Last night I had a vivid dream and learned an important lesson.

In the dream I kept losing my spot at various tables where I was supposed to sit with others, friends, and so on. Each time I would get up and walk around, then return, I would find that my things were moved to another, less advantageous, spot at another table, further and further to the side of the stage.

Then some folks started accusing me of stealing diapers and not paying for them. Food as well. (I was part of a Community and recognized some of the folks.)

So I started to get angry and refused to pay the full amount demanded of me. I started yelling, and telling folks that I was not the one who stole those diapers, after all, what need have I of diapers? But folks would not listen to me.

The details are not important, even if somewhat absurd. The key was that I was beginning to feel like a victim and because I was being blamed I started to get angry and lash out at people, and that frightened them. And further, after I continued to lose my spot at the tables, I became depressed a felt abandoned.

Then suddenly, while still asleep, an understanding came to me. I realized that what I just experienced was a dream. Hence it was not real. Hence I need not feel like a victim, nor feel anger, nor feel rejected or abused, because it was all not real, just a dream. And thus I did not even have to forgive anyone, as it never happened!

What a relief! You see, one of the key principles in A Course In Miracles is that we should be using forgiveness in order to wake from THIS dream, to find the Light that is beyond the clouds (and in our brothers and sisters), not in the clouds where we are all searching for the Light.

Also, the Course teaches that there is an ultimate form of forgiveness, and that is to realize that all past hurts, all past guilt, sin, and so on.... never happened! (Because we have never left Heaven, never separated from God, but are merely dreaming of a terrible separation or fall from Grace.) So there is no one to forgive, nothing to forgive, because nothing has happened.

You see, it's fine to understand all that intellectually, but unless you experience what is being taught, you will never quite "get it". And I also know that one need not experience those lessons in this waking dream, one can learn those lessons in the nocturnal dreams. Which I just did. So now the lessons around forgiveness in both of its forms are real for me.