The story of Solomon praying to God for wisdom and an understanding heart to rule his people (see I Kings 3:5–15) begins with his being asleep and having a dream in the night, where God comes to him, answers his prayer for wisdom, and also gives him what he didn’t even ask for—riches and honor. It says that Solomon awoke and “behold, it was a dream.”
I have read this story many times, and when I first noticed that this was “just” a dream, I began thinking about the fact that a dream does not exist in infinite Mind. It is always a mortal experience of a false mortal mind—within its supposed consciousness. Mary Baker Eddy states: “Mortal mind sees what it believes as certainly as it believes what it sees. It feels, hears, and sees its own thoughts” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 86). Now wouldn’t this also be a perfect definition of a dream?
The real man has only one consciousness, or Mind, as God’s reflection. God does not sleep; His reflection does not sleep; and God certainly doesn’t come to the real man of His creating in sleep. God is seen and expressed in the man who is eternally awake. Solomon already had all the qualities he prayed for. Yet, from a human standpoint, Solomon seemed to need that dream experience, or conversation, to accept those qualities of wisdom and understanding. (The account in Second Chronicles, chapter 1, doesn’t even record him as dreaming.) When he accepted those qualities, he was able to put into practice what he had always possessed, which led to riches and honor.
