You might reflect on a phenomenon called "false awakening."

Here's how it works.

You wake up from a dream. You look over at your alarm clock, you see it's time to get up. You get up, get dressed, go wash up, and you're sitting down at breakfast.

You look at the toast on your plate, and think to yourself, "I wish I had a bagel."

And the toast turns into a bagel, you realize you're still dreaming, and you "wake up" again to find yourself in bed.

You smile at your naivete and you look at your alarm clock, see it's time to get up, you get up, get dressed, wash up, and sit down for breakfast.

you're looking at your phone, and see that your favorite music group is playing live nearby this weekend. You realize you're going to be busy on the weekend and wish you could see them. The lead singer suddenly materializes next to you and says, "hey don't worry, I'll give you a live performance right now.'

And you realize you're still dreaming, you only dreamt you were awake (for the 2nd time in a row) and you find yourself back in bed.

Now you're a bit wary. You look at the alarm clock, maybe you pick it up. Maybe you pinch yourself. Perhaps you're familiar with the dream literature and have heard you can't read more than a line or two in a book. So you pick up a book (or your Kindle or Nook or whatever) and read for several minutes.

Ok, you're now absolutely certain you're awake. You check again several times, and you're convinced.

You step outside your bedroom, and there's Elvis Presley having a conversation with Beethoven.

And you're hack in bed again.

This phenomenon of repeat false awakenings has been reported for thousands of years, and recorded thousands of times by dream researchers.

I've never heard anyone give a credible answer to this question, but maybe you'll be the first (I've conducted lucid dream research, by the way)

At that moment, having tried to determine whether you were awake or dreaming before and failed, can you find ONE thing in your environment (or in your awareness) that will provide EVIDENCE (not proof, just evidence) that you're awake and not dreaming?

IN order to do this, you HAVE to take seriously that if your dreams are mostly hazy and dreamy, obviously that's not relevant to this question. You've just experienced absolute clarity indistinguishable from waking that turned out to be dreaming.

So how do you determine NOW, after several false awakenings, whether this time you're awake or just dreaming you're awake?