Let’s turn back to “The Dreamer of the Dream” section in the text, page 584,
paragraph 13 (T-27.VII.13:1).
"You" are the dreamer of the world of dreams. And you’ll note in your
book that the world “You” is italicized.
You are the dreamer, and again, the “You” is the dreamer, not the dream figure.
The dream figure is the person we think we are; the name we give ourselves, the body
that we experience and that we perceive, etcetera.
The “You” is the dreamer, the decision-making part of the mind (T-27.VII.13:1-2).
You are the dreamer of the world of dreams.
No other cause it has, nor ever will.
In other words, it doesn’t come from the world itself.
The world is not its beginning and its ending.
The world is literally the projection of our mind, just as when we sleep at night the dreams
we have are literally the projections of our brains (T-27.VII.13:3).
Nothing more fearful than an idle dream has terrified God's Son…
Now the adjective idle is there because idle means it doesn’t go anywhere,
just like if you’re in a car and the engine’s running but it’s not in gear, it idles.
We say “the car’s idling;” it doesn’t go anywhere.
So our mind’s engine may be running, joining with the ego, but it doesn’t go anywhere. Nothing happens. We never left Heaven.
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. That’s basically sin, guilt, and fear.
That’s the secret dream, the “idle dream.”
All right, lost my place; I’m sorry.
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 calls
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.
That’s the “happy dream.”
You can’t go from nightmares to awakening because, as Jesus’ explaining here, we’d
have “the sweat of terror and a scream of mortal fear” (ibid.), because the ego tells
us, “If you go back to God, He will destroy you.”
It is that fear that continually impels us to maintain this perpetual state of mindlessness.
The wrath of God is in the mind, the ego tells us, therefore the way we preserve ourselves
from this certain destruction at the hands of God is to leave the mind, totally forgetting
(once we’re in the world) that we die here too, but since we forget how we ended up here
we forget that the ego told us to be here.
This is why the ego’s defenses are so important to understand because they work so incredibly well.
Since we forget we have a mind we have no memory of how we got here, and we got here
because we listened to the ego’s counsel: “Leave your mind because God will destroy you."
"Go to the world and the body, and He won’t.”
Well, then we end up in the world and the body and, guess what?
We get destroyed, but by this time we’d forgotten the secret dream.
So we’re just here; we have to make the best of it, and then we make up all kind of
fairy tales: “there’s an afterlife.”
So we die but we don’t really die, but the “bad people” die and they go to hell.
They go to—they die and they stay dead, but they don’t really die either; they just
get punished to everlasting hell while we enjoy “eternal bliss."
And then there’s the whole notion of many lives, so I die but I come back and I come
back and I come back. “Isn’t that wonderful?”
Not that any of these concepts may not be helpful, but they’re all illusory.
How could I come back to a place that I was never “in” in the first place?
“Ideas leave not their source,” (T-26.VII.4:7; W-pI.167.3:6).
The idea of God’s separated son has never left his source in the mind, so we’re not even in a body.
So whether one lives one lifetime or a thousand lifetimes or there’s an “afterlife”
it’s all the same. It’s not an “afterlife.” It’s an after-non-life.
I mean, what’s such a big deal about an after-non-life?
It’s non-life after non-life that is a result of non-life.
That’s all this is, but we make up stories because we’re so terrified.
So Jesus makes up a story too; his is a kind, gentle story.
He says, “God loves you. God is not angry.
Yes, God knows that you left home and you separated, but He doesn’t hold a grudge.
He’s not angry, He’s not upset.
He didn’t create the Holy Spirit to seduce you back to Heaven so God could destroy you.
God loves you so much He misses you.
He’s lonely without you.
He cries without you; He weeps.
He longs for you and He wants you back home.”
Well, I mean it’s all made-up but it’s a nice, gentle story and it does correct the
ego’s dream of sin, guilt, and fear.
Sin, guilt, and fear is all predicated on God’s wrath, that we destroyed Him.
Jesus’ fairy tale (and it’s a fairy tale) is that we didn’t destroy God; nothing really happened.
“Daddy isn’t angry, and the Holy Spirit is your Friend.”
So that begins the process of learning to forgive ourselves for what we didn’t do.
And since what I’ve done with what I believe I have done is projected onto you, my work
begins, my journey begins, by my getting a different perception, with my different Teacher, of you.
In other words, I withdraw all the projections of my guilt that I put on you.
So I recognize that my external dream in which you are the victimizer, you are the abuser,
and I have suffered at your hands is the world’s dream, which is the projection of the secret
dream that that’s what I believe I did: I’m the murderer; I’m the scavenger, I’m
the sinner, I’m the betrayer, I’m the abandoner.
But I now have a loving Presence in my mind that’s not fearful, that’s not angry;
a loving Presence that tells me I made it all up.
And so in the very end I realize the ego’s nightmare is made up but the “happy dream”
is made up too, and in the end both disappear and all that’s left is reality.
All right, next paragraph: “Accept the dream He gave;” that’s the dream that God gave,
although really it’s not God Who gives it.
Accept the dream He gave instead of yours.
That’s the “happy dream.”
It’s still a dream but it’s a happy dream; it’s a dream of forgiveness.
It is not difficult to change a dream when once the dreamer has been recognized.
That’s another very, very important line: It is not difficult to change a dream when
once the dreamer has been recognized.
What this is talking about is the process of lifting the veil of amnesia so we recognize
that we are a mind; we are not a body, and we are the mind that is a dreamer.
The “Christ Mind” doesn’t dream but the split mind does dream.
That’s all it is: it’s a dreamer.
So it’s not difficult to change dreams once you realize you’re the dreamer, and then
you see clearly what the choices are between.
“Who with the Love of God upholding him [the text says before, Who with the Love of
God upholding him would] find the choice between miracles [and] murder hard to make?”
When you know you’re the dreamer and one dream is a dream of murder and the other dream
is a dream of a miracle then that’s a no-brainer; it’s a “no-minder.”
It’s easy, but you have to know you’re the dreamer.
The resistance to that is so enormous.
I can’t say that often enough.
That’s what you have to recognize otherwise you will get so off-track with this Course
so quickly, and you’ll be sure you’re right because you’ll quote chapter and verse
and you won’t understand a word that you’re quoting.
You must understand your resistance to realizing you are the dreamer, not the dream figure.
You are a mind, not the body.
Jesus is not talking to “you” as a person, by name, using words.
He is a thought of love in your mind that’s a light that by its very presence just calls
you to remember that you are the light also.
This Course is appealing to the decision maker, to the dreamer.
The line, page 594 in the text, paragraph 7; the first sentence: The miracle
establishes you dream a dream, and that its content is not true.
This is a crucial step in dealing with illusions.
No one is afraid of them when he perceives he made them up.
Remember what this book is called: "A Course in Miracles."
The miracle establishes you dream a dream; you are the dreamer.
Just keep that in mind and you’ll always be on the straight and narrow with this Course.