ount is independent of the notion of objects being external to cognition. On the other hand Sankara argues that dreams cannot be understood except on the assumption of the very notion of externality. Vasubandhu uses dreams to argue that the version of reality that proceeds in terms of an account of external objects. This holds that experience is caused by the entities constituted by atoms. Ultimately, it causes perception of those very objects that they constitute. He disputes that atoms could explain the perceptual experience of objects and dreams. His alternative to explaining cognition's in terms of atomistically constituted objects is that in general, cognition occurs without objects at all. Dreams are then used for the reason of accepting this claim. This is where Vasubandhu's ideas differ from Berkeley. Vasubandhu uses dreams for the express purpose of denying externalism. On the contrary, Berkeley mentions the non-externalist consequences of dreams, he does not build an idealist argument around them. He merely takes them as a perfect metaphor for a nonexternal experience in which the ordinary perception of things is " a kind of waking dream". Vasubandhu points out that dreams can be internal and can thus represent objects even if the objects represented do not have an external existence. Dreams therefore demonstrate the dispensability of objects in the analysis of cognition: externality is refuted. This requires Vasubandhu to distinguish between waking and dreaming through other criteria other than externality. But he fails to do so and this brings in the ideas of Sankara. The critique of Sankara is not that the features of experience require externality but that the problem of externality is itself a feature of experience. Sankara acknowledges that the idealist can distinguish between dreaming and waking but claims that the consequence of that distinction has problems. "It cannot be asserted by a man who compr...
