How do they handle dreams?

[ladypuglover]

We all have had really strange dreams in our life and some stand out more than others. I'm not talking nightmares but doing or saying things you would never do or say in real life. Like having a dream of being sexually talking to the opposit gender that you are normally not attracked to or nursing from your mother, or having sex with a sibling. I know, gross but a friend of mine who is a psychologist says those types of dreams are very normal and can be a way of expressing that you are drawing closer to the person you dreamt about. But how do fundies explain that? Do they think that Satan in trying to rule them or that they will need to atone for some sin that they had no control dreaming about? Most people can laugh off the going to school in only your underwear but these people seem to have minimal reasoning and would seem to blame it on sin instead of feeling unprepared.

Have any of you ever seen in blogs or in real life of how they handle such weird dreams?

[luckylassie]

I would hope that dreams would be treated as just a normal part of growing up and not be a huge deal but small issues seem to be big in fundies minds. I think that any sexual dream (or any dream that was thought of as sexual) would be considered as having weak self control over ones thoughts in fundie land.

[slh12280]

They would really wonder about me if they knew what I dreamt about. I once had a dream that Elvis Presley was coming out of my toilet... :think:

I think they would try to limit their "worldly" influences. I think of dreams as a form of entertainment but whatever works.

[uber frau]

Kinda like Dobby in HP-self flagellation and ironing their ears. Well, the psychological and spiritual equivalent anyway.

[Triplet3]

I once had a dream that Elvis Presley was coming out of my toilet... :think:

Thanks, that made me chuckle. :lol: I think the weirdest dream I ever had was when I lost my trousers in public and ended up trying to 'wear' a giant piece of raw meat as trousers instead. Now that was a bit peculiar! Triplet2 once had a dream with a giant baby in it - giant as in at least a couple of metres tall - and Triplet1 had one once where she looked out of a window and saw an elephant-sized corned beef tin flying around outside. Eventually it landed in the neighbours' garden and aliens swarmed out of it.

Yes, dreams can be strange... :D

[maybeizfundie]

Rebekah Pearl had a blog about her bizarre dreams for a while, under a pseudonym. They were all apocalyptic kind of things. Scary as all get out.

[Sola]

Well if you are Rebekah Pearl you consider yourself to be a prophetess and then blog about it.

[Brainsample]

When I had nightmares as a school aged child (at 8 and 9 years old, likely having much to do with being molested and feeling trapped and powerless), my exasperated mother gave me a Christian self-hypnosis book.

She also gave me several books by a guy named C.S. Lovett. He'd been an army chaplain or something, and was something of a very liberal and progressive Baptist in terms of technique. One book was called "Dealing with the Devil," a kind of light version of "Pigs in the Parlor." Mom meant to help decrease my fear by getting me to learn that Christians have authority over the devil, but she failed to recognize that these books were written for adults, not a nine year old. All it did was intensify my fears. When I was ten years old, a Sunday School teacher cornered my mom and challenged her, saying that those books taught me to look for a devil behind every door in every dark room.

And this is a trip, too. Raymond Moody (son of Dwight Moody who founded Moody Bible Institute) wrote books about near death experiences, and it was not a conservative fundie kind of book. It was more along the lines of Norman Vincent Peale, but we were Pentecostal, so I guess that made this stuff okay. Mom gave me those books to read, too ("Life after Life" and the second book called "Reflections on Life After Life"). I think that she thought that if I read these (adult) books, I would realize that even if I died, there was nothing to fear. Death would be the most unthinkable thing, so life should be easy. What was the unspoken message for me? There was a possibility that I could die in a nightmare.

I was an only child, and I don't think that most parents today that are considered fundie or fundie light would give their children books like this, but I know that they would ascribe to the reasoning that some things are evil and are spiritualized. They spiritualize everything, really. My mom had trouble understanding that I was a child who could read well and was thoughtful but didn't understand the emotional limits I had. I was expected to be a tiny adult.

I know some people who were taken for "deliverance," to cast the devil out of them. Mom tried that too, but of the many people she took me to see for prayer, they all told her that I didn't have a problem with demonic oppression. I've talked to others, however, who were taken to deliverance ministers and basically just confessed to stuff so that they could get it all over with. Someone I spoke to recently said that they gave her a list of rock and roll groups. The only group she recognized (in the seventies) was Donnie and Marie Osmond, because she was never permitted to listen to secular music, but they were a matter of discussion at her church from time to time because of Mormonism. She had "Donnie and Marie" cast out of her.

Anyone else have these kinds of experiences?

[Beeks]

I know Mormons (who walk the line of fundie-ism, imo, though I know many disagree) are fine with dreams. In fact I had an unmarried Mormon friend who, at age 27, would hope to have wet dreams because it was the only way he could get any kind of guilt-free sexual release.