HOW WOULD YOU ACT IF YOU REALLY THOUGHT YOU WERE DREAMING?

[AjK]

We do it because it is in our nature to do it.

As a general statement, sure, I agree to a certain point. I say that because I believe that having a human "nature" does not preclude growth and development (physical, mental, spiritual.) Also two people with the same "nature" can have two very different reasons for doing something. In other words I had a more specific reason for asking the question: Are you exploring your darker side (for example commiting infidelity in your mind) because it is pleasurable, you have some time to kill, and no one gets hurt if you don't act on it? Or are you exploring it mentally because you want to get some insight into your coarser instincts and understand why you or others think, feel or do the types of things we do? I see those as two very different roads.

However, even with our inmost thoughts, we are presented with choices. To act, or not act? If I lust after my friend's husband, obviously the choice is not to act. But beyond that, to entertain lust or to deny those thoughts?

This is more along the lines of what I am referring to. My main point is that the gap between thought and action is an opportunity for exploration, discovery and growth. If you immediately shut off or repress a thought you deny yourself an opportunity.

I believe with Rusmeister that there are eventually consequences to pay for our thoughts.

Agreed. My point though is that even if neither results in external action, a thought repressed can have a different result in your mind than a thought explored.

Had those nuns acted on those denied impulses over the decades of their lives, think of the hell their lives would have been, for them and everyone else. Now they've lost their inhibitions, should we say that they were rotten all along? Rather, I admire them for living with those passions and managing for all those years to temper them in other directions. And even if some of them acted on those lusts now and again, well, nuns are after all only human. That's what forgiveness is for.

For the record I am not saying any of the following things about those nuns:
1. They were rotten.
2. They should be held to a higher moral or ethical standard than anyone else.
3. They should (or should not) have acted on their sexual impulses.
4. That a nun who did act on one at some point should be judged and not forgiven.
In fact I hesitated to even use this example for fearing of giving any of those impressions. My only point is that despite our best conscious efforts we can't always influence our subconscious. Those people had admirably dedicated their lives to a worthy spiritual pursuit but still hadn't gone beyond certain core instincts (which is something I truly believe can be done.) In a purely speculative manner I was wondering if a little more self-examination could have made a difference. Upon some reflection my personal answer is 'yes' and as a result I think I understand Malik's point and SRD's inclusion of a rape a little better.

p.s. Nuns are awesome (even when they kick your @ss for forgetting your homework. )

[Zarathustra]

I think the real question here comes down to: "Do thoughts have an impact on reality?" "Is it OK to think bad thoughts as long as nobody knows?"

Is it okay to read books about teenage girls getting raped if no one knows? Well, I KNOW you all have read this book, because we're in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant forum. What's the difference between reading, watching, or thinking it? You can't change who you are, your human nature, simply by not thinking about it. This merely represses who we are, and there are plenty of examples of what happens in repressive cultures. Kids who aren't taught to consume alcohol in a responsible manner end up binge drinking. Kids in America have much worse problems with pot than kids in Amsterdam. Rape is much more frequent in our country than countries that have fewer problems with nudity and porn. Repression is worse than moderation.

Isn't this the point Donaldson has made over and over in the Chronicles? Why are we reading these books if not to explore the darker side of human nature, and to learn how to accept it, deal with it, and find a happy medium? The eye of the paradox? That's one of the main points of these books. Think about the horrible failure and arrogance of characters who thought they could repress their humanity (like Bloodguard) or who didn't see the depths of their potential to fail (Hile Troy). Absolutism is consistently criticized throughout the Chronicles, down to the Oath of Peace limiting the Lords. If this isn't a point you identify with, I'm puzzled why these books speak to you.

If we could make any choices in our dreams with any degree of conscious control (something I am not so sure of) they would likely reflect what we allow our mind to do consciously when we are awake.

First of all, we absolutely can control our dreams. If you haven't had a lucid dream, I can see where you might be skeptical. But it is indeed possible. Millions of people do it. Secondly, doing something when you know it isn't real doesn't mean you'll do it in waking life. Otherwise, playing video games where you're killing your friends would be a much bigger deal. But frag parties are quite harmless . . . except maybe how they foster inactivity.

