How do you know your not dreaming while your awake?

here are a few techniques. first close your eyes, then open them and look at some text, then close them again and look back at the text. Alternatively you could say that life is a dream and once you die(naturally or by cruelty) only then you will truly wake up and share a nice cup of tea with old friends and laugh about all of the fun and not so fun adventures you had while you slept. so in that case death would be an illusion.