is willing to free the other to go their own way and do what they feel they must do to fulfill themselves.   Whether they cherish or obey is moot, but they certainly honor one another.  An example consider  John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy:  “The marriage had become, by now, little more than a matter of mutual convenience – a union of two mercurial, strong-willed, stubborn people who, like so many children of the rich, were rather used to getting their own way, and were not happy when they didn’t.  Any romantic love that might have once existed between them had long since evaporated.  …  And so a perfectly sensible business deal was struck during those first White House months.  She would supply the elegance, the charm, the class that he wanted.  And he, in turn would let her do pretty much whatever else she chose.”(6)

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When a pair of vital centers lies in disharmonious signs, then there is a point of conscious difference in the relationship that can become a matter of concern or even conflict.  Contrasts always impose themselves upon the awareness more forcefully than similarities do, so the attention tends to go to them. When the two sun signs are in disharmonious signs, there is a clash of wills.  The two parties often find it difficult to unite their goals and aims in life. When the two moon signs are disharmonious, there is a polarity in the feelings which often shows up as a lack of emotional warmth or sympathy.   When the two rising signs are disharmonious, there is a conflict in the way in which the two people express themselves, and a tendency for communications between them to break down. 

Ptolemy’s technique illustrates an important principle of astrological interpretation, which Dr. Marc Edmund Jones termed “Negative Indication”(3):  if all but one criteria in a well-defined set are present in a natal horoscope (e.g. planets in earth-air-water but not fire; planets in succedent and cadent houses but not angular; etc.), then the emphasis goes to the absent criteria, but with a twist of the symbolism – like a parody of what it should mean –  as if in overcompensation for a felt psychological lack or need.   In the present case, if only one pair of the vital centers is disharmonious, then the attention in the relationship tends to dwell upon the disharmony, like an itch that can’t quite be reached and scratched, often at the expense of the enjoyment of other areas in which there is a natural accord.  Instead of focusing on where there is agreement – which is what happens when only one pair of vital centers is harmonious – the focus tends to dwell upon areas of disagreement.  That is to say, relationships in which only one pair of vital centers is in harmonious signs tend to be smoother, less fractious than relationships in which two pairs of vital centers are in harmonious signs. 

From the foregoing it might appear that the ideal relationship occurs when the two sun signs, moon signs, and rising signs are all harmonious, but this is not necessarily the case.  If that were true then Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky would be the ideal couple, since they have all three pairs of vital centers in identical signs (Leo suns, Taurus moons, and Libra ascendants)!  Too much harmony in a relationship can produce a static or stagnant situa­tion.  Have you ever met someone and recognized in him or her some quality or trait remarkably similar to one of your own?  You immediately understand that part of the person, but at the same time you are left with an unsettled feeling, or an unresolved question, like a gear that encounters another cog where it should have meshed with a space.  Similarities tend to reinforce themselves on one level, rather than move to new levels.  Relationships mature through a continual giving way or relinquishing of individual desires in order to maintain a greater unity.  Few of us are strong enough to give up our desires by ourselves; we need other people whose desires conflict with ours to give us a reason to change and mature.  Relationships, like pearls, seem to require a certain amount of irritation in order to grow.   But when all three pairs of vital centers are in harmonious signs, this irritation – and with it something very vital – is largely missing.  The relationship may seem somewhat nebulous or insub­stantial since there aren’t any solid differences to grab onto or push against.  Instead of being a challenge, the relationship may become a competition, or a game of one-upmanship.  For example, in the words of one of the Fitzgerald’s biographers, “Both Scott and Zelda had entered a new period in their lives: both drinking heavily, and seemingly to dare each other to ever more reckless and outrageous acts. … They both dived into the Mediterranean from a great height, and drove their car too fast along winding roads. Once, after a fight with Scott, Zelda threw herself under the wheels of their car and dared him to run over her - and he even started to move the car.”(4)  When all three vital centers are harmonious, each party tends to confirm him or herself all the more in their own individual resolve, rather than join with the other to move to some new level of realization. The focus of attention, therefore, has to be kept outside of the relationship itself if it is to lead anywhere.  Some outside objective or goal to which both parties are dedicated should always be kept in view.  These people have many common interests: the more they can concentrate on the final result rather than on who is going to have the privilege of accomplishing it, the more will the harmony between them pay off in a smooth efficiency and ability to avoid getting side-tracked.

