 A lucid dream experience is an ideal illustration of Śaṅkara’s liberation, though not found in his work. For experienced lucid dreamers, the recognition that one is dreaming possesses a conviction that completely cuts through the appearance of the dream fabric, but does so without eliminating perceptual dream experience. They are epistemically aware of two orders of reality, waking and dreaming, while phenomenally remaining in the less real dreaming order. The lucid dreamer is deindividuated from the dream body, yet remains embodied within the dream experience. They recognize that the dream is not separate from themselves, that it cannot touch them, and that there is nothing to fear or gain from it. In Śaṅkara’s metaphysical view however, the empirical order is analogous to īśvara’s dream, not one’s own. This view accommodates the universe’s identity with īśvara, along with intersubjective agreement and veridical cognition, without falling into solipsism. The individual is not creating empirical reality, but rather making a mistake about it. Like the dream, empirical reality is not illusory from within its own order of reality. It is known as a virtual appearance only from the more foundational perspective of knowing brahman, analogous to awakening to the reality of the dream. The liberated person is like a finite dream being within īśvara’s cosmic dream who has awakened within the dream. They recognize that the immediate presence of consciousness is the single foundation grounding all objects, the single self of all beings, and the self of īśvara.