Śivasaṃhitā 1.36

The dream as a model of the entire universe. This analogy asserts that reality is no different from what we dream: a projection of consciousness that seems external but never was. Waking from nightly sleep prefigures spiritual awakening: when the yogi awakens to their true nature, the world continues to be experienced but no longer deceives.

The word upādhi (limitation, conditioning, vehicle) designates everything that appears to limit the ātman without truly modifying it. The vessels are here explicitly upādhi: conditionings that seem to individualize us but, like dream objects, dissolve upon awakening. Saṅkhyā (number, multiplicity) is the illusion that creates the appearance of the many.

The doctrine of the dream as an analogy of the world (svapna-dṛṣṭānta) is central in Śaṅkara and in Māyāvāda texts. The Śivasaṃhitā adopts it in a Tantric context: not to deny the value of body and world—which will be instruments of yoga—but to free the practitioner from identifying with them as absolute realities.