There is a moment on every true spiritual path when one begins to suspect that reality, as commonly understood, may not be reality at all. This suspicion—more like a gentle inner stirring—marks the beginning of what A Course in Miracles (ACIM) calls the process of “awakening from the dream.” It is not about waking up in the morning after a night of sleep. It is about awakening from the dream of separation, limitation, and fear—a dream that has convinced us we are isolated bodies in a world governed by time, suffering, and death.
The Dream of Separation
According to ACIM, the root of our suffering lies in a mistaken belief: that we have separated ourselves from God. From this tiny, mad idea, as the Course describes it, arose the ego—a false identity that lives in fear, defends itself constantly, and maintains a sense of being under attack. The world we see with the body’s eyes is not “reality” in any eternal sense; it is a projection of that fear-based mind, a symbolic manifestation of the inner belief that we are alone, vulnerable, and cut off from divine love.
Mary Baker Eddy, the inspired author of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, echoes this teaching in her assertion that “mortal mind” is the source of all error. Like ACIM, she teaches that what we perceive through the five senses is not ultimate reality but a temporary illusion—something to be outgrown, out-thought, and ultimately outlived. “Mortal existence,” she writes, “is a dream; mortal existence has no real entity, but saith ‘It is I.’”
To awaken from this dream is not to die but to live—truly live, beyond the false ideas of sin, sickness, and death. It is to become aware of what has always been true but was temporarily forgotten.
The Call to Awaken
Awakening does not happen all at once. It comes in moments—glimpses of peace, clarity, and deep knowing that there must be something more. For some, it’s sparked by suffering; for others, by an inner yearning for truth. The Course tells us that these moments are not accidents. They are the result of a deep inner decision to remember God, even if that decision has not yet reached full awareness.
These moments are the Holy Spirit’s answer to the ego’s illusions. They gently interrupt the dream. They do not attack it. As the Course puts it, the truth does not fight illusions—it simply shines them away.
We might call these spiritual experiences “holy instants,” where time momentarily dissolves, and we feel the presence of something greater than ourselves. The more we welcome these moments, the more frequent and natural they become. The goal is not to escape the world but to see it differently—not through the lens of fear, but through the eyes of love.
Dream Symbols and Gentle Correction
One of the most misunderstood aspects of awakening is the idea that the world must be rejected or condemned in order to be transcended. But both A Course in Miracles and Science and Health teach the opposite: the world must be reinterpreted. As long as we believe we are here, we are to use every experience as a classroom for unlearning fear and choosing love instead.
ACIM refers to the world as a classroom and the body as a learning device. It is not evil, only mistaken in its purpose. When surrendered to Spirit, everything—even pain and conflict—can be reinterpreted to serve awakening.
Mary Baker Eddy likewise teaches that sickness, suffering, and sin are not punished by God but are simply mistaken beliefs to be corrected through spiritual understanding. The healing of the body, in her view, is the result of a clearer view of divine Truth—a correction of thought that brings harmony to human experience.
In both systems, correction is not about guilt or punishment. It is about remembering what is true and letting go of what never was.
The Role of Forgiveness
One of the most powerful tools for awakening is forgiveness—not in the traditional sense of pardoning others for what they “did,” but in the spiritual sense of realizing that what seemed to happen was part of the dream and not real in the eternal sense. This is not denial of experience but reinterpretation of it.
True forgiveness dissolves the chains that bind us to the past. It is the key that unlocks the prison of time. As we forgive, we loosen our grip on the ego’s dream and allow Spirit to gently awaken us to reality. Forgiveness is how we clear the fog and open the way for the light of truth to shine through.
The Light of Truth
As we awaken, we begin to experience peace that does not depend on circumstances. We feel love that asks for nothing in return. We hear inner guidance that gently corrects our fearful thoughts. And we begin to realize that everything we truly need is already within us.
This is not a state to be reached in some distant future—it is available now, in every moment we are willing to let go of the dream and open our minds to Truth. Awakening is not an achievement; it is a remembrance.
As the Course reminds us:
“I need do nothing.”
This is not a call to passivity but to presence—to stillness of mind where the Voice for God can be heard.
Final Thought
To awaken from the dream is to see that we were never truly asleep. The truth of who we are—perfect, whole, and one with God—has never changed. What we are returning to is not a new identity but the awareness of our eternal Self. The dream may still appear for a time, but its hold loosens as we respond less to fear and more to love.
Each moment we choose to listen to Spirit rather than ego, each time we forgive instead of judge, we take another step toward waking. And one day, we will realize we never truly left home—we only dreamed we did.
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