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(How to Compare Horoscopes)                      

                     People have been having problems with their relation­ships for as long as they have been having relation­ships. Even Adam and Eve, under the most ideal conditions imaginable, failed to make a decent go of it. It’s not surprising, therefore, that synastry-the astrology of relationships – has always been one of the most popular branches of the stellar art. In the second century A.D. Claudius Ptolemy wrote: “Concord be­tween two persons is produced by an harmonious figuration of the stars, indicative of the matter where­by good will is constituted, in the nativity of either person.  Love and hatred are discernible, as well from the concord and discord of the luminaries, as from the ascendants of both nativities.”(1)                   Ptolemy’s method was to compare the suns, moons, and ascendants in the two horoscopes because these are the points where the natives are in closest touch with the world outside of themselves. All of the other planets, cusps, parts, etc., are derivative from these three, both in terms of their mathematical motion, and in the psychological sense of being more conditioned or subject to karma.   It is in the three vital centers that one looks for the natives’ free will – the ability to recognize and discard choices that have outlived their usefulness, and go on to make new ones. This is why a comparison of the harmonies and disharmonies between the vital centers in two horoscopes is so revealing of the internal adjustments two people have to make when they join together in a relationship. 

                Note that this technique doesn’t provide the entire story by any means – the cross-aspects between planets in the two horoscopes describe the situation in greater detail.(2)  However comparison of the vital centers is a good place to begin.  In what follows, marriage will be given primary attention, but the same technique can be used to evaluate any relationship between two people. 

               Two centers are harmonious if they are either both in masculine signs, or if they are both in feminine signs.  If one is in a masculine sign and the other is in a feminine sign, then they are disharmonious.  A single sign is harmonious with itself, so two centers that lie in the same sign are in harmony with each other.  For example, Leo is harmonious with Gemini, since both are masculine; and Capricorn is harmonious with Cancer, since both are feminine.  But Leo is dishar­monious with Capricorn, since the former is mascu­line and the latter is feminine. The procedure is to compare separately the two sun signs, then the two moon signs, and then the two rising signs, to ascertain which of these pairs of vital centers are harmonious or disharmonious.

              All of the signs of the same gender are taken to be harmonious with one another because in this context “harmony” means similarity, or likeness. When a pair of vital centers lies in harmonious signs, then those centers operate in much the same way. The two parties to the relationship can always rely upon one another in that respect, or take that facet of the relationship completely for granted.  If the two sun signs are harmonious, then each person respects the other’s views on life and living, and they can help one another to follow out the dictates of their individual consciences and destinies.   If the two moons lie in harmonious signs, then there is a feeling of good will that underpins the relationship; both parties have a genu­ine liking for each other, and truly wish one another the best.  If the two rising signs are harmonious, then there is a commonality of everyday interests and habits that bind the two people together; they fulfill each other’s images of what they are seeking in a partner. 

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                   Lucid dreaming is not something essentially different from waking consciousness, only we get to it from a position of being asleep.  When we start out from a position of being awake, we call it “everyday life”.  What do you suppose the horseless carriage is?   Or the radio, TV, airplane, space rocket, computer?  They are all wild, crazy dreams.  A hundred years ago that’s exactly what we would have considered them.  And that’s all they are – dreams.  Humankind just incorporated that dream material into waking consciousness.  That’s the sort of thing waking consciousness is good for:  to originate dream material of that sort.  That kind of business requires slow, patient development over generations; and the dream plane is too unstable and mutable to do that kind of stuff on.  The dream plane is too here and now.  Since dream consciousness is more timeless than waking consciousness, it doesn’t allow for the detachment that a sense of past (history) and future (planning) can give.   We need a greater sense of separatedness to be able to do things that slowly.  That’s why it is so difficult to do things like dial a phone number or read a sentence in a normal dream – these activities require a greater degree of separatedness than normal dreaming affords, to be able to bring that kind of minute detail into focus.           

                That’s the genius of waking consciousness:  we lose scope and agility, but in return we get focus and a methodical way of getting at things.  Waking consciousness is much more clearly focused and delimited than dreaming, even if we all become extremely myopic and uptight in the process. 

                  The practice of magic is about turning our everyday waking lives into lucid dreaming, cultivating a somewhat “altered state of mind” as our everyday mindset.    As we do this much of our sense of separatedness dissolves and we feel more inner peace and oneness with our world.  Spirits start talking to us, as they did to our hunter-gatherer ancestors.   Our everyday life becomes more like dreaming – i.e., more magical.  This is the road that each of us must travel as individuals; and which the human race as a whole will have to follow if it is to survive and prosper.  It is the road of entering into a state of lucid dreaming from a position which starts from being awake (instead of asleep, as usual).  This means understanding that waking consciousness is lucid dreaming; and the only reason we can’t see that is because we must keep up the pretense that what we’re doing is “real” and important.  Therefore we can’t see that it’s all just a dream. 

