According to Osho, life seems like one long dream only to the asleep. Your unconsciousness distorts everything, so you even turn the Master's words into dream material. For the awakened, the dream has broken and reality is truth; the enlightened already see your intrinsic light. His teaching is an alarm clock - hear it and awaken, rather than weaving another dream around it.
Life feels like a dream because we are asleep inside; wake up and the real truth appears.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, you have said that as long as there is dissolving, losing, the continual change of life, to be—to be eternal—is not possible. Right now we are here before you; is this just one long dream?
From your side it is a long dream, not from mine. For you it is nothing more than a dream, because you are asleep. Only when you wake will the dream break. If you look at me awake, you will find something entirely different. If, asleep, you look at me, you find something else. If you listen to me awake, you will hear something else. Half-asleep you listen to me, and you hear something else. Your sleep stands in between like a curtain, and it distorts everything. For you it is a dream. But if you want to, if you want to awaken, it can be the truth for you too. Buddha told stories of his past lives. He said that when I was ignorant, I went to an enlightened man. I bowed and touched his feet. I had not even stood up when I was filled with astonishment, because…
At the hour of death, when one looks back, what will be seen? Some substance? Some truth? Life will appear like a tale. Who knows whether it was lived or not. Do you think that at the hour of death this will not appear—that what we had taken as life, whether it was lived or not lived, what difference does it make? It may be it was all seen in a dream. Tolstoy wrote in his diary at the time of death: Now I look back and I suspect—either my memory has gone bad or my intellect—but I suspect whether the life I lived was truly lived or merely seen in a dream. Chuang Tzu, in China, was an extraordinary sage. He wrote: One night I saw in a dream that I had become a butterfly.
Is it possible to become enlightened in a dream?
Not only possible -- whenever it happens, it always happens in a dream. Whatsoever you think is your waking consciousness, that too is not waking; that too is dreaming. While sitting here in front of me, do you think you are awake? I don't see it. I can hear your snore. And if you listen minutely, you will be able to hear it yourself: a deep snoring inside, a deep sleep -- and dreams and dreams. In sleep, only dreams can happen. That's what we have been insisting in this country continuously: that your world is illusory, it is MAYA. When Shankara says the world is MAYA, he's not talking about HIS world. He's talking about YOUR world. Because in sleep, how can you know that which is real? The sleep distorts. A totally different world is created by sleep: a world of dream. Whatsoever you call your life is…
Osho, in the lives of us heedless people there are only dreams upon dreams—but what is the truth of dreams? Can we know it while we remain heedless?
You have understood by listening to me that it is dreams upon dreams. Don’t accept so quickly. Knowing is needed, not believing. If I say it and you accept it, it won’t work; it remains borrowed. You yourself must discover that they are dreams. Many people go astray by believing others. Because I may say a thousand times that it is a dream, yet if inside it feels true to you, you will go on believing me and still moving in the direction of what feels true to you. This is the human tangle. Buddha says: anger is madness. You have heard it and can’t even deny it. And Buddha is powerful; when he speaks there is weight in his words; his whole presence is their proof. You cannot deny him. You cannot argue with Buddha. And deep within, your own sleeping buddhahood nods “yes”—that it is so. However much…
Nothing has happened and nothing will happen. What is there, is there.
I BECAME A KING IN MY DREAM AND MY SUBJECTS OCCUPIED THE ENTIRE EARTH. I SAT ON THE THRONE RULING LIKE A LION, LIVING A HAPPY LIFE. THE WORLD OBEYED ME. AS I TURNED IN MY BED ALL WAS CLEAR: I WAS NOT A LION BUT A LION'S UNCLE, A JACKASS, THE VILLAGE IDIOT.... NOTHING HAS HAPPENED AND NOTHING WILL HAPPEN. WHAT IS THERE, IS THERE. In the day, you are awake, doing a thousand and one things. In the night, you fall asleep and you forget all about the day: your wife, your husband, your children -- so close to you -- even they are no more there. You forget all about the world. You enter into a totally different dimension. You forget your degrees, your riches, your bank balance; you forget everything, even your name. Another world opens. You take another name, another identity, another wife, other children,…