The radio-receiver metaphor doesn't go far enough as it still assumes a somewhat physical brain, but it helps at first untangeling yourself from materialism. If reality is nothing but a dream it would be no problem to dream up a brain that modulates the dream-content if it is manipulated.
- Taking red paint and spraying it over your wall will modulate the dream in such that the wall appears red.
- Taking a hammer and hitting your head will modulate the dream in more unpredicatable ways.
What if these processes are the same? It's nothing but stuff made out of consciousness affecting consciousness.
What is this adding to the physical laws though? The simplest explanation is that your dream physics is actually the same as our hard-science physics, and you’re effectively just relabeling things.
I think it's fair to say we do know that we have a somewhat physical brain. Even if it's part of a dream then our definition of "physical" would be scoped to that dream and still be accurate
I was just talking about the physicality of the brain, so it'd be (physical brain)->consciousness vs. consciousness->("physical" brain). Either way in all ways that matter to us the brain is physical.
I think of it similarly to how atoms are mostly empty space - we can know that's true but the main thing that matters most of the time is that you don't fall through the floor, so we reason about the world as if solid objects are actually solid
- Taking red paint and spraying it over your wall will modulate the dream in such that the wall appears red.
- Taking a hammer and hitting your head will modulate the dream in more unpredicatable ways.
What if these processes are the same? It's nothing but stuff made out of consciousness affecting consciousness.