Confusing the Dreamer with God

There is a tendency among people who are new to a spiritual path to confuse God with anything that is deemed “supernatural” in the world. A Course in Miracles addresses psychic powers, explaining that, in themselves, psychic powers do not have a spiritual value, except that they reveal to you that your mind is not limited to an isolated personal mind. Other than that, unless they are directed by the Holy Spirit, they have no value in your spiritual awakening. The same can be said for coincidences and synchronicity. Coincidences and synchronicity are occurring when you notice patterns in your life. For example, you’ve been thinking about a certain topic, and all of a sudden every where you look there are books on that topic. There is no special meaning in this. All it shows is that you are in touch with the one mind that is the dreamer-of-the- dream of separation from God. Some people live in this awareness all the time, some people have moments when they notice patterns, and others find that they become more aware over time.

There is actually a lot of confusing the split mind that is the dreamer-of-the-dream with God. This is because, to the personal mind, the dreamer-of-the-dream is its god! The dreamer is the one mind that is the source of all personal selves, of the world, of the stories about the world, and of the “laws” that govern the world. The personal self is made in the image of the dreamer, and it is the dreamer’s attributes that are erroneously projected onto God that make God seem frightening. It is the dreamer-as-god that you have to overcome to awaken to the Real God. When you believe that everything supernatural is God, then, all that you are doing is shifting from an illusion that material form is all that there is, to an illusion that material form and the dreamer-of-the-dream are all that there is. There is no real awakening.

Sometimes students think that coincidences and synchronicity are miracles. They can be, if your awareness of them comes from the Holy Spirit. Remember, though, that the Holy Spirit can only teach you through what you (the dreamer) made. This means that what you made is also available for the personal mind to use. Everything at the level of perception is open to interpretation, and can be used by either the personal mind or the Holy Spirit. And they will use them for diametrically opposed purposes.

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Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.

Comments

Marina said…
It's interesting to see how everything is truly a matter of perception. I've began to see synchronicity as proof that we are indeed creators in the dream. When I recognize them, they always seem to remind me of the part of me that is part of the Creator and always seems to take me home in that instant. I guess it boils down to whether it's keeping you bound to the dream or releasing you from it. I do love the dream and all it's creations for the classroom that it is.
dear beloved said…
If the world we perceive is merely what we have imagined, then why, when most people would prefer to live forever, did we imagine a world in which we all seem to die?

Why did we not imagine a world where everything is eternal?
ACIM Mentor said…
The purpose of the world, Dear Beloved, is to be the opposite of God in every way. It is the thought "not-God" given form. So, since God is Formless, Eternal, Infinite Being, the world is finite, time-bound form.
dear beloved said…
Your reply makes no sense to me.

It seems more likely that we decided to create our own world, in other words, to set ourselves up as god. So we created the world we experience, not god. We are playing god in our own little body-centered universe.

It doesn't make sense that we would try to create something that was the opposite of god in all ways. It would make sense that we would want to be god and have all of god's powers ourselves.

What am I missing?
ACIM Mentor said…
What you are missing is the origin of the idea "not-God". God, being All, must contain even the idea of Its own opposite, "not-God". But, of course, What is All-encompassing cannot have an opposite. This is what the Course means by the tiny, mad idea was over the moment it was thought. However, within the tiny-mad idea is the concept of time, which makes it seem, only within not-God, that you (the dreamer-of-the- dream)left God eons ago, and that you will return to God in some indefinite future. There was nothing seeking to replicate God, or to make some place fun, in the origins of the separation. So the separated mind cannot be more than it is, which is not-God. That's why you cannot change it to make it more like God; you have to let it go to know God again.

However, the personal mind does believe that the dreamer-of-the-dream is its god, and it does try to give it god's attribute, and to have some for itself. In the idea of reincarnation, for example, which is meant to give Immortality (an attribute of God) to individuality (which is not real).
dear beloved said…
OK. Your first paragraph makes sense to me. You lose me a little in the second.

Are you saying that reincarnation is false? Since we don't really die, since our true beingness really is eternal, then something must happen to consciousness after the dream of the body's death. No?

I assume that if we did not awaken while in this body, then we would in fact dream another life into existence, or in other words reincarnate. We would still be lost in the delusion, but in a different form.

Is that not correct?
ACIM Mentor said…
Dear Beloved, there is only One Spirit; there are no individual spirits or "souls". The personal self is just a dream figure in one mind, the dreamer-of-the-dream. When it "dies" it simply falls away from a dream. Like if you have a dream tonight, everyone in the dream is a part of your mind. If someone "dies" in your dream, what happens to them? Nothing. You're just no longer dreaming about that dream figure.

The goal is not individual awakening. There's no such thing, because there's only One Mind. If you go to my website, www.acimmentor.com, and click on "Understanding One Mind", I have explained the whole thing in more detail in a rather large nutshell.
dear beloved said…
Dear Liz,

You seem to be forgetting one step.

We created this reality and it will appear as we created it for as long as we keep creating it.

If a body seems to die in this incarnation, they are not immediately absorbed into Oneness.

If that was the case we could all just commit suicide and *snap* Oneness, no need for ACIM!

So please explain what you think happens to the consciousness that is experiencing the dream of a body when the body dies?

Yes, it "falls away from the dream", but does it completely cease its apparent existence? Or does it continue in another dream?

Yes my dreams disappear each night, but tonight I will dream more.
ACIM Mentor said…
The dreamer-of-the-dream will cease to dream of that particular dream figure, so they fall away from the dream. But, until the dreamer wakes up, yes, it will continue to dream, just not of that particular dream figure.

You are right: Individual dream figures do not return to Oneness when they seem to "die". Nothing happens, just as nothing happened when they seemed to be born. There is only one mind dreaming; there is only one mind that needs to awaken.

In fact, all of this is just a "story" for the personal mind. Not-God is undone by God's All-encompassing nature the moment the idea of it occurs. We are talking about nothing.
Anonymous said…
Liz, can we say the actual ego is the dreamer of the dream? Because the "dream figures" dont really exist; those who "come" to dream just choose their though system either from ego ( limited) or Holy spirit? There is not really a personal mind in the dream
ACIM Mentor said…
Anonymous, there is only one "dreamer of the dream" - what ACIM calls the Son of God. This mind is split between Truth and illusion. It projects its split into its dream as billions of seemingly-individual minds. These minds, which seem to be in the "dream figures", are therefore also split between Truth (Holy Spirit) and illusion (ego). We refer to these minds as "decision makers" because they can decide between the thought system of the Holy Spirit or the ego. So, no, the ego is not the dreamer of the dream. It is an aspect of the mind of a dream figure.
Unknown said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said…
I see. But the dream figures dont really have a mind though. They are choosing either from ego or Holy Spirit? And that is why reincirnation doesnt make sense at all. In a way dream figures dont exist; nothing does
Unknown said…
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