A dream of attack
January 31, 2007
Recently, our Workbook class did Lesson 26, "My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability." A major theme of this lesson is that we project our own attack thoughts outward onto the world, so that it now seems the outside world is attacking us. Because of this apparently external attack we feel vulnerable and afraid, but all of this is generated solely by our own attack thoughts—it is an attack upon ourselves. I had an interesting experience that vividly illustrated this principle to me.
When I'm scheduled to teach a lesson in the morning class, I often read it over and do the practice the night before. I did this with Lesson 26. Then, when I went to sleep, I had a frightening dream. In the dream, I woke up because I thought I heard someone enter the apartment. I stepped out of my room to investigate, and before I knew it, two men attacked me. I struggled to break free and finally did so, running out the door to get as far away as I could from my attackers. Then I woke up for real, and found myself safe in my bed.
As my fear abated, I thought about Lesson 26, still fresh in my mind since I had gone over it right before falling asleep. It struck me that this dream was a perfect example of exactly what the lesson was talking about. I had attack thoughts in my mind. I then projected them onto an apparently outside world, the world in my dream. In the dream, I was attacked by two men who were apparently outside me. I felt vulnerable and afraid. Yet in truth, the whole thing was in my own mind, generated by my own attack thoughts. It was an attack upon myself.
Could it be that this is exactly what's going on in my "waking" life as well? Is all my sense of vulnerability and fear of attack from the "outside" world the result of projecting my attack thoughts onto a daytime dream? The Course tells me yes, this is exactly what's going on. Spooky! Thank God the Course also tells me that as scary as all this appears, I can give up those attack thoughts, and thus awaken to the truth that I'm still safe in the eternally peaceful "bed" of Heaven.
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