There is Scriptural authority for metaphorically depicting the illusions of mortal existence through the dream. It would seem to have come to the Apostle Paul in this way when he said in a letter to the Ephesians, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." The word "dream," so frequently made use of in the writings of Mrs. Eddy, is especially illuminating. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 14) she makes a statement which readily attracts attention. "Entirely separate," she says, "from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine, revealing spiritual understanding and the consciousness of man's dominion over the whole earth." When mortals begin to separate the unreal nature of human belief from the reality of spiritual existence, they have started on the journey out of materiality.
While we are physically asleep, the progress of our material work awaits our taking it up where we left off. In like manner our spiritual progress is delayed while our thoughts and acts are governed by human belief. The most important point to be considered in connection with a dream is the awakening, because everything in the dream seems real to one so long as he is asleep. To illustrate, let us presume that one falls asleep and dreams that he is suffering; furthermore, that the persons associated with him in his dream-experience are sick, or sorrowful, or sinful. Now no one would question how the dreamer was to free his sense of the suffering of himself and others in his dream, as it would be clear that freedom would come when the dreamer woke up.
While all agree that the awakening will free from the supposed conditions presented in a night-dream, one may still be confronted with the question, How is one to free himself and others from the seeming discords of mortal existence? The answer to this question is the same as the answer regarding the sleeping dream; namely. Wake up! But this time it is from the belief that life is in matter that we are to awake, in order to find all true existence in the divine Mind. Just as a night-dream seems to counterfeit our waking hours, so all material illusion counterfeits spiritual reality. But the awakening to the whole of spiritual existence is not done in a day; hence the necessity of taking up the problems that arise in daily life one by one and applying our understanding of Truth to their solution. It is to-day we need sustaining, even though now we may know but little of spiritual life and law. And in the degree that we wake up in any instance from the belief that material existence is real, because we have gained a glimpse of Life as Spirit, we free ourselves and others from the beliefs of mortality. There is one distinctive feature of a dream, —the fact that everything which seems to take place in it vanishes with the dream. Similarly, we can know that we are wide-awake only when the error that we have sought to overcome through spiritual understanding becomes unreal to us.
The student of Christian Science may become confused in his thinking because he is in doubt as to how far he is to apply his understanding of Truth to his daily affairs, and avoid trespassing upon the rights of others. It will help us to realize that we are responsible for our own thoughts only. We have some sort of mental concept of every person and thing with which our human experience brings us into contact. If our thought has not been changed from the material to the spiritual, we must be holding certain false concepts; therefore the change to take place must be in our viewpoint. The Christian Scientist is leaving a material and mortal basis for the spiritual and immortal. Whereas he formerly believed man's origin to be material, subject to sin, sickness, and death, he now accepts the fact that man's true origin is in the divine Mind, and that he is spiritual and eternal.
While the light and activity of spiritual awakening does involuntarily arouse the slumbering world more or less from the dream of materiality, we can never be trespassing upon the rights of others so long as we are giving attention to our own awakening. On page 174 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy well describes the far-reaching effects of spiritual discernment when she says, "Whoever opens the way in Christian Science is a pilgrim and stranger, marking out the path for generations yet unborn." As the betterment of material conditions will make life freer for the coming generations, so will the furtherance of Truth on earth bring greater freedom and protection to mortals.
We sometimes wonder why certain experiences come to us, especially if we are endeavoring to lead a Christian life and the experiences seem to be severe ones. The discords of material existence are due to the belief that life is in matter and not in Spirit, God. The reason one dreams any kind of dream is because the belief that life and intelligence are in matter constitutes itself a so-called law of mortal mind; and he can free himself from the chance and change of this supposititious law only as he learns that man's true government is through the spiritual law of divine Mind. This awakening, however, is sure to come, whether one turns voluntarily from materiality or whether he waits until his suffering has reached a climax and his material joy has proved to be only temporal and unreal.
The so-called human mind claims that it cannot be suppressed. What it lacks in the more crassly material, it attempts to substitute in the seemingly more mental. This is shown by the fact that the opium habit found favor in thickly populated countries where the populace live in crowded quarters with few opportunities for travel or material enjoyment. Mrs. Eddy refers on page 90 of Science and Health to the fact that opium users think they journey long distances without moving. The mental experience produced by stimulants, intoxicants, and narcotics has only the imagery of human belief behind it; and it is vain repetition. Any material belief never reaches beyond the boundary of so-called matter. The awakening from an illusion, whether it be mental or material, is an undeniable fact, and can at best only bring one back to the place from which he started. From this position he must advance before he can learn what constitutes the reality of true being.
The Apostle Paul surely realized what real progress was when he wrote, "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." We are also clearly reminded in the Scriptures that we cannot "serve two masters," and that while serving the flesh we are not "absent from the body." All spiritual healing is accomplished by realizing the presence and allness of God, Truth and Love. Even though our thought may seem to revert to past experiences, the error involved can never seem again so real to us, because every glimpse of Truth removes something of its seeming reality. The putting off of false belief through spiritual understanding always advances us beyond our former position. Thus the distance between us and the full awakening to Truth is daily and hourly being eliminated.
It is through spiritual awakening that we progress out of the belief in mortality. Awakening implies that we are giving up a mental state which is deceptive and unreal for that which is real and eternal. Christian Science is the real awakener, for it exposes the nothingness of the illusive claims of materiality and reveals the truth about the real and spiritual man. Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (p. 250): "Mortal existence is a dream; mortal existence has no real entity, but saith 'It is I.' Spirit is the Ego which never dreams, but understands all things; which never errs, and is ever conscious; which never believes, but knows; which is never born and never dies. Spiritual man is the likeness of this Ego."
