A simple explanation can be found in this wikipedia article, from which I take the following quotation:
> ... any real number $a$ can be represented by $\\{L_a \mid R_a\\}$, where $L_a$ is the set of all dyadic rationals less than $a$ and $R_a$ is the set of all dyadic rationals greater than $a$ (reminiscent of a Dedekind cut). Thus the real numbers are also embedded within the surreals.