金剛經纂要刊定記 7.178

7.178

First, "like a dream": it is the roaming of a person's consciousness. Because what was done, seen, and heard in the past are all objects of memory, they are not different from dreams of the past night. When recollecting them, one can speak of them, yet grasp them and they cannot be seen. As a sūtra says: "Like an awake person speaking of matters in a dream," even if the mind is extraordinarily clear, by what cause or condition could one take hold of an object in a dream?