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Guilt and dreams

14:35 / 17.02.05

I have a friend who dreamt that her boyfriend had slept with an ex-girlfriend. When she woke up she was still pissed off with him. Lying in bed there looking as though butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, the bastard. I think there's a character in one of Anne Tyler's novels who was kicked out by his wife for something he did in one of her dreams. Apparently the fact that it was in a dream didn't matter a jot because it was the sort of thing he might have done anyway.

The other night I dreamt that I was unfaithful to my wife and made the mistake of telling her about it. She was slightly pissed off with me for dreaming it, but even more pissed off that I didn't seem at all guilty about it. My attitude was that it was a dream for Christ sake. I have done all manner of awful things in dreams and I'm damned if I am going to feel guilty about them.

Have you felt guilty about something you have done in one of your dreams? Have you been made to feel guilty about something you have done in someone else's dream?

15:57 / 17.02.05

I feel a bit bad about some things I've done in my dreams, but have always put this down to an over-active imagination.

I hope one shouldn't have to feel guilty, otherwise I'll be suffering for eternity over the dream I had in which I poisoned my father with a pork pie.

16:26 / 17.02.05

I think its right that you should feel guilty about cheating on your wife in that infidelity dream, providing you'd take full credit for saving the world in a superhero one.

I recently dreamt that my girlfriend had her bag stolen. And as I reassured her she gradually revealed that it had contained everything I had ever bought her. Everything. I was quite pissed off at her for that.

I think sometimes guilt and blame can stem from dreams representing behaviour that's characteristic or typical, and that serves to focus attention on genuine shortcomings. But if you're fessing up to an affair imagined in a dream, Cash, I'm sure Mrs. Jackson feels confident that you're a veritable Greyfriars Bobby.

18:02 / 17.02.05

Dreams are some weird ass subject matter to try to decipher. I have been having a reoccurring dream, and finally went to a dream annalist, who made complete sense of all the things I was seeing in my dream. This jolted me, because I do not believe in this kind of thing. But she made complete sense to me. She said that our dreams have actual real life meaning, and I asked her if I should feel guilty about having dreams of questionable content, and she said, yes.

18:10 / 17.02.05

Sounds like you've got a pretty shit dream therapist, Ender. Now, if the question was, "is it normal to feel guilty about things done in dreams," then fine. But "should [I] feel guilty??" No.

~L

21:00 / 17.02.05

Y'know, I was aware that there were people on Barbelith who would feel guilty about almost anything they did, but feeling guilty about things you haven't done and have just dreamt about... you just wait 'til Ganesh gets on here.

I've fucked my sister and mother in dreams. I think my stepfather bit my knob off at one point. I've also stolen things, some of which actually exist, caused the destruction of various people, sentenced others to death, spread disease, and in one particularly vivid dream which I wish I could relive, stormed a corporate headquarters with a team of anarchists before being caught by the police. Do I need to feel guilty about these things?

Grendel's Mother

22:53 / 17.02.05

In my younger and more vulnerable years, I frequently had dreams in which I was some archetypical villain--Darth Vader, the Lord of the Nazgul, the antichrist, etc. Moreover, in these dreams I always managed to change the usual ending of the story--that is, when I was the bad guy, the bad guy won. The funny thing is, I generally felt a bit guilty during the dream for some of the things I had to do, as the villain, to come out on top. However, I usually felt fine, indeed invigorated when I awoke.

In my waking life, I've never put much stock in guilt. Certainly, I've done things I regret and for which I feel guilty, but I've seen too many otherwise sane people make themselves nuts by feeling too guilty for too many things.

On the other hand, I suspect that the sort of person who would feel guilty about something she/he did in a dream is also the sort of person who would feel guilty for not feeling guilty about something she/he did in a dream. In which case she/he seems . . . well . . . doomed to a life of guilt and should probably just give an and join the nearest Luthern church.

22:58 / 17.02.05

Should you feel guilty for something you have done in a dream?

I really hope not. I do a little though because I know I should be researching into and trying out lucid dreaming. Also that when I've done something wrong there's a good chance that I'm being shown one or more of the problems that I have to work on.

23:44 / 17.02.05

I'm sorry, Ms. Jackson,
It was-n't for re-aaalll

I'll get me coat.

00:24 / 18.02.05

well, I came to the conclusion that my dream doctor was pretty,... well, she was a woman who doesnt appreciate the common dreams of young men my age.

The most fucked up thing about it was that she wanted to know details, she said that any peice of imigary could be "vitally important", any way, I think I gave her a little more detail than she wanted.

08:07 / 18.02.05

Hey Cash, you're not Fox Mulder. Only Mulder could suffer such severe guilt. So, you're actually deluding yourself - you're not feeling guilty at all! It says so on the internet and that's never wrong.

08:34 / 18.02.05

The dreams I feel bad about are not the ones in which I do bad things, but the 'wish fulfillment' dreams about people I want for friends. Whenever I wake up with the words "You know, you're really my favourite person" ringing in my ears it is immediately replaced by my own interior monologue saying something like "You are a truly pathetic human being. Why, with the approval seeking? Why?"

