Moral Law and Our Dreams.

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baron

baron

Puritan Board Graduate
Reading through the ten commandments I was wondering when we are asleep and dreaming, are we breaking the Law of God. I read some where that our dreams are full of things that we would not do when we are awake. So I was wondering, do we need to confess what we dream about? Or only if we remember our dreams? Or not at all.

Thanks.
 
Your dreams are generally the brain making sense of your day, or trying to (in my case). Dreaming also plays a role in the construction of memory.

So live each waking moment as unto the Lord, and then pray every evening, asking the Lord that your dreams would glorify and honor Him. That's really about all you can do.
 
TimV said:
You were honestly just reading about them? You haven't had any
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I have few dreams due to my sleep apena. I was told I do not get into REM sleep what is needed to have dreams. Some times though.
 
NaphtaliPress said:
James Durham discusses this somewhat in the preface to his lectures on the ten commandments.

I have that book somewhere, I think. I remember buying 3 books by him, and I think that was one of them. I will have to search my boxes of books. Thanks.
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We are not responsible for the content of the dreams we have while asleep. Living in obedeince is, for the Christian, a conscious and volitional duty.

However, I do think our dreams sometimes reveal things about our hearts: our fears, our desires good and bad, our obsessions. So it may be helpful to pay some attention to "sinful" dreams, as they may be able to show us where we need to be watchful against conscious sin.
 
By virtue of indwelling sin, even our conscious acts of obedience to the Law are sin-tainted, and if not for the imputed righteousness of Christ, not a single work on our part would prove pleasing to God.
 
I often say, "This is a dream...DO NOT URINATE ON THOSE FLOWERS!!!" and then I force myself to wake up and go to the bathroom.
 
SolaScriptura said:
Pergamum said:
Oh, but we can sometimes control our dreams..and so they ARE volitional to some degree.
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One time I had a dream, and in my dream I said "this is a dream... I can do ANYTHING!" so I started flying around. It was fun.
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I do that a lot, actually. Just start floating around about five feet off the ground and playing with the laws of physics. I have those dreams fairly frequently.
 
The question I have is: why is it that sometimes I'm aware it is a dream and I'm able to "control" what happens, but other times I'm not?
 
Prospero:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.


The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158
​
 
Interesting question. I would say that we all have a tendency to think we are more sanctified than we really are. When we are awake we often can control or ignore a lot of subsurface things that emerge in dreams. I would think that unless God gave a person a dream like when He spoke in scripture that way occasionally, we should assume that everything in a dream proceeds from our own heart and emotions and mind. (unless you think you might have an indwelling unclean demon, which I don't think is the theological position here).

I rarely remember dreams but when I do, they almost always have a fear content, and even if I think I am trusting God consciously, I always immediately confess the sin of fear. A couple times when my marriage was just heavenly- really- I had dreams and in the dreams I started fighting with my husband and getting huffy and upset. I would wake up and think "where did that come from, I love this wonderful guy"....but what I had to face was that a self centered strong willed nature was there manifesting in the dream, and I was in a bit of denial. Dreams help with daily repentance. You can fool yourself in the day, but you can't fool your inner man that rises up in the night. ( and guess what, down the road I did get strong willed, whoda thunk it).

I also twice had "warning dreams". In retrospect I don't mean it like charismatic revelation, I mean it like I was repressing my God given intuition, and my subconscious was rising up to get my attention. One dream was with a dear brother who we all loved, and in the dream he turned into a snake. I woke up soooooo troubled and told my husband. Within two years he had betrayed a number of people and had an affair with a gal in another church. Looking back we saw some signals but didn't want to face them, but my subconscious did. This happened with another wonderful person-one of my husband's best friends- where I woke up in shock that in the dream he had been so horrible. I felt put on my guard and got very polite but not transparent (and felt guilty that I was being influenced by a dream and not believing the best of him) but it turned out eventually that he was gossiping and slandering us and some other people within the church and oh it was a mess. Either God or my intuition was trying to protect me.

