"To me it seems very natural that the first glimpse of religion should come through dreams. The first idea of immortality man may well get through dreams. Is that not a most wonderful state? And we know that children and untutored minds find very little difference between dreaming and their awakened state. What can be more natural than that they find, as natural logic, that even during the sleep state when the body is apparently dead, the mind goes on with all its intricate workings? What wonder that men will at once come to the conclusion that when this body is dissolved forever, the same working will go on?"

- Swami Vivekananda, "The Necessity of Religion" (June 7, 1896, Royal Institute of Painters, London), Jnana Yoga, Complete Works: Vol 2