Schopenhauer repeatedly makes use of this dream analogy, as it really is one of the best ways to think about consciousness

There is no fundamental difference between a dream and waking consciousness. When dreaming, you're convinced that you're occupying reality. It's all you see https://twitter.com/tom_username_/status/1384498427376009222

The distinction between dreaming and wakefulness is one of intensity, not of essence.

Dreaming is less intense because there is less activity to make sense of. The eyes scuttle around when the body starts to become more active again (especially when light peeps into the room).

This is the REM phase of sleep, and it happens when sleep has sufficiently replenished the body, so that the body is now receptive to external activity.

Dreams are consciousness making sense out of this dim haze of activity.

You occupy that level of consciousness, and therefore regard it as real. The haze of activity is relatively random, so the corresponding Platonic Ideas are crude.

When the activity becomes intense, you wake up. But this is not a totally different mode of being.

Both dreaming and wakefulness are not experiences of the world, but of consciousness.

Consciousness, as I've said before, is contiguous with original ideal existence, not matter. In other words, you are suspended from above, not boosted up from below.

If consciousness was dependent on matter, then, instead of waking up from a dream immediately, you would have to sort of fall asleep *within* the dream, and then re-wake up.

It would have to go from dream, to sleep, then back to wakefulness.

It would be like building a tower out of lego, and then having to build a car straight afterwards.

In order to do this, you would have to dismantle the tower and start over again when building the car.

Likewise, consciousness would have to abandon its current project.

This problem can only be avoided if consciousness is constantly suspended *above* differentiation.

Only in this way can consciousness be updated with fresh impressions. The alternative would be consciousness being stuck in a computational cycle with already received impressions.

For example, after taking off virtual reality goggles, consciousness would still present virtual reality.

It would refuse to move on. It would be cogitating on this, and desperately trying to make reality fit this computation.

To receive a new impression, it would have to completely scrap the old impression, and this would result in a moment of total darkness and confusion.

But this doesn't happen. What happens is that you are immediately presented with a new, fresh, updated perspective.

The old impression is a mere echo, which fades away with perfect continuity.

Similarly, when you wake up from a dream, you are immediately presented with the new, fresh, updated perspective. The dream fades away like an echo.

Consciousness is constantly updating in this way. It doesn't jump from frame to frame, state to state, 0 to 1.

If it was leaping about from state to state like a computer, then you would be experiencing total and absolute oblivion intermittently.

In order for this to be functional at all, it would require a broader algorithm. If consciousness was nothing but this, then there would be no reason for it to update itself to fresh impressions.

It would keep re-interpreting the current data set.

In doing so, it would be stuck on the same image, re-interpreting it, and because of entropy, this interpretation would become less and less informative.

Consciousness would consist of dwelling on a single thing and losing grip of the bigger picture.

Its interpretation would depend on pre-existing precedents already calculated before. It could only update these precedents by being open to new impressions.

But if it was open to these new impressions, it would be more than just the algorithm.

That is to say, the corresponding consciousness experience would no longer be the calculated output, but the precise moment of input.

For it to identify as the precise moment of input, it cannot identify as the algorithm, as this would be secondary.

The algorithm is blind to the input. It does not anticipate it, just as your camera doesn't anticipate seeing something. It simply accepts the input, and is self-preoccupied with the algorithm.

The algorithm cannot be beyond that precise boundary. It is stuck in computation.

Therefore, fresh impressions can only come from outside the algorithm.

The phenomenology of such consciousness must be the *anticipation* of change. It can only do this by wanting novelty, which is not what the algorithm wants.

Fresh, updated consciousness requires the phenomenology of wanting novelty, i.e. wanting to become distinct from background, already-known precedent.

And this is in fact what it feels like to be a conscious being.

It doesn't feel like we're calculating a new scenario each time we turn our head. There's no intervening period where it renders like a video game console would.

We immediately receive the new impression, and the old one disappears.

The algorithm, as I said earlier, is entropic (see attached tweet again: https://twitter.com/tom_username_/status/1384887491057049604)

Consciousness wants to achieve a bigger, more unified interpretation. It doesn't want to be squeezed into smaller, more local interpretations.

The algorithm is dwelling on the same thing over and over and over again with increasing specificity, which is what consciousness wants to avoid.

If we were the algorithm, we would be OK with this. It would be in our nature to do this.

But we are not OK with this. It feels like we are being constrained from our higher potential, which is the essence of suffering.

This is a long-winded way of establishing that we are essentially the anticipatory and novelty-seeking aspect of existence. Namely consciousness.

When you wake up from a dream, you don't reset to the baseline default of 'zero interpretation', and then form another interpretation to wake up; this would presuppose that you are essentially 'zero interpretation', i.e. that the starting point is zero consciousness.

Rather, you are constantly awake. If that sounds silly to you, just replace 'awake' with 'aware'. There is no real difference between those two concepts.

You are constantly aware, albeit to varying extents.

Waking up from a dream is a simple matter of awareness updating, not essentially different to a dark room suddenly being lit up, or opening a door and seeing a whole new scenario.

It's not a new subsequent experience, re-built out of nothing.

Awareness, indeed, simply *is* updating.

The following concepts, in the context of this thread, are basically synonymous:

- Awareness
- Wakefulness
- Anticipating
- Interpreting
- Updating
- Suspense
- Openness

In a word: consciousness.