So, I treat dreams as real, and confess any sin immediately. Our hearts are deceitful. But I also take room to consider that there might be some intuition at work and maybe I need to face something. Or I have dreamed about people where there is some grief on waking up, and I have to press into the Lord for deeper comfort, or maybe forgive somebody who I didn't realize I was still hurt by.

I would not obsess about dreams but neither would I just dismiss them as irrelevant. Probe into them a little bit and repent as necessary, forgive as necessary, and take warning as necessary.
 
Lynnie:

I think our subconscious speaks to us more clearly when we dream. Fears are exaggerated and strong feelings sometimes made stronger since we have less of a conscious guard against them. We push away uncomfortable feelings in our waking hours and they come back to us while we sleep.

Some folks advise keeping a prayer journal. I do think that there is profit in examining ourselves, and our dreams reflect ourselves, so by examining our dreams, we examine ourselves.

Examples: I often fear for my children here and sometimes have dreamed of them becoming terribly sick and dying. Also, my friend in the US is having marital problems and might get divorced. I thus had several dreams remembering back to my high school days and actually feeling the pain as if I myself were going through his marital troubles. In waking hours I just try not to think about it.


Also, I would not discount that demonic influence can impact our thoughts. Nor would I discount that God can providentially use our dreams to warn us. In the Bible, when a dream is mentioned (and this occurs several times) it is always significant (no Prophet ever mentions having a dream of being naked in 6th grade math class and unprepared to answer the question on the board, for instance).



Although....i did once have a dream I was eating marshmallows. When I woke up....my pillow was missing!!!
 
Richard Baxter on Sinful Dreams

I was flipping through Richard Baxter's "Christian Directory" tonight and I found this by him, that I thought speaks to the OP.

Directions Against Sinful Dreams

Dreams are neither good nor sinful simply in themselves because they are not rational and voluntary, nor in our power; but they are often made sinful by some other voluntary act: they may be sinful by participation and consequently: And the acts that make them sinful, are either such as go before, or such as follow after.

1. The antecedent causes are any sinful act which distempereth the body, or any sin which inclineth the fantasy and mind thereto; or the omission of what was necessary to prevent them. 2. The causes which afterwards make them objectively sinful, are the ill uses that men make of them; as when they take their dreams to be divine revelations, and trust to them, or are affrighted by them as ominous, or as prophetical; and make them the ground of their actions, and seduce themselves by the phantasms of their own brains.

Direction I. Avoid those bodily distempers as much as you can which cause sinful dreams, especially fullness of diet; a full stomach causeth troublesome dreams, and lustful dreams; and hath its ill effects by night and by day.

Direction II. Endeavour the cure of those sinful distempers of the mind which cause sinful dreams. The cure of a worldly mind is the best way to cure worldly, covetous dreams; and the cure of a lustful heart, is the best way to cure lustful dreams; and so of the rest: cleanse the fountain, and the waters will be the sweeter day and night.

Direction III. Suffer not your thoughts, or tongue, or actions to run sinfully upon that in the day, which you would not dream of sinfully in the night. Common experience telleth us, that our dreams are apt to follow our foregoing thoughts, and words, and deeds. If you think most frequently and affectionately of that which is good, you will dream of that which is good. If you think of lustful, filthy objects, or speak of them, or meddle with them, you will dream of them; and so of coveteous and ambitious dreams. And they that make no conscinece to sin waking, are not like much to scruple sinning in their sleep.

Direction IV. Commend yourself to God by prayer before you take your rest, and beseech him to set a guard upon your fantasy when you cannot guard it. Cast the cure upon him, and fly to him for help by faith and prayer in the sense of your insufficiency.

