What final ambiguity surrounds "Young Goodman Brown"?

Hawthorne's use of
ambiguity permeates all of
his work. Near the end of this story, he says:

Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a

wild dream of a witch-meeting?

Be it so if you will; but, alas! It
was a
dream of evil omen for young Goodman Brown. A stern, a sad, a darkly
meditative, a distrustful,
if not a desperate man did he become from the
night of that fearful dream.

The
reader is left to wonder whether Goodman Brown's experience in
the forest was
real or only a dream. Regardless of which it was, however, the effect was the

same: he became a man who was suspicious of everybody--his wife, his minister--everyone.
He
lives the remainder of his life in misery, believing that no one can be
trusted because of what
he believes he saw in the
forest.