Far more dignified, obviously, are the dreams in which characters from Street Fighter yell at me.

Tryphena Absent

09:20 / 18.02.05

I think you should only feel guilty about dreams if you do something in them that directly applies to real life- ie. something you secretly want to do that you really shouldn't. And then you feel guilty because your mind is betraying you and your fantasy world is acting out something that you need to deny yourself for good reason.

Most dreams have such heightened emotion anyway... I had a dream the other day that I was standing in a room full of people I didn't really know, clutching my childhood toys and thinking 'ohmygod everyone can see me standing here with my pink, toy dog. This is so shameful. What will they think?' If that happened in reality I'd probably make it start to talk to people instead of desperately trying to hide her. The point being that you can't feel guilty about a dream that is not actually about holding a toy in public but is about revealing yourself. Dreams are too complicated to really apply your average guilt or shame.

09:41 / 18.02.05

I’ve kept a dream journal for nearly four years now, and read about dreams extensively as well as interpreting my own and those of others. My understanding is that you should avoid placing any emotional value judgement on a dream upon waking that differs from the context of the original dream. For example, a dream in which one experiences ecstatic joy while looking at a giant black cockroach as it slowly devours a pile of babies, dripping slime onto their mangled corpses, is unlikely to be a dream about anything that requires horror or self-disgust on waking. The emotional state experienced during the dream is almost invariably a major key to interpreting meaning: in my experience it is always unwise to reinterpret after the fact with whatever spurious emotions you allow to arise.

One of the most empowering dreams I ever had was becoming some kind of bestial were-creature and raping a six year old girl, who then became some kind of doll. Fridgemagnet is bang on the money – you suspend judgement, go into a state on unknowing, and engage in interpretation based on the dream as best as you can remember, rather than some shallow and facile waking reaction to it.

09:52 / 18.02.05

stormed a corporate headquarters with a team of anarchists before being caught by the police.

Dare I ask what comics you'd been reading before going to sleep?

11:05 / 18.02.05

Dreams are where I'm allowed to experiment and try things. I don't say there aren't consequences to dream experiences, but there aren't the same consequences as in waking life. Actually fridge, I dreamed about you this week; but you were very nicely behaved.

11:30 / 19.02.05

Thanks for the interesting views.

Update: Mrs. J has had another one of her Aragorn dreams. Should we be worried?

13:20 / 19.02.05

That depends.

Did she bequeath unto him the light of the Evenstar?

17:19 / 20.02.05

Last night I smashed a glass bowl over Danny Devito's head. Then when I was worried he might come to, I kept hitting him with other objects.

Thing was, if I didn't stop him, he was threatening to destroy my possessions by reversing gravity and smashing them against the ceiling. Plus I had two small children to protect. Not sure who they were.

I do feel kinda bad about it, but then he did try to kill Mr Smoochy.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

15:41 / 13.09.06

I had a dream last night that 6 years ago the person I was completely enamored with felt the same about me, and we were together and lived happily ever after.

I woke up next to my still sleeping fiance and had a bit of a shock when it was her I was next to. The shock wore off and now I feel like crap about the whole thing.

Stupid dreaming.

When I go to sleep I just want to sleep, I don't want to close my eyes and suddenly be building a go cart with my old landlord or some shit.

16:09 / 13.09.06

I once had a dream where I was cheating on the dancepartner with another man. And I was having all these thoughts about, "he has an enormous penis, I wonder if it's bigger than Andy's". I woke up in a state of intense guilt and didn't remember for about ten minutes that the other Man was Andy aswell.

Disco is My Class War

16:54 / 13.09.06

See, I think that dreams about sleeping with other people when you're monogamous probably are about wish fulfilment, sometimes, or about something you don't feel you're getting in your current situation. But do you associate that 'lack' with the person you dreamt about? Or do you interpret it as symbolic, and figure out what the person you dreamt about represents?

When I dream about sleeping with people who aren't my current, I try to think about what qualities the dream fuck represents that aren't happening enough in my life. Could be anything. Ie, I know when I'm not being creative enough, because unfaithful sex dreams seem to be the way I tell myself that I should be writing more, making more art, being more playful/childish etc. This renders guilt irrelevant: the dream is not really about having sex with that particular person, it's how it makes me feel and how I wish I felt that matters.

My problem is that I often feel guilty about my actions within the dreamscape itself. I have to save the world often, in dreams, and the world never gets saved: everything always gets more fucked up. That's never good to wake up on.

17:10 / 13.09.06

I had an enjoyable dream romp with Minty from Eastenders the other night. Damn you subconcsious! Damn you to hell! /overshare.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

20:16 / 13.09.06

No, Bill Sack, you needn't feel guilty for having your dream about being unfaithful to your spouse.

On the other hand, you should feel like a total fucking arsehead for telling your Ker-risting w-i-f-e about it.

What in the name of everything holy and unholy did you hope to achieve by this? Intimacy?? A sense of trust and sharing?

Been married long?

Want to stay married longer?

Would you tell the subject of the dream?