Direction V. Let your last thoughts still before your sleep be holy, and yet quieting and consolatory thoughts. The dreams are apt to follow our last thoughts. If you betake yourselves to sleep with worldliness or vanity in your minds, you cannot expect to be wiser or better when you are asleep, than when you are awake. But if you shut up your day’s thoughts with God, and sleep find them upon any holy subject, it is like to use them as it finds them. Yet if it be distrustful, unbelieving, fearful thoughts which you condole with, your dreams may savour of the same distemper. Frightful and often sinful dreams do follow sinful doubts and fears. But if you sweeten your last thoughts with the love of Christ, and the remembrance of your former mercies, or the foresight of eternal joys, or can confidently cast them and yourselves upon some promise, it will tend to the quietness of your sleep, and to the savouriness of your dreams: and if you should die before morning, will it not be most desirable that your last thoughts be holy?

Direction VI. When you have found any corruption appearing in your dreams, make use of them for the renewing of your repentance, and exciting your endeavours to mortify that corruption. A corruption may be perceived in dreams, 1. When such dreams as discover it are frequent: 2. When they are earnest and violent: 3. When they are pleasing and delightful to your fantasies: not that any certain knowledge can be fetched from them, but some conjecture as added to other signs. As if you should frequently, earnestly, and delightfully dream of preferments and honours, or the favours of great men, suspect ambition, and do the more to discover and mortify it. If it be of riches, and gain, and money, suspect a covetous mind. If it be of revenge or hurt to any man that you distaste, suspect some malice, and quickly mortify it: so if it be of lust, or feasting, or drinking, or vain recreations, sports and games, do the like.

Direction VII. Lay no great stress upon your dreams than there is just cause. As, 1. When you have searched, and find no such sin prevailing in you as your dreams seem to intimate, do not conclude that you have more than your waking evidence discovers. Prefer not your sleeping signs before your waking signs and search. 2. When you are conscious that you indulge no corruption to occasion such a dream, suppose it not be faulty of itself, and lay not the blame of your bodily temperament, or unknown causes, upon your soul, with too heavy and unjust a charge. 3. Abhor the presumptuous folly of those that use to prognosticate by their dreams, and measure their expectations by them, and case themselves into hopes or fears by them. Saith Diogenes, “What folly is it to be careless of your waking thoughts and actions, and inquisitive about your dreams? A man’s happiness or misery lieth upon what he doth when he is awake, and not upon what he suffereth in his sleep.”
 
baron said:
I have that book somewhere, I think. I remember buying 3 books by him, and I think that was one of them. I will have to search my boxes of books.
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Well I found the box and book today and read what James Durham wrote. In the book Practical Exposition of the Ten Commandments it's on page 65-70 in the Introduction. I've read it twice and ended up confused. This happens to me a lot lately.
 
A couple times I have pondered this question after waking up on the Lord's day morning, having just dreamed about something that I would try to keep off my mind on the Lord's day (school, recreation). Ending Saturday with time spent in prayer and the Word would increase the likelihood of "sabbath-friendly" dreams the next morning, but beyond that, I can't really control it, so...it is what it is. Mind you, this is not something I'm particularly worried about (I think it's a bit beyond the intention of the commandment, though I suppose I could be wrong), yet it was certainly an interesting thought experiment.
 
AThornquist said:
What about if we have a dream within a dream?
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Actually, I've had one of those! I went to bed and to sleep within a dream. And when I consciously tried to wake myself up, I only woke up from the second dream (i.e., dream within a dream) and returned to the first one. So, I had to wake myself up from that, too.
 
Andres said:
InSlaveryToChrist said:
AThornquist said:
What about if we have a dream within a dream?
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Actually, I've had one of those! I went to bed and to sleep within a dream. And when I consciously tried to wake myself up, I only woke up from the second dream (i.e., dream within a dream) and returned to the first one. So, I had to wake myself up from that, too.
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You've been watching too many Leonardo DiCaprio movies! :lol:
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Yes, I shouldn't have watched Inception. ... But seriously, I had that thing when I was seven years old. And it was so remarkable that I still remember it like it was yesterday.
 
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