In Dreams, Who Controls the Narrative?
A useful analogy for describing the nature of reality is that of a dream, where consciousness is the dreamer, and the body-mind perceiving an apparently external world is the dream character. Questions may arise, then, about agency and the unfolding of the experience. If the dream character has no independent existence and therefore no free will of its own, and if consciousness seems to watch the dream unfold as an observer, is the dream narrative purely a spontaneous unfolding within consciousness? And, if so, what influences the narrative?
Since the dream character, indeed, has no independent agency, it cannot make independent decisions, for its every action, thought, and experience is entirely a creation within the dreaming consciousness. According to the nondual understanding, this mirrors the reality of the waking world. The apparently individual self, the body-mind, the “I,” is a manifestation within universal consciousness; it is not separate from it.
While consciousness might seem to be a witnessing presence or an observer watching the dream unfold, it is more intimate than that. Consciousness is not a separate entity observing the dream; it is the dream—the light, the streets, the houses, the characters, and the narrative all at once. The act of observing is consciousness knowing itself, witnessing its own creation.
So, is the dream narrative a purely spontaneous unfolding? Yes, in the sense that the ultimate source, consciousness, does not consciously plan each detail like a human screenwriter devising a plot. There is an inherent spontaneity to the arising of forms within consciousness.
However, spontaneous does not mean entirely random. The dream narrative is influenced by the accumulated impressions and tendencies residing within the localized dreamer’s mind, which is itself an activity within consciousness. These are the memories, desires, fears, past experiences, and conditioning from the waking state that form the raw material and underlying currents of the dream. A mind steeped in fear may manifest nightmares. A mind filled with joy is likely to produce dreams of delight. These influences are not external impositions; they are inherent qualities and patterns within the dreaming consciousness.
Dreaming is a natural part of consciousness’s spontaneous play. And within the dream, there is often an internal coherence, a dream logic, a structuring, that, while often peculiar, maintains a certain consistency within its own framework.
Extending this analogy to our waking reality, the “narrative” of the universe is similarly a spontaneous unfolding within universal consciousness. It is not predetermined by an external deity, nor is it randomly generated chaos. It is influenced by the accumulated tendencies and patterns that govern the expressions of this universal consciousness at the relative level of the mind.