the wit of man to say what dream it was.
Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream.

Bottom writes off the whole experience as a crazy dream and hopes that it will one day become a ballad called "Bottom's Dream."

The four Athenian lovers wake and, like Titania and Bottom, are surprised and confused. Lysander is still in a dreamlike state as he tries to explain himself to Theseus:

My lord, I shall reply amazedly,
Half sleep, half waking. But as yet, I swear,
I cannot truly say how I came here.

Lysander recalls his plans to elope with Hermia, but has no knowledge of how he came to fall asleep in the forest with the others. Similarly, Demetrius remembers his love for Hermia and is confused by his rekindled feelings for Helena:

But, my good lord, I wot not by what power-
But by some power it is - my love to Hermia,
Melted as the snow, seems to me now
As the remembrance of an idle gaud
Which in my childhood I did dote upon.
And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
The object and the pleasure of mine eye,
Is only Helena...

The four lovers are all confused and cannot make sense of recent events. They are unable to remember what happened before their sleep and wonder if it was all a dream and whether or not they are still dreaming. Hermia feels like she is seeing double and Helena worries that Demetrius's love for her is too good to be true. Demetrius asks the others,

Are you sure
That we are awake? It seems to me
That yet we sleep, we dream.

The lovers follow Theseus and compare their "dreams" along the way.

The Athenian couples awake from their dream half believing that what they had experienced was reality, half believing it was a dream, and half believing they are still asleep and still dreaming.

We first see this state of mind in Lysander's response to Theseus's question of how he came to be in the woods sleeping so near to his enemy Demetrius. Lysander relays his amazed and confused state of mind by saying:

My Lord, I shall reply amazedly,
Half asleep, half waking; but as yet, I swear,
I cannot truly say how I came here. (IV.i.147-148)

This passage shows us that, having just woken up and now reflecting back on the night, Lysander feels that he has been living through all the events of the night while walking in his sleep.

We further see the confused states of mind of the members of both couples when they express in conversation to each other that they still feel like they are dreaming. They ask each other if they are still dreaming after Theseus has decreed that Hermia shall be allowed to marry Lysander and that Demetrius will marry Helena and leaves the forest inviting the couples to return to his home. We first see that the members of the couples are not sure they are awake in Demetrius's lines, "These things seem small and undistinguishable, / Like far-off mountains turned into clouds" (188-189). By "these things" Demetrius is referring to their memories of the past night, showing us that he is seeing the memories as if in a dream. Hermia echoes this sentiment in her response, "Methinks I see these things with parted eye, / When every thing seems double" (190-191). By "parted eye" Hermia means cross-eyed, and she is seeing her memories as if she is seeing a double vision with one image being real and one image being false. We especially see the fact that the members of the couples still feel like they are dreaming when Demetrius asks, "Are you sure  / That we are awake?" (195-196).

Hence, we see that the couples half believe they have been dreaming, half believe they have been awake, and half believe that they are still asleep and still dreaming.

One of the many characters that awakens in Act 4, Scene 1 of A Midsummer Night's Dream is Bottom. Bottom's reaction to his night's adventure is particularly interesting. Not only is he in a state of shock, half believing his experience was a dream and half believing it was real, he also transforms from his typical state of conceit to one of humility.

We see Bottom's conflicting views on what was a dream and what was reality in his soliloquy immediately after he wakes up. His first reaction is to say, "I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was" (IV.i.208-209). In other words, he is declaring that he has just had a dream that is beyond man's comprehension. In his next statements, he says:

Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this
Methought I was--there is no man can tell what dream.
Methought I was, and methought I had, but man is but a patched fool, if he will offer to say what methought I had. (210-213)

In other words, Bottom is saying that he thought he was a donkey, and he thought he had donkey ears. But he also says that no man can really say what he thought he was and what he thought he had. He, himself, is even too shocked and embarrassed to say what he thought he was. The repetition of the word "methought" shows us that Bottom is in that cross state of half believing he had a dream and half believing it was reality.

Next he does something that is characteristic of his conceit. Even though he states that a man would be a fool to speak of his dream or to try and explain it, he next says that he will have Quince write a ballad about the dream for Bottom to sing before the duke at the end of their play's performance. He then gets the brilliant idea to sing it when Thisbe dies in the play, even though a ballad about being a donkey would have absolutely nothing to do with Thisbe's death.

However, Bottom then makes a very sudden and unexpected transformation. By the time we see Bottom again in the second scene of Act 4, he has suddenly changed his mind. When his friends ask him what happened to him, he absolutely refuses to say. All he says is that something amazing had happened to him but that he won't speak a word of it, as we see in his lines, "Master, I am to discourse wonders; but ask me not what," followed by, "Not a word of me" (IV.ii.26-27, 30). This sudden change of mind is also a sudden transformation in Bottom from being conceited to being humble.

Hence, when Bottom awakes, he half believes that what he had experienced was a dream and half believes it was real. His experience also changed him from being conceited into being humble.

The characters who fall asleep in the forest in A Midsummer Night's Dream are as follows: Hermia, Helena, Demetrius, Lysander, and Nick Bottom. The young lovers are discovered by the wedding party the next morning; and once they are awakened by horns, Theseus asks the men why they aren't fighting each other. Lysander is the first to attempt to explain what happened as follows:

"My lord, I shall reply amazedly,

Half sleep, half waking; but as yet, I swear,

I cannot truly say how I came here" (IV.1.146-148).

Once he thinks it through and wakes up a bit, he reveals that he and Hermia had planned to elope to Athens the night before. Egeus jumps to have Lysander arrested for taking his daughter without permission. Demetrius, however, explains that he went to the woods to catch the couple and says the following:

"But, my good lord, I wot not by what power--

But by some power it is--my love to Hermia,

Melted as is the snow, seems to me now

As the remembrance of an idle gaud" (I.i.164-167).

Demetrius then goes on to say that he loves Helena only now. Theseus decides to close the matter completely by inviting the young lovers to his house to get married along with him and Hippolyta. After he leaves, the lovers stand there asking each other if that just happened. They can't believe that the problem was solved so quickly and easily. 

Then Bottom wakes up slowly while calling out lines for his role as Pyramus. Once fully conscious, Bottom tries to verbally walk himself through what happened the night before, but he is mystified. He eventually declares:

"They eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was" (IV.i.212-215).

None of the mortals can fully understand what happened the night before. It seems real to them, but because their rational minds can't explain how it happened, they pass it off as a dream.