August 15, 2018

Subject: Dreams

Golden text: Psalms 90:4-5*

 For a thousand years in your sight [God] are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. ⁵ You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning.

Genesis 28:10-22

 Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. ¹¹ And he came to a certain place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. ¹² And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! ¹³ And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. ¹⁴ Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. ¹⁵ Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” ¹⁶ Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” ¹⁷ And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

¹⁸ So early in the morning Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. ¹⁹ He called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at the first. ²⁰ Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, ²¹ so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, ²² and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house..”

From 21^st Century Science and Health**

The time required for this dream of material life to disappear from consciousness, “No one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”[1] The time it takes for us to stop embracing delusive pleasures and pains will be drawn out or shortened, depending on the tenacity of error. Of what advantage is it to prolong the illusion either of a catatonic soul or of a dying sufferer trapped in a body? What is better, to add years to mortal life, or to add life to years?

A higher and more practical Christianity, demonstrating justice and meeting the needs of human beings in sickness and in health, stands at the door of this age knocking for admission. Will you open or close the door upon this angel visitor? Will you welcome the angel who comes quietly and unpretentiously?

Science corrects the grave mistakes that suppose separable entities are part of the reality, or that suppose personal mortal minds commune with the divine Mind. The sensualist can’t be made the mouthpiece of the spiritual, nor can the finite become the channel for the infinite. There is no communication between that which is subject to death and that which is not.

Different dreams and different awakenings signify different frames of mind.

Suffering can waken human mind from its fleshly dream and therefore is better than the false pleasures which tend to perpetuate unsustainable dreams. Only sin brings death, for sin is the element of destruction.

Isaiah 29:5-8

[T]he multitude of your foreign foes shall be like small dust,
and the multitude of the ruthless like passing chaff.
And in an instant, suddenly,
⁶     you will be visited by the Lord of hosts
with thunder and with earthquake and great noise,
with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.
⁷ And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel,
all that fight against her and her stronghold and distress her,
shall be like a dream, a vision of the night.
⁸ As when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he is eating,
and awakes with his hunger not satisfied,
or as when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he is drinking,
and awakes faint, with his thirst not quenched,
so shall the multitude of all the nations be
that fight against Mount Zion.

From 21^st Century Science and Health

Do material atoms have intelligence? Do the material organs cause the eyes to see and the ears to hear? If so, then when the body dematerializes these faculties must be lost. But think different. Mentally dematerialize the faculties and conceive of them as immortal. Our immortality is in Spirit.

Nerves are not the source of pain or pleasure. We suffer or enjoy in our dreams, but this pain or pleasure is not communicated through a nerve. What about phantom limb? A limb is felt, but there are no nerves. If the feeling can return or be prolonged, why can’t the limb reappear?

Why, after pulling a bad tooth can we sometimes still feel the toothache? Because the memory of pain is more vivid than the memory of pleasure. When the nerve is gone, which we say caused the pain, and yet the pain remains, it proves sensation to be in the human mind, not in matter. Reverse the process; take away the personal mind’s claim instead of a piece of the flesh and the nerves have no sensation.

Our wisdom finds no satisfaction in misconduct since God has sentenced negative behavior to suffer. The fascinations of yesterday, predicted today’s obsessions or mesmerized thinking. The drunk thinks it is enjoyable to be intoxicated. You cannot make the inebriate leave the drunkenness until their temporal sense of pleasure yields to a better sense. A drunk, however, may wake and get on the wagon to recovery, just as the startled dreamer wakens from a nightmare due to the stress of distorted sense. A person who likes to do wrong—finding pleasure in it and refraining from it only through fear of consequences—is not moderate or reliable.

Because all the methods of divine Mind are not understood our conclusions are inconclusive.

Matthew 27:11-19, 24-26

¹ Now Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus said, “You have said so.” ¹² But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer. ¹³ Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?” ¹⁴ But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed. ¹⁵ Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. ¹⁶ And they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. ¹⁷ So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” ¹⁸ For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up. ¹⁹ Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream.”

²⁴ So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” ²⁵ And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” ²⁶ Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified.

From 21^st Century Science and Health

The power of human mind over its own body is not understood very well. Human beings have “made a mess of things,”[2] not realizing yet that divine knowledge can save from the dire effects of knowledge. If materialistic knowledge is power, it is not wisdom. Human knowledge and gene modification are but vain forces. They mutate.

Because God bestowed glory on the anointed Jesus, temptation, sin, sickness, and death did not terrorize him. Let people think they had killed the body! Afterward, he would show it again as unchanged. This demonstrates that in Christian Science the true individual is governed by God, by good, not evil, and is immortal, not mortal.

The belief and dream of mortal being is entirely separate from the Life divine. Immortal Life reveals spiritual understanding. Life reveals the consciousness of our dominion over that which is earthbound. Life reveals our ability to overcome error and heal the sick. God reveals the understanding to speak “as one who had authority.”[3]

Psalms 90:1-6

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. ² Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

From 21^st Century Science and Health

Is there any more reality in the waking dream of human existence than in the sleeping dream? There can’t be, since whatever appears to be a human being is a mortal dream. Take away the mortal human mind and the body doesn’t know if it is a person or a bird. The immortal, real individual is spiritual, always conscious.

We treat error through the understanding of Truth, because Truth is error’s antidote. Error is like a dream, and when a dream stops it is self-destroyed and the terror is over. Take pain. Many times over, pain disappears as dreams do. It may seem absurd to say pain is an illusion (dream), however, what else could it be? Human beings have forever been at odds when measuring pain levels. The same painful condition to one person isn’t even noticed by another person. More bizarre is the fact that pain to one human being is actually pleasure to another. Pain has even been proven to be an error on the physical level. When a supposedly pained human mind is distracted, unconscious, or drugged, where is the pain? Pain is an error, sometimes a terror. Error has no part of Truth and this is an antidote that removes terror.

God expresses divine consciousness in us. God did not give us an animal or human consciousness to lose control of or control.

Consciousness in the likeness of Truth is inevitably immortal.

*Scripture quotations are from the ESV^® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version^®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

** Text from 21^st Century Science and Health, 6^th edition, copyrighted by Cheryl Petersen.

[1] Matt. 24:36 (ESV)

[2] Eccl. 7:29 (The Message)

[3] Matt. 7:29