Now one thing is certain, entertaining bad thoughts IS the first step toward enacting them, in or out of dreams. Evil acts are most often preceded by thinking about them. If we always suppressed evil thoughts, it would be harder for them to be enacted, let alone spread via copy-cat actions or whatever. Many of the ills of our society are, to a significant degree, due to the fact that we have essentially said that it IS OK to think bad things, and even depict them, as long as they are not "real". But they ARE enacted into reality by the people that watch them, take the ideas and go with them. That is not to say that there would be none of that type of evil if we were to seriously control/limit the depiction of evil, but it certainly would not have the outlet it now has.

I hate to turn this into a religious discussion, but that seems to happen whenever you and I speak. This is merely the prejudice of your religion. Entertaining "bad" thoughts may be the first step to people doing bad things, but that doesn't mean that thinking "bad" thoughts are like a gateway drug to doing bad things. This type of thinking comes from the idea that God is in your head, reading your thoughts, and that you must feel guilty for things you don't even do. We ALL have bad thoughts!! Thinking that you can force yourself into being a good person by denying or repressing who we are is just as inauthentic as the Bloodguard, the Oath of Peace, and Hile Troy. This is the kind of folly that leads to the Ritual of Desecration--when we judge ourselves by such harsh standards, that surrender becomes to look more attractive than defeat. They end up being the same thing! You'll drive yourself crazy trying to repress yourself to this level. That's why Covenant became a rapist in the first place! His rigid repression of what made him human. The Law of Leprosy. And his own inherent tendency to use other people for his pleasure. We all have that. If you think you don't have that potential, you're kidding yourself and you scare me--8O--just like Hile Troy scared Covenant. (Okay, I said that for effect . . . you don't literally scare me. But this tendency to hide, repress, and deny what we are does scare me, because I know it can lead to explosive repudiation of this naivete.)

Really, this is one of the major issues of this series we are all reading. Absolutism can cause the very thing it tries to avoid.

[rusmeister]

I think the real question here comes down to: "Do thoughts have an impact on reality?" ... (snip) ... Even a die-hard skeptic must acknowledge that stopping the thought will seriously impede the likelihood of its being enacted. Most evils would never even occur to people if we nipped them in the bud.

I am quite torn on this. I was raised in a way that stressed the value of the discipline that rusmeister describes. However, Malik's points are quite valid in that to grow as a person one must understand your human potential (both good and bad.) If my memory serves, a term used in the psychology literature is "integrate your evil". (Don't quote me on that one, LOL.)

If you look at this from the perspective of conscious and subconscious mind, conscious actions repeated over time will influence your subconscious. But in my layman's understanding you still have to watch out for repression. Having been raised Catholic one story that really made me sad was one I heard from a nursing home worker. This person worked in a facilty that took care of older Catholic nuns, the majority of whom had degraded mental faculties due to things like Alzheimers and senility.

As they lost a lot of their ability to consciously control their minds, things that they had repressed for decades came freely to the surface and out. If a male so much as walked through the facility they would shout out all kinds of sexual offers and suggestions. I use this example not to single out or judge a specific set of individuals but simply as an example to illustrate a point. (I hold no grudges just because they used to take a ruler to the back of my hands in grade school. )

So my question isn't so much as to whether or not to explore one's darker side. Rather it is a question of why you are doing it.

Hi, AjK!
A couple of things to chew on:
(I speak from the Christian view) - A great many of the Christian saints had fully "explored their dark side" and were well aware of their potential for evil. A basic argument that (CS) Lewis makes is that a person cannot understand how bad they actually are (never mind potential) until they really try to be good; that is, to resist temptation. Thus, a person who used arguments like (exploring their dark sides" and so on) are actually less capable of understanding how bad they actually are, because they don't bother resisting temptation. And therefore, evil is already integrated into us and it is a thing we want to reject, not embrace. This differs enormously from Asian-style yin/yang views and ideas that "good needs evil". The Christian view is that good can exist just fine without evil, and evil is generally speaking, spoiled good - the pleasures of evil are generally pleasures that are basically good in their beginnings and then bent.

