Awake While Dreaming: Reconciling Advaita Vedānta’s Embodied Liberation through Lucid Dreaming

Lucid dreaming can serve as a philosophical analogy for the paradox of embodiment in Śaṅkara's Advaita Vedānta doctrine of liberation-while-living (jīvanmukti). A lucid dreamer's experience of simultaneous embodiment and disembodiment parallels the liberated person's condition. The analogy also illustrates two orders of reality (waking and dreaming) and shows how lucidity insight can eliminate erroneous self-identity, mirroring Advaita metaphysics and epistemology. These parallels suggest plausible consistency for embodied liberation and help conceptualize what it would be like to be liberated.

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Abstract

Abstract: This article explores ways to reconcile paradoxes of embodiment in Śaṅkara’s doctrine of liberation-while-living ( jīvanmukti ) by exploring its parallels with lucid dreaming. I engage in lucid dreaming as a thought experiment in which a lucid dreamer could feasibly reflect on dream experience through an Advaita Vedāntic philosophical lens. If approached this way, lucid dreaming provides a rich philosophical analogy ( dṛṣṭānta ) for Advaita Vedānta. As a phenomenological analogue for jīvanmukti , lucid dreaming elicits a first personal experience of simultaneous embodiment and disembodiment. Furthermore, lucid dreaming provides analogical versatility due to several parallels with Advaita Vedānta’s metaphysics and epistemology, such as its ability to illustrate two orders of reality (waking and dreaming) and its lucidity insight as analogously eliminating erroneous self-identity. Lucid dreaming’s conceptual complexity uniquely mirrors philosophical perspectives of Advaita Vedānta. These parallels suggest plausible consistency to embodied liberation and provide ways to conceptualize several theoretical aspects of what-it-would-be-like to be liberated.