In many places in her writings Mary Baker Eddy refers to the dream nature of material existence. She also brings out the necessity of awakening from the dream sense. On page 250 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" she states, "A mortal may be weary or pained, enjoy or suffer, according to the dream he entertains in sleep," and farther on she writes on the same page: "Now I ask, Is there any more reality in the waking dream of mortal existence than in the sleeping dream? There cannot be, since whatever appears to be a mortal man is a mortal dream." Awakening from this mortal dream, one discerns the truth regarding man as a child of God, his spiritual nature, his purity, and his dominion.

Jesus taught (John 6:63), "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." Much too often we seem to reverse this teaching of the Master and think of materiality, of the things of the flesh to such an extent that they seem real to the exclusion of spiritual facts. Problems of human relationship assume proportions that would shut out, if they could, the Father from His own creation and make a world of discord and distress.

In Christian Science one learns that this is the dream sense and that the very opposite of it is true. Turning again to Science and Health, we read (pp. 349, 350): "In Christian Science, substance is understood to be Spirit, while the opponents of Christian Science believe substance to be matter. They think of matter as something and almost the only thing, and of the things which pertain to Spirit as next to nothing, or as very far removed from daily experience. Christian Science takes exactly the opposite view." Mrs. Eddy's words make us realize the importance of denying material sense testimony and of accepting instead the testimony of Spirit. When inharmony of any kind yields to the spiritual fact and the normal joyous aspect of activity or relationship takes its place, we know we are awakening to spiritual reality.

If a problem of discordant human relationship arises, sometimes our inclination is to feel that it is the other person who needs to awaken, and we work hard to convince him of this need. However, as we gain more humility, we may see that all that needs to take place is our own spiritual awakening to the realization of the basic fact of Christian Science. Because God is perfect, His man, made in His image and likeness, is also perfect. With this realization comes the understanding that man is never really a sick and sinful mortal, but the beloved, obedient child of God, and as we maintain this true concept of man, healing is evidenced.

That this line of reasoning brings definite results was proved in the experience of one student of Christian Science, whose daughter had been reared in Science and had known no other means of healing. Upon reaching her middle teens, this daughter became negligent in her study of the Lesson-Sermons as outlined in the Christian Science Quarterly, and when pressed to study it, only seemed to become irritated. Added to the difficulty was a conflict of will because the daughter desired to take a step which the mother felt to be most unwise.

When the daughter manifested a severe cough, which did not readily yield to Christian Science treatment, and the attitude of opposition persisted, the mother became alarmed. Realizing her own need for healing, the mother asked for help for herself from a Christian Science practitioner. As a result of the treatment she saw that she must relinquish mere human outlining and trust her child to God's guidance. Although she became willing to do this, she kept thinking, "If only my daughter could be more obedient and more receptive to the truth!"

One night the mother dreamed that the daughter had fallen into a swift-flowing stream and was being swept away by the waters. All her own efforts and those of another member of the family were unavailing to save the daughter. Just then the student awakened with a great sense of relief that the catastrophe was only a dream. The next day the student attended her yearly association meeting. Suddenly the thought came to her: "All I had to do, was to awaken. And it was I who had to awaken, not my daughter, to realize that she was not in a river at all."

The mother then saw that the whole belief of resistance of Truth, including the cough, must be seen as having no more reality than the dream experience. She saw that it was in her own consciousness that healing had to take place and that it was she who must awaken from the dream which claimed a suffering and un-co-operative daughter. With this unfoldment she began to claim her right of beholding only the perfect child of God's creating. She also denied error any reality or power. Very soon the cough ceased, and harmony was restored. The mother reversed her thought regarding the controversial step and permitted the daughter to follow her own understanding of God's guidance. A further result was that the daughter, although still a member of the Christian Science Sunday School, applied for membership in a branch church and was accepted. She has continued to be a good working Christian Scientist.

One learns from the foregoing experience that as one clears his own thought and awakens from the dream of material sense to the spiritual fact of God's allness and stays awake to the fact of God's perfect creation, no matter what another may seem to be thinking, healing follows and right adjustment takes place. Paul wrote to the Ephesians (5:11, 14), "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them;" and, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." Whether the awakening be slow or fast, whether it come as the result of struggling with a problem, or as sudden unfoldment of Truth, matters not; but come it must in order that materiality may be overcome and spiritual reality attained.

In her "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy says (p. 30), "Take courage, dear reader, for any seeming mysticism surrounding realism is explained in the Scripture, 'There went up a mist from the earth [matter];' and the mist of materialism will vanish as we approach spirituality, the realm of reality; cleanse our lives in Christ's righteousness; bathe in the baptism of Spirit, and awake in His likeness."