                At this writing there don’t seem to be too many lucid dreamers out there; but there are lots of people merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily dancing a jig on their descent into the coming nightmare.  It’s time now for everyone to wake up.   

(adapted from Thought Forms, Copyright © 2000 by Bob Makransky.  All rights reserved).

More of Bob Makransky’s articles are posted at:  www.dearbrutus.com  

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                 The point is that waking consciousness is not something which is intrinsically different from dreaming, but rather something which evolved and developed out of it; which became more focused and intense and uptight as it evolved.  Waking is merely a way of imposing a semblance of order and control (mind – things making some kind of sense instead of being wholly ineffable) on at least a portion of the dream.  However this is a falsehood:  NOTHING makes any sense – EVERYTHING is ineffable.  In other words, waking consciousness – and the society which supports it – is a complete and total fabrication. 

                  Waking mind is like the insouciance of a drunkard staggering across a battlefield where bullets whiz by all around him but who is somehow protected from it all by his blissful indifference.  That is waking mind.  It is so totally a fiction (the sense that we are separated from everything around us) that it can only be maintained by the constant validation of other people (our sense of being part of society).   Only by all of us reassuring one another that we are separated individuals – by constantly picking at and annoying each other, just as we constantly pick at and annoy ourselves to stay awake – can we jointly uphold the fragile structure of waking consciousness.  Our society assures its continuance by setting its individual members upon each other like ravenous dogs.

When society dissolves because of e.g. war or disaster, everything becomes like a dream, since it’s out of control.  Waking makes for more control than dreaming, but with a concomitant loss of awareness and joy.  Over the next century, as the environment and civilization deteriorate, society will collapse and everything will spin out of control.  That is to say, waking consciousness will dissolve back into the dream from which it emerged at the time of the invention of agriculture.  The human race isn’t going to be able to muddle through this one, as it has always done.  Nor will there be any miraculous salvation:  no one is going to be raptured up into the clouds to sit next to Jesus; and December 22, 2012 isn’t going to be any improvement on December 20th.  And certainly the corporations, governments, and materialistic scientists who got us into this mess aren’t going to get us out of it.  Each individual human being will then be at a crossroads:  either lighten up and enter into lucid dreaming as your everyday mode of awareness; or enter into a nightmare. 

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                     Although waking consciousness originated together with multicellular life on earth, the invention of agriculture was its apotheosis as far as the human species is concerned.  As compared with hunting, the invention of agriculture brought order, regularity, sleep 8 hours at night and work 16 hours during the day.  Humankind had outgrown dream consciousness; it had found dream consciousness – the consciousness of infants and animals – too unstable, too ephemeral, and therefore too limiting for its free expression.  Therefore humans literally constructed, piece by piece, thought form by thought form, over the surface of dream consciousness, the floating edifice of waking mind.  Humankind began to think and reason.           

                     Separation of quotidian life into 16 hours of wakefulness and 8 hours of dreaming – forcing our bodies to stay awake for such a long stretch of time – is a stern discipline, a way of clenching up, which helps block the intrusion of dream material (magical events) into wakefulness.  Ancient humans mixed the two together in their awareness – waking life was as ineffable as dreaming, and everything was a source of wonder and mystery.   Native cultures, such as the Mayan people of Guatemala, maintain much of this thought form structure to this day.  We North American-European-Asian moderns have learned to tone down our sensory impressions, to separate ourselves from our environment by taking everything around us for granted, by not paying attention to anything except our own incessant mental chatter.  This makes our lives utterly boring and meaningless, but nonetheless provides us with our ability to focus our attention, to be methodical, concentrated and deliberate.  Our hunter-gatherer ancestors were unable to focus that much attention.  They had no need to. 

                Along with heightened focus comes a decreased sense of connectedness; a greater sense of separatedness.  And along with the heightened separatedness necessary to focus attention in the waking world comes a heightened sense of isolation and anguish.  In other words, suffering is an intrinsic component of waking consciousness.  Without suffering, the constant self-pinching, we could not stay awake. 

When we are awake we say “I am suffering!”  That “I” is made out suffering (self-pity in the parlance of shamanism).  To gainsay Descartes, “I suffer, therefore I am.”  Just as the waking “I” and the “suffering” arise together, so too do they dissolve together.   If “I” ever stop suffering, the disconnected “I” dissolves too.  The main cause of our self-hatred, the chief reason we are all so neurotic and out of kilter with our world, is simply because we’ve been awake too long.

