Question:

I want to clarify the statement, “The dream belongs to the dreamer”. Technically, the awakened dreamer can change the dream, irrespective of how much fuel is left, because the dream belongs to him. But he’s unable to make that Sankalpa to change it because he sees everything as nothingness. And how can he make a Sankalpa about nothingness to change nothingness? Would that be correct?

Answer:

When Turiya realizes that it is dreaming, it must refrain from a Sankalpa [intention] too because even a Sankalpa belongs to the dream world. 

When you wake up from a dream do you save just the roar of the tiger and discard the remaining elements of the nightmare? It would not make any sense. The tiger, the roar of the tiger, the jungle, the one running away from it, the fear, the perspiration, the scary thoughts, all of it, at once dissipates on waking up from the dream.

Dreams run on stored fuel in the Samskara [Impressions] tank. Waking up from a dream by witnessing it is like burning all the fuel in a single blow. This is enough for the fuel pump to stop. Deep Sleep reigns.

But if one slips back into the dream even with a simple Sankalpa, like a fallen yogi, the fuel pump resumes.

In summary, the dream script belongs to the dream projector -Turiya, who is in control of the dream only on the condition of breaking Tadatma [identification] with the dream character. Here control does not imply instant magical termination ability [a Dvaitam path story]. Control means to stop fueling the dream further, on recognition of its futility. The ‘I-sense’ that was earlier connecting with the dream character in the dream world, now quits the stage. Yet the dream may continue on account of residual fuel but it is just like a boring movie in which the spectator has already checked out.

Thus it is incorrect to say that the dreamer can change the dream irrespective of how much fuel is left. Please contemplate on this with Swapna Nidra Gnyana Sadhana commands from the book Waking, Dreaming, Sleeping, Being – https://www.amazon.com/author/ektabathija. This can be seen experientially so don’t believe, SEE!

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