"Repression" is a modern idea that is quite opposed to Christianity in the sense that you are using it in. The simplest argument to demonstrate the fallacy of it is to point out how, over the 19th and 20th centuries (esp. since the "sexual revolution"), people promoted the idea of "sexual liberation" - that Victorian type "prudishness" was based on repression, and if you would just release those desires people would be just fine. But the practical result is the opposite. We shout out pornography of all sorts on TV, the internet, from every street corner and check-out counter, and it has only become clear that man is more sexually messed-up than ever. Nothing has been solved and people are arguably more lonely, miserable and unfulfilled than ever. The explosion of personals, dating services, and divorces totally contradict the idea of a happy humanity that is sexually fulfilled.

A theme I've repeated (although this may not apply to you) is that being raised in a faith does not translate into a mature understanding of the teachings of a faith. Most people raised in a faith who leave it do so as teens or young adults, and hardly have delved into the theology and history of the religion they were raised in, and so can't claim to have the best understanding of what the faith teaches.

(FTR, I'm an Orthodox Christian, although there is a lot we share with Catholics - just so you know where my bias is )

[rusmeister]

We do it because it is in our nature to do it.

As a general statement, sure, I agree to a certain point. I say that because I believe that having a human "nature" does not preclude growth and development (physical, mental, spiritual.) Also two people with the same "nature" can have two very different reasons for doing something. In other words I had a more specific reason for asking the question: Are you exploring your darker side (for example commiting infidelity in your mind) because it is pleasurable, you have some time to kill, and no one gets hurt if you don't act on it? Or are you exploring it mentally because you want to get some insight into your coarser instincts and understand why you or others think, feel or do the types of things we do? I see those as two very different roads.

However, even with our inmost thoughts, we are presented with choices. To act, or not act? If I lust after my friend's husband, obviously the choice is not to act. But beyond that, to entertain lust or to deny those thoughts?

This is more along the lines of what I am referring to. My main point is that the gap between thought and action is an opportunity for exploration, discovery and growth. If you immediately shut off or repress a thought you deny yourself an opportunity.

I believe with Rusmeister that there are eventually consequences to pay for our thoughts.

Agreed. My point though is that even if neither results in external action, a thought repressed can have a different result in your mind than a thought explored.

Had those nuns acted on those denied impulses over the decades of their lives, think of the hell their lives would have been, for them and everyone else. Now they've lost their inhibitions, should we say that they were rotten all along? Rather, I admire them for living with those passions and managing for all those years to temper them in other directions. And even if some of them acted on those lusts now and again, well, nuns are after all only human. That's what forgiveness is for.

For the record I am not saying any of the following things about those nuns:
1. They were rotten.
2. They should be held to a higher moral or ethical standard than anyone else.
3. They should (or should not) have acted on their sexual impulses.
4. That a nun who did act on one at some point should be judged and not forgiven.
In fact I hesitated to even use this example for fearing of giving any of those impressions. My only point is that despite our best conscious efforts we can't always influence our subconscious. Those people had admirably dedicated their lives to a worthy spiritual pursuit but still hadn't gone beyond certain core instincts (which is something I truly believe can be done.) In a purely speculative manner I was wondering if a little more self-examination could have made a difference. Upon some reflection my personal answer is 'yes' and as a result I think I understand Malik's point and SRD's inclusion of a rape a little better.

p.s. Nuns are awesome (even when they kick your @ss for forgetting your homework. )

Sorry for responding separately to your posts!
Again, I will argue that a person who does not resist temptation is incapable of "understanding" evil - it sounds much more to me like a euphemism for enjoying the pleasure obtained from the evil thought/action. And sometimes the step from thought to action (on the justification that "it isn't actually hurting anybody; it's only in your mind - although the idea that it may be hurting oneself in a way that one is not aware of is not explored) is very small indeed - masturbation being a good example.

Also I would add that the "opportunity" you may be denying yourself (in the sense you are talking about) is a form of inverse growth, or growth away from being truly human to being merely animal (Frank Herbert's "Dune", anyone?) Progress, if it is the wrong direction, is destructive and not at all desirable.

