Corresponding Text Section
Chapter 30: The Happy Dreams of the Real World
3. Self- and Spirit-Assigned Dream Roles
Do you believe that Truth is merely some selected illusions rather than no illusions? Illusions and dreams are the same because they are not Reality. Their equal lack of truth becomes the basis for the miracle, which means you have understood that dreams are only dreams, and that release depends not on the content of the dream, but only on awakening. Could it be that some dreams are kept, and others awakened from? The choice is not between which dreams to keep, but only if you want to dwell in dreams or to awaken from them. Thus the miracle does not select some dreams to leave untouched by its beneficence. You cannot awaken from a dream while continuing to dream. For you are either asleep or awake. And dreams go with only one of these.
The dreams you think you like will hold you back as much as those in which the fear is perceived. For every one of your dreams is merely a dream of fear, no matter what form it seems to take. Their form can change, but they cannot be made of something else. For dreams were made as replacement of Reality, out of fear of what Reality might hold for those who believed they had betrayed their Creator. Thus fear became the material from which all dreams are woven except the Holy Spirit’s happy Dreams, which It offers you as Replacement for your nightmares. The fear your dreams are made of may be perceived in the dream, or it can be disguised in pleasant form, but never is it absent from the dream. The miracle were deceitful indeed if it allowed you to remain in fear just because the fear was in a form you did not recognize as fearful. You would not then be willing to awaken, for which the miracle prepares the way, believing it to be yet another form of deceit.
Depression or assault must be the theme of every dream, for they are all made of fear. The thin disguise of pleasure and of joy in which they may be wrapped only slightly veils the heavy lump of fear that is their core. And it is this core that the miracle perceives, and not the wrappings in which it is bound. When you are angry, is it not always because someone, even yourself, has failed to fill the function you assigned to them? And does not this become the “reason” your attack is justified to yourself? In simplest form, it can be said that attack is a reaction to function unfulfilled, as you perceive function. The function perceived as unfulfilled can be in you or someone else, but where it is perceived it will be attacked.
Your dreams that you think you like are those in which the functions you have assigned yourself and others have been filled, the needs that you ascribe to yourself are met. Yet it does not matter if these self-assigned functions and needs be fulfilled or merely wanted. It is the idea that they exist from which the fears arise. Dreams are not wanted more or less. They are desired as replacement for Reality, or not. And each one represents some function that you have assigned, some goal that an event, or body, or thing should represent and should achieve for you, some need they should fulfill. If it succeeds in doing this, you think you like the dream. If it should fail, you think the dream is sad. But whether it succeeds or fails is not the dream’s core, but just its flimsy covering. The only failure can be in your idea of the figures in your dreams, and there is no betrayal but of this. How happy will your dreams become when you are not the one who assigns the “proper” roles to every figure that the dream contains, but this responsibility is turned over to the One capable of fulfilling it.
The core of dreams that the Holy Spirit gives is never one of fear. The dreams’ coverings may not appear to change, but what they mean has changed because they cover something else. Perceptions are determined by their purpose, in that they seem to be what they are for. In Spirit’s happy Dreams a shadow figure who attacks becomes a brother or sister giving you a chance to help, if you allow this to become the function of the dream for you. And dreams of sadness thus are turned to Joy.
What is your sisters and brothers’ function? You do not know because your function is obscure to you. Don’t ascribe a role to them that you imagine would bring happiness to you. And don’t try to hurt them when they fail to take the part that you assigned to them in what you dream your life was meant to be. They ask for help in every dream they have, and you have help to give them if you see the function of the dream as Spirit perceives its function, Who can utilize all dreams as means to serve the Function given It. Because Spirit Loves the dreamer, not the dream, each dream becomes an offering of Love. For at the center is Spirit’s Love for you, which lights with Love whatever form the dream takes.
