If we are in illusion and think it to be real, then we are in a kind of altered state of conscious awareness, the default being that state of consciousness which can know the real from illusion. So, being in an altered state is kind of like a dream; we are asleep in comparison to the default state of real knowing. The way we know that a dream is a dream in the ordinary dream-sleep state is by awakening. That awakening occurs on the Third Level of Consciousness which is Waking Sleep, from the Second Level which is Sleep with Dreams. Now, there is a Fourth Level of Consciousness called Self-Transcendence, or Self-Remembering, which is an awakened state of consciousness as compared with the Third Level, in which we usually think of as an awakened state, but which is not, just as, during a dream, we think we are awake, but are actually dreaming. And so, when the Fourth Level is entered upon, the dream-state of the Third Level is clearly recognized, beyond doubt. Of course, this experience being beyond that of ordinary rational conscious awareness, cannot be proven by such means. However, anyone can enter the Fourth Level (and beyond) via of practice and prove the experience to themselves, just as waking from a dream proves that it was a dream.
When the Fourth Level is entered upon, who and what we think we are acting on the Third Level is now clearly understood as being fiction. We call the experience of the Third Level 'Identification', which is nothing more than a composite of our social indoctrination that the mind falsely assigns the idea of "I" to, when in reality, such social indoctrinations are only a set of life experiences.