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                     Ancient humans were more magical than we are (not as separated).  They permitted dream material to freely intrude into their awareness, whereas we moderns have mechanisms in place to immediately repress any such incursion into our reality.  When dream stuff intrudes into waking consciousness we get moments of discontinuity.   Any sudden start or shock or fright is a rift in our sense of continuity – or better said, a mad grab for our sense of continuity to mask such a rift.   We have to say that discontinuity is unreal, and that people who experience discontinuity are crazy, or tired and overworked and in need of rest.  We have to get everyone to validate this pretense – to pretend that they’re not experiencing discontinuity, in order for society to exist.  Society and waking consciousness are just two names for the same thing:  in dreams, we are basically alone.  In point of fact we’re just as alone when we’re awake, but we stupidly believe that we are sweating and puffing and bleeding as part of a team.  Thus being awake can be defined as the pretense that we’re not alone (that we are part of a society). 

                       The reason why the dream state is so mutable is that there is little sense of separatedness in it.  It is importance – the sense of urgency, of being driven, of being uptight – which stabilizes attention.  We are able to focus our attention when we are awake because of our interminable, self-referent inner chatter every second we are awake.  Waking consciousness is a clenching up within oneself – a moment-to-moment flinching from death – embodied in a socially-conditioned striving and intranquility within ourselves that keeps us awake.  By contrast, the attention we have in dreams has little importance to it because we don’t think so much; but as a result we can’t control what we will pay attention to (what will happen next) as well in dreaming as we can when we are awake.  What we experience when dreaming is far more immediate, vivid, gripping, and intense than in the ordered waking world.  It all happens so fast that we can’t separate ourselves from it as we can and do in waking life.  We don’t get weekends off and two weeks paid vacation in the world of dreams, and there’s no TV to watch – no way to make it stop happening or pretend it’s not happening.  We must either be on the qui vive every instant; or else stand there in a stupor; but we are inevitably so caught up in the dream, so much a part of it, that although we are experiencing our feelings in symbolic form in dreams, there is little sense of separatedness there.  Mind exists, but it’s not developed.           

              Mind cannot develop until there is a clearly defined sense of separatedness, which gives mind a pause, a moment’s rest or leisure, in which it can reflect on itself.  It’s that moment’s rest or lull which gives birth to a sense of time and linear continuity.   

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                     Ancient humans were doing what we would consider dreaming as their everyday state of mind.  There wasn’t as sharp a distinction then between being awake and being asleep.  Then people slept in snatches, as infants do, and they alternated hunting off and on with dozing.  Most of their hunting was done in a state of mind that we would call sleepwalking (a trance state).   They weren’t just wandering around aimlessly looking for game to hunt:  they could sense what was out there and could project their consciousness forward into their prey telepathically and so anticipate the prey’s movements.  We moderns can still do this now and then, as for example when on the prowl for sex, or when we sense a business opportunity, especially when we feel lucky; but our hunter forebears relied on this intuitive faculty to eat every day.   In other words, ancient hunters were more connected to their world, more psychically attuned, than we moderns are.  They were able to pick up information from their environment which eludes us.  But on the other hand ancient humans had less sense of a self at center than we do, just as we moderns have less sense of there being a solid, separated “us” there when we are dreaming compared to when we are awake.  

                    Waking consciousness is something which evolves; which can be seen to evolve even between human generations.  That’s why people “back then” seem so naïve to us – they were dreaming more than we moderns do.  We’re more awake than our forebears.   Consider too how wide-awake First World societies are compared with most Third World societies:  First Worlders living in the Third World tend to find the natives to be “irresponsible” and spaced-out, when in fact all they’re doing is dreaming more in their everyday waking lives than hup-hup First Worlders do.

            The point is that there isn’t as hard-and-fast a difference between being awake and dreaming as we are accustomed to believe.   It is exactly that belief (that what we do when we are awake is more important than what we do when we are dreaming) which maintains the rigidity of wakefulness – the persuasiveness of the lie that what is happening to us when we are awake is “real” – that is to say, that there is some separated “us” to which things are happening – rather than that the whole shebang is just our projection.   That “us” is symbolized by the thought forms of a body, and an outside world in which things happen to that body. 

                When we are dreaming, we have a body also, and a world outside of it.  That body and world seem perfectly real while we are dreaming, but when we wake up we realize that it was all just a dream.  The interpretation that we have a physical body when we are awake is also merely a belief, exactly like the interpretation that we have a body while we’re dreaming is merely a belief.    While we are dreaming our dream bodies operate with all five of the usual physical senses.  Therefore, we really don’t have any objective criteria for deciding, at any given moment, whether we are awake or asleep.  In precisely the same fashion, our body when we are awake and the world surrounding it are just a dream.  There is no objective difference whatsoever.  That’s what other people and our society do for us:  assure us that we are indeed awake and that what we are experiencing is “real”.  

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