The Sandman never explains Dream’s powers and that’s OK

polygon.com:

One of the more difficult things to keep track of when watching The Sandmanis Dream himself. Not necessarily where he is; that’s easy enough. What he can do, on the other hand, is not. For the first half of season 1, Dream is rebuilding — gathering his favorite tools in order to get his powers back up to snuff. What those powers are is never really clear, though. Perplexing as it may be, this isn’t really what The Sandman is about, and being a little lost is OK, because it leads to a more interesting story.

Hearing someone tell you that an annoying thing does not matter isn’t a very satisfying answer, so let’s get into why. As an abstraction personified, Dream both controls and is the collective dreams and nightmares of humanity, which gives him a wide remit to do effectively whatever he wishes, as long as the rationale can be tied to dreams in some way. Essentially, if you are asleep, or even sleepy, you are at his mercy.

However. Dreams are not just things that happens when you sleep. They are also stories, ambitions, hopes. Dream is arguably free to use those as he sees fit as well. His powers are rooted in how we make meaning out of what we do not understand, and inherently undefinable. Basically: One of the Endless can do whatever they want, as long as they can make an argument for it. Unless, of course, they can’t.

This is what I mean when I say Dream’s powers don’t matter. The Sandman is not a show with a traditional conflict. Antagonists like the Corinthian may come and go and imperil humans, but the real conflict, the actual existential threat to Dream, is obligation. Being one of the Endless comes with many rules, because it turns out the beings that have the power to manipulate the cosmos are also