By Bill Harley
“A dream is real as long as it lasts. Can any more be said of life?” These are the words of British psychologist and author Havelock Ellis (1859-1939). I haven’t researched the context in which Ellis said this, but want to use his statement as a jumping off point.
His statement triggers a question: what is reality? The most obvious answer is material reality—the reality we experience each morning when we wake up and drink our cup of coffee or tea while looking out the window. For most people, material reality lasts seven or maybe eight decades, it captures all of our senses and most of our thoughts, and it all gets wrapped up in a box that is buried in the earth.
But Ellis’ statement conveys more than this. It suggests that dreams may be as real as life; and that life may also be as immaterial and evanescent as a dream.
To understand these relationships better, it helps to draw from spiritual sources. The scriptures suggest that God has created in us the daily need for 8-hours of sleep and dreaming as a counterbalance to our waking hours in order to remind us daily that there is a spiritual reality in us and around us beyond the merely material reality that feeds our five senses.
Here are well-known scriptural passages that make this case:
Consider the world of dreams, wherein the body of man is immovable, seemingly dead, not subject to sensation; the eyes do not see, the ears do not hear nor the tongue speak. But the spirit of man is not asleep; it sees, hears, moves, perceives and discovers realities. Therefore, it is evident that the spirit of man is not affected by the change or condition of the body. Even though the material body should die, the spirit continues eternally alive, just as it exists and functions in the inert body in the realm of dreams. That is to say, the spirit is immortal and will continue its existence after the destruction of the body.
The spirit, or human soul, is the rider; and the body is only the steed. If anything affects the steed, the rider is not affected by it. The spirit may be likened to the light within the lantern. The body is simply the outer lantern. If the lantern should break, the light is ever the same because the light could shine even without the lantern. The spirit can conduct its affairs without the body. In the world of dreams it is precisely as this light without the chimney glass. It can shine without the glass.
As we have shown that there is a spirit and that this spirit is permanent and everlasting, we must strive to learn of it. May you become informed of its power, hasten to render it divine, to have it become sanctified and holy and make it the very light of the world illumining the East and the West. (Excerpts from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá)
If you have an interest in learning more about the power of your spirit so that it can illuminate “the East and the West”, read Jean’s and my first book, Now That I’m Here, What Should I Be Doing?, about the three ultimate purposes of life and the spiritual growth dynamics that need to be navigated to achieve these purposes.
Additionally, read our second book, TRANSFORMED: How to Make the Decisions That Change Your Life, about how to make better life decisions—individually and collectively—while taking into account the ultimate purposes of life and leveraging the spiritual growth dynamics designed into life by the Creator.
