You are the Dreamer of This World
You Are the Dreamer of the World.
Your sleeping and your waking dreams represent the same wishes in YOUR mind.
In sleep you are alone, and your awareness is narrowed to yourself. You dream of isolation, BECAUSE your eyes are closed. You do not SEE your brothers, and, in the darkness, you cannot look upon the light you GAVE to them. And yet the laws of love are not suspended because you sleep. And you have followed them through all your nightmares, and have been faithful in your giving, for you were NOT alone. Even in sleep has Christ protected you, ensuring the real world FOR you when you wake.
Once you were unaware of what the cause of everything the world appeared to thrust upon you uninvited and unasked must REALLY be. Of one thing, you were sure, of all the many causes you perceived as bringing pain and suffering to you, your guilt was NOT among them. Nor did you, in ANY way, REQUEST them for yourself. This is how ALL illusions come about.
You, the one who makes them, does NOT see yourself as making them, and your reality does NOT depend on yourself. Whatever cause they have is something quite APART from you, and what you see is SEPARATE from your mind. You CANNOT doubt your dreams’ reality BECAUSE you do not see the part you play in MAKING them and MAKING them seem real.
No-one can waken from a dream the world is dreaming FOR him.
He becomes a part of someone ELSE’S dream. You CANNOT choose to waken from a dream you did not make. Helpless you stand, a victim to a dream conceived and cherished by a SEPARATE mind.
Careless indeed of you this mind must be, as thoughtless of your peace and happiness as is the weather, or the time of day. It loves you not, but casts you as it will, in any role that satisfies its dream. So little is you worth that you are but a dancing shadow, leaping up and down, according to a senseless plot conceived within the idle dreaming of the world.
This is the ONLY picture you can see, the ONE alternative that you can choose, the OTHER possibility of cause, if you be NOT the dreamer of your dreams. And this IS what you choose, if you deny the cause of suffering is in YOUR mind. Be glad indeed it is, for thus are YOU the ONE decider of your destiny in time. The choice IS yours to make between a sleeping death and dreams of evil, or a happy wakening and joy of life. What COULD you choose between, but life or death, waking or sleeping, war or peace, your dream or your reality?
But if the choice is REALLY given you, then you must see the causes of the things you choose BETWEEN exactly AS they are and WHERE they are. What choices can be made between two states, but ONE of which is clearly recognized? Who could be free to choose BETWEEN effects, when only ONE is seen as up to you?
An honest choice could NEVER be perceived as one in which the choice is split between a tiny you and an enormous world, with DIFFERENT dreams about the truth in you. The gap between reality and dreams lies not between the dreaming of the world and what you dream in secret. THEY are one.
The dreaming of the world is but a part of your own dream you gave away….
and saw as if it were its start and ending, both. Yet was it started by your SECRET dream, which you do NOT perceive, although it CAUSE the part you see and do not doubt is real. How COULD you doubt it, while you lie asleep, and dream in secret that its CAUSE is real?
A brother SEPARATED from yourself, an ancient enemy, a murderer who stalks you in the night and plots your death yet plans that it be lingering and slow. Of this you dream. And UNDERNEATH this dream, is yet another, in which YOU become the murderer, the secret enemy, the scavenger and the destroyer of the brother and the world you fear alike.
Here is the CAUSE of suffering, the space BETWEEN your dreams and your reality. The little gap you do not even see, the birthplace of illusions and of fear, the time of terror and of ancient hate, the instant of disaster… all are here. Here is the CAUSE of unreality. And it is here that it will be undone.
YOU are the dreamer of the world of dreams.
No OTHER cause it has, nor ever will. Nothing more fearful than an idle dream has terrified God’s Son and made him think that he has lost his innocence, denied his Father, and made war upon himself.
So fearful is the dream, so seeming real, he could not waken to reality without the sweat of terror and a scream of mortal fear, unless a gentler dream preceded his awaking, and allowed his calmer mind to welcome, NOT to fear, the Voice that called with love to waken him.
A gentler dream, in which his suffering was healed, and where his brother was his friend. God willed he waken gently, and with joy. And GAVE him means to waken WITHOUT fear. Accept the dream He gave, INSTEAD of yours. It is NOT difficult to shift a dream, when once the dreamer has been recognized. Rest in the Holy Spirit and allow His gentle dreams to take the place of those you dreamed in terror, and in fear of death. He brings FORGIVING dreams, in which the choice is NOT who is the murderer, and who shall be the victim.
In the dreams HE brings, there IS no murder, and there IS no death. The dream of guilt is fading from your sight, although your eyes are closed. A smile has come to lighten up your sleeping face. The sleep is peaceful now, for these are happy dreams. Dream softly of your sinless brother, who unites with you in holy innocence. And, from THIS dream, the Lord of Heaven will Himself awaken His beloved Son.
