Week 15: Chapter 14 — The End of the Dream

1.As the final chapter opens, a great light begins to dawn — not a gentle sunrise but an overwhelming, almost terrifying brightness. MacDonald tells the narrator that the morning is coming and he must leave — that there is a point beyond which the vision cannot go. What does this narrative choice suggest about the limits of human imagination in grasping divine reality?

2.MacDonald delivers one of his final, most important statements: that all choices, all directions, are either moving toward or away from the light — that there is no standing still. 'You must be either growing towards final union with, deepening into final separation from, the Eternal Bliss.' How does this counsel affect your sense of the urgency of ordinary daily choices?

3.Lewis ends the dream narrative before the narrator can follow MacDonald further — he wakes up. This deliberate ending keeps the story in the realm of allegory and prevents Lewis from claiming to have seen Heaven directly. What does this restraint tell you about Lewis as a writer and as a theologian?