Both the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy include symbolic references to dragons and warn us about how deceptive these “dragons” can be. Whenever I read such passages, I’m reminded of a story that has stayed with me over the years because it so clearly illustrates how fear works—and that it loses its seeming power when we stop believing it.

As the story goes, night after night, a woman dreamed the same dream, in which she was being chased by a big red dragon that she couldn’t escape. She began to dread going to bed because she awoke each morning exhausted from the strain of it all.

One night in her dream, she noticed a bench, ran to it, and collapsed onto it, gasping for breath. Before long, the dragon came and sat down right next to her on the bench. Terrified, she turned to the dragon and asked what he was going to do now. The dragon replied, “I don’t know, lady. It’s your dream.”