Who is the Dreamer and who is the character?

Many students of ACIM say things like:

“We are in a dream…the dreamer dreams us (so far okay)..but when we say: we can only make this dream a bit nicer (positive thinking, eating bio, listening special herz music…), it sounds spiritual, but it’s completely backwards, because this misunderstanding is what keeps us inside the dream.

Let me try to answer to some question I heard (and I also asked) so many times during ACIM sessions:

Q1. What do you mean by “the dreamer”?

There are two possible meanings, and only one is true.

1. The mistaken dreamer :

This is the idea that there is a dreamer somewhere “out there”..some Higher Self or force above the clouds, that dreams “you,”…so “you” are only a little character it made up.

This creates two: a dreamer “over there” and a little you “down here”.

But that separation IS the dream !

It’s like a puppet thinking the puppeteer is somewhere far away, instead of seeing that the puppet has never moved without the puppeteer’s hand.

2. The true Dreamer: Awareness

The dreamer is simply Awareness: the one, changeless, formless Self.

The character (the little you) is only an APPEARANCE in that Awareness.

Just like in your night-dreAm: you see a dog fighting with a cat, or a cousin you argue with, or a house that collapses, or a monster flying in a sky.

None of them are separate beings. They are just all appearances in YOUR dream. You wake up and say: “Thank God, it was only a dream.”

That’s the whole metaphysics of ACIM in one sentence.

ACIM:

“The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself.”

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Q2. What happened inside Awareness?

Awareness is whole and silent. And then… a tiny idea appears: “I am separate.” And suddenly: there is a perceiver (the character) and something perceived (the world full of other characters)

That’s the birth of this big enormous dream…full of trillions of trillions different forms.

None of these forms are sinful or guilty…the only mistake is when there is an identification with the form itself!

In that case Awareness is forgetting Itself and is identifying Itself with a picture (a form) inside Its own dream.

ACIM: “Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh.”

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Q3. Why do we call Awareness “the dreamer”?

Because everything….the body, the thoughts, the emotions, the entire personal history is arising in Awareness, not outside it.

Awareness is not dreaming about a small “you”,

Awareness is appearing AS you.

Just like: an actor appearing as a role….electricity appearing as a lamp, a blender, a phone…..sunlight appearing as a rainbow….VR consciousness appearing as the avatar

There is never two.

Only one Light taking many shapes.

ACIM: “The body is a dream. You are the dreamer of the world of dreams.”

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Q4. So who are “you”?

There are two yous, and mixing them up is the whole problem.

a)The little you (the character) This is the personality:

your body, your history, your thoughts, your opinions, your moods.

This is “the figure in the dream.”

b)The real You (Awareness)

Still. Silent. Infinite. Unchanging. The one that sees the story.

This is “the Dreamer.”

ACIM: “The Christ in you is very still. He looks on what He loves, and

knows it as Himself.”

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Q5. Where exactly does it go wrong?

This is the whole issue: We identify with the wrong one.

We think: “I am this body. I decide what I say. I think my thoughts. I choose my behavior.”

But notice something simple:

The character doesn’t think, it IS thought !

Just as a character in a movie doesn’t pick its lines.

The script writes the character; the character doesn’t write the script.

And the same happens in your nighttime dream:

the dream figure doesn’t decide to run, it doesn’t choose to cry, it doesn’t control the plot…..the figure does nothing by itself…everything in your dream is made by you.

In exactly the same way :

Everything “you” do as a person is done by Awareness, not by the body itself.

The body is like a marionet without strings.

The “strings” are moved by thoughts and perception inside Awareness.

When you say something, when you think, when you love, when you get annoyed… the character is just used by the Awareness to show/to experience love, annoying and so on.

In other words: Awareness is moving through the form.

This is, hopefully, the biggest eye-opener.

ACIM: “The figures in the dream change and respond to dreamer, not vice versa.” (The character does nothing.)

ACIM: “The body neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain You who are life.”

Two everyday examples:

– Imagine Piero and Claudia are sitting on the couch

Piero reads a text. Claudia listens. It feels like two separate people.

But if you zoom out: Piero is a shape in Awareness. Claudia is a shape in Awareness.

The same Awareness is speaking as Piero and hearing as Claudia

It’s like one person playing two characters in a one-man theater.

-VR glasses:

You put on VR glasses and suddenly: “you” are in a forest… “you” see wolves…”you” fall into a ravine.

But you, the so called ‘real’ you, are sitting safely on the couch.

The avatar moves… but only because you move the controller.

Take off the glasses and the whole virtual world disappears instantly.

When the Awareness realizes it is looking with VR glasses and takes off ghe glasses ..that is Awakening!

ACIM: “A happy outcome to all things is sure.”

……….

What is the ego in this story?

The ego is nothing more than the belief that you are the character.

It is the voice of mistaken identity.

It says: “I am this body, I think my thoughts, I must defend myself.”

But the character cannot think… it is being thought.

The ego is therefore the defense of an identity that never truly existed.

The moment Awareness recognizes Itself, the ego naturally becomes quiet,just like a dream figure dissolves the instant you wake up.

With love and light,

G.