One day, while I was working at my desk, my attention was drawn to a thumping sound nearby where my dog was fast asleep and dreaming. Her wagging tail was pounding on the floor, and her front legs were moving as if she were running and chasing something. Usually when I see this, I just smile and say, “She must be chasing a rabbit.”
But that day a common experience became a deeply inspiring one for me—one that continues to be a reminder that there is no true substance or life in matter. Like a bolt of light, I realized that the dog’s body in her dream was probably as real to her as her body was to me as I watched her sleep. This prompted me to see even more clearly what I’d learned in Christian Science—that not only is the body in a sleeping dream a concept of a suppositional consciousness, but the body we see when awake is also a concept of suppositional consciousness (called mortal mind in Christian Science), and both are without real substance. The body I was seeing might be more challenging to grasp as a suppositional concept, but that doesn’t make the statement any less true.
Mary Baker Eddy states in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures that “mortals are no more material in their waking hours than when they act, walk, see, hear, enjoy, or suffer in dreams. We can never treat mortal mind and matter separately, because they combine as one” (p. 397). It’s also stated in Science and Health: “The material body, which you call me, is mortal mind …” (p. 416).
