Having a very vivid dream life can be both a blessing and a curse.
Oddly enough (or maybe not so if you can understand that false beauty is more cruel than true horror), my beautiful dreams bother me the most. Over the past few months I've dreamt of having picnics or going to dinner or just hanging out with someone I really like who doesn't feel the same at all in real life.
Immediately upon waking, I feel guilty then sad (that the dream is over) then guilty again because I feel sad. I guess my subconscious hasn't gotten the memo because I certainly would prefer not to have these dreams if I had any say in it. Sometimes when I see this person in real life (someone I have to see almost daily) I actually flinch inside.
St. Augustine once asked himself, "Can I be immoral in my dreams?" In his Confessions, he writes:
These things rush into my thoughts with no power when I am awake; but in sleep they rush in not only so as to give pleasure, but even to obtain consent and what very closely resembles the deed itself. Indeed, the illusion of the image prevails to such an extent, in both my soul and my flesh, that the illusion persuades me when sleeping to what the reality cannot do when I am awake.
Am I not myself at such a time, O Lord my God? And is there so much of a difference between myself awake and myself in the moment when I pass from waking to sleeping, or return from sleeping to waking?
Where, then, is the power of reason which resists such suggestions when I am awake -- for even if the things themselves be forced upon it I remain unmoved? Does reason cease when the eyes close? Is it put to sleep with the bodily senses? But in that case how does it come to pass that even in slumber we often resist, and with our conscious purposes in mind, continue most chastely in them, and yield no assent to such allurements? Yet there is at least this much difference: that when it happens otherwise in dreams, when we wake up, we return to peace of conscience. And it is by this difference between sleeping and waking that we discover that it was not we who did it, while we still feel sorry that in some way it was done in us.
I've been reading up a lot on dreams lately, mostly because I wish to control them, especially when it comes to this set. St. Augustine's Confessions is one of the few works I've ever read that's mentioned anything connecting morals and dreams, though there is this book which I've put on hold through an outside-our-network at the local library:
read about more here:
No comments:
Post a Comment