Christian Science is the Science of reality—the Science of what God is and what man is in his true identity as God's image, or reflection. All that is real emanates from God, or good, divine Mind, Spirit; therefore life is actually spiritual and wholly harmonious and perfect. When we accept this understanding, it begins to ameliorate our temporary, imperfect, mortal sense of things. It brings into the pattern of our experience more harmony, satisfaction, and completeness.

What then is this so-called material life with its limitation and imperfection?

First, consider how real a night dream seems while we are dreaming it. It is only when we awake that we realize that the objects in it had no substance and that we were involved in its action only in belief. We may dream we are trying to hurry away from some danger that is pursuing us, but because of some heaviness in our limbs we are unable to move quickly. A sense of fear holds us enthralled. Suddenly we wake and find that neither the danger nor the disability was actual. All was illusion, and we are safe and untouched by the difficulty.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, repeatedly refers to the entire mortal sense of life as a dream, and she tells us why we should recognize it as such. In Science and Health with Key to the Scripturesshe says, "Entirely separate 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." ^{Science and Health, p. 14;}

We know how entirely separate our night dreams are from our daily life. The understanding that all material existence also has a dream quality, and is therefore temporary and substanceless, opens up to us our God-given dominion over matter, which is mortal thought objectified. This false mortal thought must gradually be replaced by the consciousness of God's perfect, spiritual creation. The healing of sickness and sin are among the signs following this acknowledgment. Once we gain this realization of perfection, our difficulties and the problems of those who accept our help begin to yield to the truth, to God's perfect pattern for His creation.

Christ Jesus was awake to the dream nature of all material existence, and so he had dominion over it and manifested a truer reflection of Life as it really is, as God, infinite and perfect. He solved every type of human problem—even overcoming "the last enemy that shall be destroyed," ^{I Cor. 15:26;} as death is described in the Bible. However, the master Christian could not lift the oppression of an occupying army and free his country, but he healed all those who turned to him. There is no mass salvation.

Those who have the understanding that reality is wholly good do not ignore but face the ugly nightmares that material sense manifests—cruelty, violence, injustice, greed, or any other form of error in nations or in persons, knowing that the presentations of material sense are false dream-shadows. Shakespeare glimpsed something of material life as a dreamworld when he wrote:

Why is it that mankind seem slow in turning from the false to the true? Partly because they associate with the material sense of things legitimate pleasures they cherish and fear to lose. They do not recognize that these higher pleasures give evidence of reality and are merely the faintest hints of the true qualities and ideas of Spirit. Joy, health, activity, together with the constructive expansion of thought, the inspiration of music, poetry, and art—all hint the beauty and harmony resident in the realm of the real, as does the loveliness of nature (without its cruelty), love, companionship, and the balance afforded by a right sense of humor. When we begin to recognize that all that is good has its origin in God, divine consciousness, we feel joy and gratitude and want to obey God's will and reflect more and more good in our human experience. Jesus said to his disciples: "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love....These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." ^{John 15:10, 11;} The joy that goes with the spiritual recognition of reality's perfection could not remain with us or be full if the nightmares of this sense world were actual or God-permitted.

When the writer glimpsed that sin and disease were no part of her real being, she was restored from sickness and debility to joyful health such as she had not known before. Many false traits had to be seen and corrected, such as self-importance, selfishness, destructive criticism, impatience, and lack of both compassion and impartial love. Once the truth is seen, we recognize these errors when they again tempt us to believe we have our identity in a dreamworld, separated from God, Spirit. When detected, they are more easily corrected and dissipated. They are never part of true identity.

Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health, the Christian Science textbook, "Mortal existence is a dream; mortal existence has no real entity, but saith 'It is I.'" ^{Science and Health, p. 250;} And further on in this book she states, "When we learn the way in Christian Science and recognize man's spiritual being, we shall behold and understand God's creation,—all the glories of earth and heaven and man." ^{p. 264 ;}

When we begin to acknowledge that the limited, material sense of life is a dream, and see the reflection of reality as separate from that which is erroneous, mortal belief objectified, we begin to awake to the glorious reality of God's creation. We lose nothing real but gain all. Gradually the false pictures of material sense dissolve and are replaced by spiritual reality—completeness, peace, and harmony.

St. Paul writes in Ephesians, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." ^{Eph. 5:14.} This light is the universal and ever-available realization of the perfect reality in which God's children eternally dwell.