On nuns - of course they experience temptation. So I agree with you that we cannot control what you call "our subconscious", although I would argue that it is often quite conscious. But we can control how we react to it. So what the Christian will say is that "exploring your dark side" is like a child playing with a bomb and seeing what will happen.

if there's one thing that ought to be clear in this world, it is that our selfish instincts are the destructive ones. In Christianity, it is called sin, and it's the one part of Christian doctrine that is absolutely provable. I see it every time I pull out into traffic on a crowded highway - "Me first!" No, me!" etc. And a person who insists on playing with bombs and calling it "exploration" will sooner or later get their just desserts.

[AjK]

First off, sincere thanks to DotD, Rusmeister and Malik for the interesting conversation. It is nice to be able to share thoughts without things being overly dogmatic, judgemental or personal. You all have several points that I would like to comment on but time will only allow me to respond to a few at a time. Thanks for bearing with me. Just two to start with:

I will argue that a person who does not resist temptation is incapable of "understanding" evil - it sounds much more to me like a euphemism for enjoying the pleasure obtained from the evil thought/action. ... snip ... So what the Christian will say is that "exploring your dark side" is like a child playing with a bomb and seeing what will happen. ... snip ... And a person who insists on playing with bombs and calling it "exploration" will sooner or later get their just desserts.

Reading this intially makes me think that I may not have been completely clear. I am not advocating the process of sitting down and deliberately thinking about evil/bad/negative things in the name of personal growth. Especially if the thinking is along the lines of fantasizing/enacting these things out in your mind (for example "exploring" infidelity by imagining various specific acts of sexual intimacy with someone else or imagining how it would feel to kill someone by fantasizing about repeatedly stabbing someone.) That type of deliberate thought process is not what I meant at all. In those cases you are intentionally calling up those thoughts and deliberately playing them out in your mind. I am referring to the case where some type of negative thought (call it what you like: improper, morally wrong, a sin, et cetera) just "comes into your head" for lack of a better term. In other words (to go with your analogy) you didn't go get the bomb because you wanted to play with it. The bomb just showed up, as it were. The question is how do you defuse it and maybe more importantly how do you get your mind to stop handing you these bombs? In my mind that is a different process than playing around with the bomb because it is "safe" fun.

if there's one thing that ought to be clear in this world, it is that our selfish instincts are the destructive ones. In Christianity, it is called sin, and it's the one part of Christian doctrine that is absolutely provable. I see it every time I pull out into traffic on a crowded highway - "Me first!" No, me!" etc.

Just out of curiosity are you saying that all selfish acts are destructive or are sins? Do you consider those selfish drivers to be sinning when they act as you describe?

I don't mean to make this an overly spiritual discussion and I certainly do not mean to address specific theologies or organized religions. But since TCTC definitely involves moral/spiritual matters I thought that this would still be an appropriate discussion for this part of the forum. Thanks again to all!

[rusmeister]

First off, sincere thanks to DotD, Rusmeister and Malik for the interesting conversation. It is nice to be able to share thoughts without things being overly dogmatic, judgemental or personal. You all have several points that I would like to comment on but time will only allow me to respond to a few at a time. Thanks for bearing with me. Just two to start with:

I will argue that a person who does not resist temptation is incapable of "understanding" evil - it sounds much more to me like a euphemism for enjoying the pleasure obtained from the evil thought/action. ... snip ... So what the Christian will say is that "exploring your dark side" is like a child playing with a bomb and seeing what will happen. ... snip ... And a person who insists on playing with bombs and calling it "exploration" will sooner or later get their just desserts.

Reading this intially makes me think that I may not have been completely clear. I am not advocating the process of sitting down and deliberately thinking about evil/bad/negative things in the name of personal growth. Especially if the thinking is along the lines of fantasizing/enacting these things out in your mind (for example "exploring" infidelity by imagining various specific acts of sexual intimacy with someone else or imagining how it would feel to kill someone by fantasizing about repeatedly stabbing someone.) That type of deliberate thought process is not what I meant at all. In those cases you are intentionally calling up those thoughts and deliberately playing them out in your mind. I am referring to the case where some type of negative thought (call it what you like: improper, morally wrong, a sin, et cetera) just "comes into your head" for lack of a better term. In other words (to go with your analogy) you didn't go get the bomb because you wanted to play with it. The bomb just showed up, as it were. The question is how do you defuse it and maybe more importantly how do you get your mind to stop handing you these bombs? In my mind that is a different process than playing around with the bomb because it is "safe" fun.

if there's one thing that ought to be clear in this world, it is that our selfish instincts are the destructive ones. In Christianity, it is called sin, and it's the one part of Christian doctrine that is absolutely provable. I see it every time I pull out into traffic on a crowded highway - "Me first!" No, me!" etc.

