What is real and what is a dream...

A friend who loves swimming once said that sometimes she wondered whether she was a fish dreaming of being a girl or a girl dreaming of being a fish. With that, the seeming dilemma hidden within that ancient question came into to my thought. I remembered several quotes from well known thinkers and some casually shared views. Several of them are shared below.

“He's dreaming now," said Tweedledee: 

"and what do you think he's dreaming about?" 

           Alice said "Nobody can guess that."
"Why, about YOU!" Tweedledee exclaimed, clapping his hands triumphantly. 

"And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you'd be?"

         "Where I am now, of course," said Alice.

"Not you!" Tweedledee retorted contemptuously. 

"You'd be nowhere. Why, you're only a sort of thing in his dream!"  

                                  ~Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass 

– in this exchange, Carroll approaches the relationship of Mind to its ideas.

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Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things.  ~Zhuangzi 

- is partially quoted by Hesse in Siddhartha. Interestingly, absorption is denied while material change or transition is recognized. The door appears open to this principle: Divine Science, rising above physical theories, excludes matter, and being resolves things into thoughts, and replaces the objects of material sense with spiritual ideas.1 

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Enlightenment shows no difference between the man and the butterfly. ~Non

~a belief that in an enlightened state, man is unlimited by ignorance, without desire and suffering and finds unity - without distinction of form or nature. In Christian Science, we understand that man is an individualized expression of his Creator, Spirit. We find that experiencing harmony of ideas does not mean loss of identity. This scientific sense of being, forsaking matter for Spirit, by no means suggests man's absorption into Deity and the loss of his identity.2 

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Pinch your self in both states, the state in which you experiences pain is the real one. ~Non

- this suggestion indicates a belief that a corporeal sense of physical pain proves the real. It ascribes intelligence to matter, the ability to recognize Truth. This belief contradicts both the infinite goodness of God and the scientific statement of being that begins: There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter.3

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[Man] is the compound idea of God ...the generic term for all that reflects God's image and likeness [and] ...possesses no life, intelligence, nor creative power of his own, but reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker.4 

- Mind and its idea, man, includes, by reflection, all that the Father knows. What Mind knows is all that is knowable. Thus, man cannot know anything but what Omniscient Mind thinks. Men may seem to accept material suggestions that they can originate personal, independent thoughts. However this is not possible because one God governs all and is not subject to men's beliefs.

My friend, you are God's image and likeness. Therefore, you include the Fish-Mermaid-Dolphin-Butterfly ideas but are not absorbed by them. You are free to claim their unique qualities. They are all yours to express and enjoy.

So, swim, walk, dance, running, fly, move and live freely and with delight!

'-'

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1, 2, 3, 4 citations from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy
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