Knowing One Is Dreaming Within a Dream: Is It the Self-Validating Cognition of the Mind Consciousness or Its Self-Cognition?

The self-validating cognition (svasaṃvedana) is the introspective observation of the consciousness-mind itself and its own mental factors; "itself" means the mind consciousness discerning the mind consciousness, the manas discerning the manas, and the five consciousnesses discerning the five consciousnesses—it does not mean mutual discernment. The self-cognition (svasaṃvitti) is the consciousness-mind's discernment of the object-aspect (nimitta) realm; this object-aspect includes all dharmas, and of course also includes the eighth consciousness and its mental factors—it just depends on how capable the discerning wisdom is. "Dream" refers to the dream-scape, which is the object-aspect; "knowing" is the perceiving-aspect (darśana-bhāga) of the consciousness-mind. When the consciousness-mind discerns sense-objects, that is the perceiving-aspect discerning the object-aspect, which is self-cognition, not self-validating cognition; the perceiving-aspect seeing itself is self-validating cognition. Only when the perceiving-aspect and the object-aspect are combined do self-cognition and self-validating cognition arise; self-validating cognition is actually one kind of self-cognition, except that the object-aspect has become the consciousness-mind itself, with itself and its mental factors serving as the object-aspect.

The perceiving-aspect that discerns the dream-scape object-aspect is the perceiving-aspect of the sixth and seventh consciousnesses, and the sixth consciousness is the solitary consciousness (mano-vijñāna-eka-citta). Seeing all realms is mainly the seeing of the sixth and seventh consciousnesses; what sentient beings can feel and observe is only the seeing of the mind consciousness—the seeing of the seventh consciousness cannot be perceived. For now, let us speak of the seeing of the mind consciousness. When asleep and dreaming, why does the solitary consciousness not know that it is dreaming? Because in the dream the mind consciousness is dull and unclear; sleep itself is a hindrance, an obscuration that veils the wisdom-cognition of the mind consciousness.

If the sleep hindrance is removed, with no obscuration remaining and the mind consciousness clear and lucid, one will attain the first dhyāna; or, as meditative concentration grows ever deeper, sleep will become less and lighter, so that in dreams the mind consciousness becomes increasingly lucid, to the point of clearly knowing that one is dreaming, and one will not create unwholesome karma in the dream, and may even perform wholesome karma. Therefore, knowing one is dreaming within the dream shows that the sixth and seventh consciousnesses possess meditative concentration and wisdom, and that the hindrance of sleep is slight. Not knowing one is dreaming within the dream means that the conscious nature of the sixth and seventh consciousnesses is veiled by sleep, and the mind is not clear and lucid.

The knowing and seeing within the dream is the perceiving-aspect of the solitary consciousness. The manas has a great influence on the seeing of the mind consciousness, but we will not discuss the specific influence here. Within the dream, the solitary consciousness's discernment of realms is limited, not as comprehensive and clear as the discernment of the consciousness accompanied by the five senses (pañca-sahagata-mano-vijñāna), which is aided by the five consciousnesses. Not knowing one is dreaming within the dream is because the self-cognition function of the solitary consciousness is incomplete and its power of wisdom is weak; this is related to the physical body and the manas. The strength of all the discernment functions of the mind consciousness is related not only to its own meditative concentration and wisdom, but also to the meditative concentration and wisdom of the manas, and to the physical body; one cannot discuss the functions of the mind consciousness apart from the physical body and the manas.

Why is it related to the physical body? Everyone knows the principle that the mind consciousness's awareness while awake is influenced by the physical body. During sleep, the manas does not wish to discern realms, so none of the six consciousnesses arise; during dreaming, the solitary consciousness is forced to arise and discern the dream-scape, but because the nervous system's activity is relatively sluggish, the mind consciousness's thinking is suppressed, its cognitive wisdom is relatively low, and it cannot distinguish that the realm it faces is a dream, so it takes the dream to be reality. This is the same as the situation when drunk—both are caused by the nervous system not being active and alert.

If, within the dream, the mind consciousness has self-validating cognition, that means the mind consciousness can know itself and its mental factors—this is the power of introspection (pratyavekṣā-bala), which requires even stronger meditative concentration and wisdom than the mind consciousness's knowing of sense-object realms, and is more difficult. If, within the dream, the mind consciousness's self-cognition function is insufficient, its self-validating cognition function is almost nonexistent, and it will not validate and know itself, and therefore cannot introspect—unless one is a person with excellent meditative concentration and strong awareness. Those who possess the four dhyānas and eight samādhis have even better introspective power within dreams, but those with deep meditative concentration almost never dream at all.

The strength of the various functions of the mind consciousness is not merely a matter of its own meditative concentration and wisdom, but is even more related to the manas. Although from ancient times to the present almost no one has been able to recognize and observe this problem, the functions of the mind consciousness are indeed inseparable from the manas; the two complement each other. To discuss the mind consciousness apart from the manas is to abandon the root and chase the branches.