If someone asks, "Are you awake or asleep?" and you're awake, you reply, "I'm awake."  If they ask you how you know that, I know I have a difficult time explaining how I know.  I just do. 

I had (precognizant) dreams of the World Trade Center attack (also my birthday) for most of my childhood and adult life, without understanding the meaning of the dreams until I witnessed the events, standing at the feet of the towers. One of the elements of the dreams always involved me saying, "I can't believe this is really happening and it isn't a dream," ironic, since they WERE dreams.  When the events unfolded and the first plane hit the first tower, I realized immediately that it was the unfoldment of the dreams, and ironically thought, "I can't believe this is really happening and it isn't a dream," lending a personally shocking and disturbing layer to an event that was already shocking and disturbing. 
So if wakefullness is just "known" without knowing how you know, how do people know they're dead?  Why doesn't everyone get stuck? 

I also had an experience at a time when I was sick.  It began as a dream, but something physiological occured while I slept, which I believe was the beginning of the death process.  I knew what was happening, remember the events clearly, and was also aware when the process was reversed.  But I also remember the first thing I thought when I woke up.  It was, "Did I die?  Am I alive or dead, and how do I know?"   Maybe as time went on that question would have answered itself, but at that moment the way I answered the question was by recognizing that I had been moved back to my starting point in the event before the dying process began (it was a darkened theater stage with 'helpers' to facilitate the process).  At that point that's how I knew, because I'd been moved BACK rather than forward in the process, but I can't imagine not knowing say, today, years later, if I hadn't remembered or recognized that.  So the question is, (I say "is" rather than questions "are" because I THINK they're the all same question, although I'm not entirely sure) how do we know we're awake, how do we know we're aleep, how do we know we're alive and how do we know we're dead?  We all know, but HOW do we know?

lately Shirl, in dreams or obes I will check my reality situation by poking the person I'm with  in the side with my finger...lol...then I say, well, hmm, feels real enough flesh, must be here then!

I had the same dying experience and sensation of being moved back to the starting point. but have to think of the reason "how" we know. its a difficult question to answer without meditating on it.

talk soon I hope!

In lucid dreams I know it's a dream because the environment keeps changing, nothing stays static like it does in the waking world.  Also, conscious awareness in a lucid dream comes and goes, yet the dream continues on. 

In OBE's sometimes at first I don't know it isn't the physical world but then if it lasts long enough I begin to realize it because I can rationalize that I don't remember traveling to that particular place, I just automatically was there. 

In death our thoughts and beliefs keep us from getting stuck more so than not.  But being stuck is more like just being in a dream, or being in a daydream, until you become conscious of your situation.  Being alive, we actually spend a lot of time in this same kind of state...always planning for the future or remembering the past, it's just like dreaming sort of, isn't it?  It's hard to be living in the "now" moment, fully conscious 100% of the time. 

And actually, no matter what state you are in, consciousness is consciousness.  So whether I'm alive or dead, my consciousness creates my reality.  Does it really matter what state you are in?  What matters more is what state your consciousness is in.  Think about that for a minute.  What I'm saying is, how we direct our thinking creates what we experience, thus creates our reality. 

Many years ago when I was around 21 I dreamed of this statement, "consciousness is the only reality of man".  I didn't know at the time what it meant but I have never forgotten it over the years.  It makes sense now.  Kinda sounds like a title for a Twilight Zone episode, but I like it.   

Hi Matthew-
I think that you've answered the question for yourself. It's in the mind of the beholder, and if that's a dream, then that's what it is. Considering that everything I know of the world is, essentially, no more than my mental impression of it. I forget who pointed out, "The dream seems real until the sleeper wakes. Can more be said of life?"
d