Article May 17, 1919 Issue

Dream and the Awakening

CHARLES C. SANDELIN

Who has not had the experience of realizing, in the midst of a disturbing dream, that it was, indeed, "only a dream," and would pass away when he awakened from sleep. This experience may be likened, in a degree, to the method of a Christian Scientist when a suggestion of error comes in the form of sickness, sorrow, or any other trouble. The sleeper may know from the grotesqueness of the images presented to his thought that they must be unreal. The Christian Scientist, knowing that God is the only creator, and can create only that which is beautiful and good, refuses to accept evil as real, and, like the one enlightened regarding dreams, denies its reality until it disappears from consciousness.

He who admits the reality of the image seen in the dream may be compared to the individual who accepts evil as reality. While the sleeper may be tossing in bed, laboring under the influence of the dream, another person may be present who, becoming conscious of the disturbed condition of the sleeper, perceives that the individual needs to be awakened to release him from his suffering. This second person may be likened to a Christian Science practitioner called to heal a patient. As the second person in the dream incident proceeds to awaken the dreamer from his slumber in order that the troublesome dream may be dispelled, the Christian Science practitioner, never for an instant believing in the reality of the error to be overcome, proceeds to awaken the patient's thought to the realization that man is not a mortal sinner or sufferer, but an idea in Mind, forever cared for by his divine Principle, Love, and cannot be harmed by the mortal dream, which is thus proved to be unreal. On page 346 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy says: "We treat error through the understanding of Truth, because Truth is error's antidote. If a dream ceases, it is self-destroyed, and the terror is over. When a sufferer is convinced that there is no reality in his belief of pain,—because matter has no sensation, hence pain in matter is a false belief,—how can he suffer longer?"

As the person who is asleep does not see other persons who may be near him, so in our mortal sense of existence we do not see God, or even man as God's idea, though He is ever present and tenderly watches over all His ideas with more than the loving care of a mother for her children. As we awaken to spiritual life we become conscious of His presence, even as one awakens from sleep and becomes aware of a loved one near him.

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