“Seen from outside, he does not differ from the dreamer in his fickle shifting about, changing direction all the time.

The difference between the two is not the way through the labyrinth but the fact that the alert one believes that with his permanent to and fro he is choosing freely - only turning his way into a labyrinth - whereas the dreamer does not display this rigid, apparent confidence of having found the right way.

“By the dreams that spring from his deep sleep the dreamer is shifted to and fro to such an extent that within himself, being the one wanting to act, he stays rather inactive, letting all the worldly happening of his dream-impressions go by.

Indeed he tries timidly to intervene here and there but until his efforts bear fruit, the whole scene of his dream is so different again that the past is long forgotten. Thus he is not active anymore on the courses of his old desires but has already turned towards new experiences.

“Things are very different in waking consciousness, which rises from deep sleep and climbs up towards that modest light which his sensory impressions yield.

“He who knows only the three main states of consciousness, namely deep sleep, dreaming and waking state of consciousness - the latter two being based on the former and emanating from it like from a deep, dark night - believes firmly in his waking state of consciousness and that he is seeing clearly indeed.

In reality, however, he does not see more than a wanderer in a pitch-dark night flashed through by lightning: he sees the world only in fragments - in short moments - and therefore has never a continuous impression of the events of the world.

“And still the one in waking consciousness believes strongly that he knows his way in this world which he perceives so fragmentedly.

This misbelief is based on the fact that he does not know any better, for he is not trained in a really continuous perception and is thus unexperienced.

“With the help of his memory and by seemingly logical conclusions he assembles - like in a mosaic - these lightning-like impressions of this side and of that side of his deepsleep-like void of thoughts, even puts these pictures closer together than correct, and like that believes to achieve a clear and continuous picture of reality.