Let me, then, use this dream to help Your plan that we awaken from all dreams we made. W-pII.294.2.

A Course in Miracles tells us we live in an illusionary world of dreams. The only difference between our sleeping dreams and our 'waking' dreams is that we think our 'waking' dreams are true. Our entire life is a multitude of dreams devised by us to give us the particular feelings we want to experience at any particular time. They are not real although they certainly seem to be.

"Dreams are perceptual temper tantrums, in which you literally scream, "I want it thus!" And thus it seems to be." T-18.II.4.

While we walk in a world of dreams, in reality we remain safely with God whom we never left. In our insanity we dream up a particular scenario that suits our insane ego needs, then instantly forget that we initiated it and experience if it is coming from outside ourselves without our bidding.
The last thing we want to hear is that pleasure and pain are merely opposite sides of the same coin. In this world we spend most of our time and energy trying to manipulate the dream to our liking. Mostly we prefer that our dreams minimise pain and maximise pleasure. Yet in seeking one or the other we are merely trying to change an illusion we don't like for another, which we might prefer. The Course reminds us that:-
"The dreams you think you like would hold you back as much as those in which the fear is seen. For every dream is but a dream of fear, no matter what the form it seems to take. The fear is seen within, without, or both. Or it can be disguised in pleasant form. But never is it absent from the dream, for fear is the material of dreams, from which they all are made. Their form can change, but they cannot be made of something else. The miracle were treacherous indeed if it allowed you still to be afraid because you did not recognise the fear. You would not then be willing to awake, for which the miracle prepares the way." T-29.IV.2.
It is not difficult to see that unpleasant dreams are fear based, but to find out that pleasant dreams are also based on fear is something we are unwilling to accept. Yet both are denials of who we really are and attempts to remain in a separated state. The promise of goals being realised is an ego carrot always hanging in front of us: always wanted but incapable of satisfying us even if we achieve them.
A Course in Miracles is a carefully constructed mind changing method of retracing the steps we think we took away from God. The ego's deliberate and foolproof (but not God proof) plan took us cleverly and seductively deeper and deeper into illusion. It is seductive because separation has an appeal to all of us who prefer specialness instead of oneness.
The only reason why the Course is difficult to learn and practice is our reluctance to give up our specialness which we hold as more precious than God Himself. When this awful realisation dawns on Miracle students, many try to drop out of their spiritual search or look for something more manageable, less threatening to our egos.
A Course in Miracles encourages you to start your work within the world you made and where you think you are. The constant choice is between Miracles and magic. Every time you think you can plan your future to make a better dream you are taking truth to the illusion. You are attempting to use the power of God to improve a dream that keeps you away from Him. The purpose of miracles is to convince you that everything you once believed as true, is completely false.
As it says in the Introduction to the Workbook, you don't even have to believe the lessons you just have to do them. By doing them it will prove to you that they are true. We are being trained to question every value that we hold. All of our life we have been 'making things happen' according to our desires of that moment so why would we expect the Holy Spirit to make more of our dreams to materialize in form. We haven't always liked the dreams we have chosen but on some level we must have asked for them.
Taking illusions to truth on the other hand is not about asking for changes in form. It is the sincere request from the heart for a change of perception of the situation we think we are in, realising that this is the only way we can resolve anything and everything we see as a problem. The first step in achieving this change of mind is the willingness to give up our insistence that we be right rather than be happy. Once we establish a doubt that we know anything about the situation we are in, and only then, are we ready to ask for a different perception to come to us.
Being the dreamer and not the dream there is no longer a need to be a victim any more. Nobody is doing anything to you. You are doing it to yourself.

"The secret of salvation is but this: that you are doing this unto yourself. No matter what the form of the attack, this still is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, still is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is still true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that you were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they could have no effect on you unless you failed to recognise it is your dream." T-27.VIII.10.
The practice of seeking a miracle to change your perception of whatever seems to be going on brings peace to that situation. The more you practice them the more you see the happy results and the less credibility you give to the fearful nature of the world you thought you knew so well.
It makes no sense worrying about our 'spiritual' progress and inability to master this Course whilst still within the dream. This is merely another ego distraction to delay our progress still further. We set ourselves unrealistic standards of behavour and then berate ourselves when we fail to reach those ideals further increasing our guilt. You don't have to "talk the talk" and you won't always be able to 'walk the walk" but it is important to honestly observe your motives and be viligent with your thoughts. Your return home is guaranteed by God, just the time you take is up to you. We need to practice forgiveness over and over every day so that we can grow in peace here. Without first reaching that state we would be willing to let all illusions, good and bad, go forever.
Miracles are always needed, regardless of the state we believe we have reached.
Working with the Course over a long period many Miracle students now convinced that the world they see holds nothing that they want, complain of 'hitting the wall' and being continually in a dissatisfied state and often depressed. This is the inevitable state for those who want to hang on to the slightest inkling that this life is all there is.

The Denial of Death makes it 'real'

It is quite amazing that the ego could have been successful with this giant pea and thimble joke. Everybody knows that bodies do not last and yet they go their way in the world apparently quite oblivious to this undeniable fact. The young are good at this but when you get to your forties and fifties and beyond it becomes harder to continue to deny the inevitable demise of your body. So we deal with this, not by looking squarely at it, wanting to know the truth, but by running around in desperate urgency to taste as much of life as we can, before our body is 'unfairly' snuffed out. What a hopeless situation it is to be without faith that we are much more than these rotting bodies. Daan dehn once told me of a scene from the Mahabarata - where Yudisthira is lost in the wilderness and stops at a pond for a drink of water. The water speaks to him and tells him that it is Dharma (God), his father, who wants to quiz him. One of the questions is: "What is the greatest wonder in the world?" Yudishthira answers, "That a man sees death all around him yet he lives as if he were immortal....that is the greatest wonder."
As Sons of God We are immortal, but our bodies, our most important idol, being a symbol of separation could never be.
The Course says all the figures in our dreams are idols we have made. They would be people or things we elevate above our brothers or people we denigrate. Either way their real purpose is to prevent us from waking. We came into this world to experience idols as a distraction and substitution for God but we can only wake from the dream by accepting the atonement for ourselves and the oneness of the whole Sonship..

"The fear of God is but the fear of loss of idols. It is not the fear of loss of your reality. But you have made of your reality an idol, which you must protect against the light of truth. And all the world becomes the means by which this idol can be saved. Salvation thus appears to threaten life and offer death." T-29.VII.9.
This crazy world applauds the news when a grandmother in her eighties has successfully bungy jumped from a balloon, but few would sing the praises of anyone who totally gave up any belief in this world of separation and death and now live in a forgiven world, in the knowledge of who they really are, totally invulnerable to anything that went on in a dream.
"We need do nothing" There is no hurry, no desperate urgency to do anything or achieve anything in the world. The dream one brother has that he is an apparently 'hopeless' alcoholic derelict is as meaningless as another brother's dream that he is a brilliant scientist who one day discovers the cure for AIDS. Our only task is to wake up from all dreams.
All dreams are one.

"To mean you want the peace of God is to renounce all dreams. For no one means these words who wants illusions, and who therefore seeks the means which bring illusions. He has looked on them, and found them wanting. Now he seeks to go beyond them, recognising that another dream would offer nothing more than all the others. Dreams are one to him. And he has learned their only difference is one of form, for one will bring the same despair and misery as do the rest." W-pI.185.5.