Dreams
March 9, 2000
And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.
If mortal existence is a dream, as Christian Science teaches, we thought it might be a good idea to investigate dream analysis as practiced in modern psychology and derive some new tools for use in our own Christian Science practice.
Freudians, Jungians and others interpret sleeping dreams from the standpoint of their own elaborate systems; but these are often refinements of practices revealed in the Bible and sketched out by most primitive peoples through their shamans or medicine men. Often interpretations extend beyond dreams to hallucinations, visions, hypnagogic experiences and fantasies as well as to the free associations and amplifications undertaken once conscious work on a dream is initiated.
While we did not disown night dreams or other forms of psychic material as valuable in Christian Science dream analysis, we found a much broader field to work with than that available to traditional psychology — i.e., the whole of mortal existence, whether asleep or so called awake. Yes, the whole of the mortal dream can be and in fact needs scientific evaluation.
There are at least two other ways in which Christian Science dream work differs from that of psychology.
1) We "read" or analyze the dream from the standpoint of divine Mind, not mortal mind (see Science and Health, p. 94: 28-3, as set forth in our readings). Thus, if from a dualistic standpoint we find a mortal conflict or archetype, we go right to the non dualistic reality thereof and live it.
2) The oneness of God-man-universe thus revealed and lived will change the dream to reflect something nearer the Truth than what appeared beforehand.
One member questioned why we would spend any time on such complicated dream analyses when Christian Science treatment can be so much simpler than implied in all of this. Others felt it gave them a metaphysical technology promoting ventures beyond the cocoon of conventional aphorisms. Furthermore, it might be seen as yet another of our attempts to keep Christian Science in the flow of present thought without in any way watering down its astonishing insights. As usual, however, we saw each other's point and gained from this exchange.
One of the interesting techniques of dream work some felt could be pressed into service is called "lucid dreaming", wherein the dreamer while asleep maintains enough consciousness or lucidity to know he is dreaming and thereby enter actively into the dream action. Think of the Christian Science practice that could be effected as one maintains the standpoint of divine Mind while traversing the realms of mortal mind!
Of course mortal mind doesn't exist, but for those still caught up in eating, sleeping, bathing, going to church, doing the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson and so on — in other words the dream — some discernment of what's going on might be helpful. What is divine Mind or the Lucidity within the dream seeing, even participating in? This, of course, involves letting Mind do the analysis, provide the sought-for perfection.
Here are some other areas explored briefly.
1) Christian Scientists tend to dismiss bad experiences as a dream while clinging to pleasant experiences as divine ideas. From mortal mind's standpoint they are both dream scenarios. From divine Mind's standpoint they are Good alone. So evil is good? No, it's Good. That's divine Mind's analysis of any dream, and it will heal.
2) One member was very turned on by the thought of a new activity — say a romantic involvement or new job — using the "lucid dreaming" technique discussed. He has been afraid of the psychic material, not to mention all the physical demands, which might accompany such new departures. These are the dream, and by maintaining the lucid standpoint, he felt such problems could be healing and even healed. "...the weapons of our warfare...are mighty through God [or Lucidity] to the pulling down of strongholds..." (II Corinthians 10: 4).
3) The so-called dream of progress through the evolution of matter and/or mind is one of the fantasies of mortal mind. It needs interpretation: as the divine Mind's realities become more evident and are lived, the dream will look better. Scientists should endeavor to keep vision lucid and guard against drifting along with the dream phenomena. These comments could apply to economic progress, better human rights and so on.
4) Physical death is not an awakening from the dream — it is merely a continuation of it. Once belief in matter or dualism is replaced by the full understanding of the oneness of God and man, we are awake.
5) Most psychologists interpret all characters in a dream as aspects of the dreamer. In Science, every character in our sleeping or waking dream is God.
6) We looked briefly at sex dreams but concluded that whether sleeping or awake, sex dreams refer to oneness, wholeness. Regarding nocturnal emissions, one member said " I'm such an avid masturbator there's nothing left to nocturnally emit." Well, we barely recovered from that to do our work to see something of what Mary Baker Eddy saw of sexual intercourse (The Blue Book, page 224) "...this desire is simply the divine idea, struggling to express itself in completeness."
We want to work on Government for next week.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.
And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep. And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!
But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
We must lay aside material consciousness, and then we can perceive Truth, and say with Mary, "Rabboni!" — Master!
In 1866, when God revealed to me this risen Christ, this Life that knows no death, that saith, "Because he lives, I live," I awoke from the dream of Spirit in the flesh so far as to take the side of Spirit, and strive to cease my warfare.
When, through this consciousness, I was delivered from the dark shadow and portal of death, my friends were frightened at beholding me restored to health.
A dear old lady asked me, "How is it that you are restored to us? Has Christ come again on earth?"
"Christ never left," I replied; "Christ is Truth, and Truth is always here, — the impersonal Saviour."
If mortal mind and body are myths, what is the connection between them and real identity, and why are there as many identities as mortal bodies?
Evil in the beginning claimed the power, wisdom, and utility of good; and every creation or idea of Spirit has its counterfeit in some matter belief. Every material belief hints the existence of spiritual reality; and if mortals are instructed in spiritual things, it will be seen that material belief, in all its manifestations, reversed, will be found the type and representative of verities priceless, eternal, and just at hand.
The education of the future will be instruction, in spiritual Science, against the material symbolic counterfeit sciences. All the knowledge and vain strivings of mortal mind, that lead to death, — even when aping the wisdom and magnitude of immortal Mind, — will be swallowed up by the reality and omnipotence of Truth over error, and of Life over death.
It is well to know, dear reader, that our material, mortal history is but the record of dreams, not of man's real existence, and the dream has no place in the Science of being. It is "as a tale that is told," and "as the shadow when it declineth." The heavenly intent of earth's shadows is to chasten the affections, to rebuke human consciousness and turn it gladly from a material, false sense of life and happiness, to spiritual joy and true estimate of being.
The awakening from a false sense of life, substance, and mind in matter, is as yet imperfect; but for those lucid and enduring lessons of Love which tend to this result, I bless God.
Mere historic incidents and personal events are frivolous and of no moment, unless they illustrate the ethics of Truth. To this end, but only to this end, such narrations may be admissible and advisable; but if spiritual conclusions are separated from their premises, the nexus is lost, and the argument, with its rightful conclusions, becomes correspondingly obscure. The human history needs to be revised, and the material record expunged.