Article March 15, 1913 Issue

DREAMS

LOUISE KNIGHT WHEATLEY.

Two persons were once discussing a healing which had taken place through the understanding of Christian Science. The type of disease was new to the listener, and as the narrative proceeded, curiosity prompted her to ask numerous questions. Before long the simple recital of the facts in the case had turned into an elaborate description of the symptoms and suffering which had accompanied the very unpleasant trouble from which the patient had finally been permanently relieved. At last, however, the two friends parted, one to go her way rejoicing in her new-found freedom, the other to dwell more or less during the remainder of the day upon the wonderful experience of which she had just heard. "How glad I am that she is well! How glad I am for Christian Science! How I do rejoice!" she thought; but that night she dreamed she had the same disease of which she had heard for the first time that morning. It was only after she had followed every phase of the outline described to her, from start to finish, that she finally woke up.

The first thought which came to her was, of course, unutterable relief that it was only a dream; but as her mental processes gradually regained their normal condition another thought presented itself,—Would there have been any more reality in that disease if it had manifested itself in her waking moments? She recalled a passage in Science and Health (p. 250): "A mortal may be weary or pained, enjoy or suffer, according to the dream he entertains in sleep. When that dream vanishes, the mortal finds himself experiencing none of these dream-sensations. ... Now I ask, Is there any more reality in the waking dream of mortal existence than in the sleeping dream?" In her sleeping dream she had only to wake up and the dream was gone. What about the waking dream? Let the Christian Science text-book answer: "When we wake to the truth of being, all disease, pain, weakness, weariness, sorrow, sin, death, will be unknown, and the mortal dream will forever cease" (p. 218).

Wherein, then, lies the difference? Is it not largely in this, that we have been educated to think the sleeping dream is unreal and the waking dream real? The world at large will readily admit the unreality of the sleeping dream; that in it disease is but a belief, without fact or foundation except in the frightened sense of the dreamer; but it also says that in our waking moments disease is not merely a belief, but a stubborn reality, to be overcome, in most cases, if overcome at all, by something put on the tongue and swallowed. Do we go to the bedside of a person in the throes of a bad dream and attempt to pacify him by putting something on the tongue to be swallowed? Hardly; we simply wake him up. And when this is done, where is the bad dream?

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