Just out of curiosity are you saying that all selfish acts are destructive or are sins? Do you consider those selfish drivers to be sinning when they act as you describe?

I don't mean to make this an overly spiritual discussion and I certainly do not mean to address specific theologies or organized religions. But since TCTC definitely involves moral/spiritual matters I thought that this would still be an appropriate discussion for this part of the forum. Thanks again to all!

Very good questions.
It should be said first that upon becoming a Christian (Orthodox Christianity is at the center of my references, but many/most things apply to Roman Catholicism and the traditional forms (as opposed to new-wave/new-age-type versions) is not a pass to a free and easy life - it is the beginning of a struggle against that sinful nature, so your first question is at the heart of that struggle.

Temptation is out of our control. No one is condemned for being tempted. Thus, whether your hang-up is the improper use/engagement in sex, alcohol, food, bad temper or whatever, just experiencing the desire to "nail that babe", get blasted or whatever is not sin - and does not need to be confessed as such. (Starnote - one of the things I've discovered on Wikipedia articles on Orthodoxy is that some people deliberately attempt to erase the fact that desires in themselves are not judged - particularly regarding homosexuality, for example - it's a partisan effort to make Christians appear to be bigots.)

The best response is to pray. The temptation is seen as a spiritual attack - it is at the very least a destructive tendency of our fallen nature. Also, we hold that there are such things as demons and evil spirits, although they are not likely to appear in red flannel with pitchforks. If, as a proposition of truth, there really is such a thing as spiritual warfare, then the rest follows. So prayer is number one. here, the most traditional faiths resort to prepared prayers, rather than saying whatever comes into your head (spontaneous prayer). SP is fine when you're on your own, but it doesn't discipline the mind and doesn't have the advantage of being the things we ought to be prating about - we are taught that certain things are priority in prayer, and SP generally focuses on needs of the self. PP is stuff that has been hammered out for centuries and is generally modeled on "The Lord's Prayer".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord%27s_Prayer (general info)
orthodoxwiki.org/Lord%27s_Prayer ( has a good breakdown of the components)
www.oca.org/CHRIST-thoughts-article.asp?ID=9 (a good article on it)
The orthodoxwiki one, in particular, shows what we SHOULD be praying for. So SP is used and not condemned at all, but it is not prominent in Orthodoxy.
Probably the most common prayer, especially "on short notice" is "The Jesus Prayer" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Prayer

This varies a little from

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

to a simple "Lord, have mercy! and is very often said repeatedly. In worship there are times when we say it (the 3 words) 12 and even 40(!) times.

You know, if you like art-house style movies (as opposed to Hollywood blockbusters), let me recommend "The Island", a very recent Russian movie - it starts in WWII, way up north, where Nazis force a young (Russian) sailor to shoot his captain. Then the action moves 30-odd years into the future - the sailor has become a monk and it is a remarkable and powerful expression of what Orthodoxy is. www.amazon.com/Ostrov-Island-version-En ... 059&sr=1-1

On the second question (and remember, I am just a layman!), I think the thing is understanding what sin is. And sin, in Orthodoxy, at any rate, is seen as a failing, a "falling short of the mark" - that's what (they tell me) the Greek "amartia" means. Christ tells us that the (Old Testament) law and prophets boil down to two things - 1) love the Lord your God most of all and 2) love your neighbor as yourself (neighbor being those near to you, usually physically). So from that standpoint, cutting off someone else in traffic so you can get home 30 seconds earlier is a sin - it's falling short of the mark we are aiming for, to be like Christ and to love our neighbor at least as much as we love ourselves, if not more. And the first person whose sins we should consider are mine. ME. We want to strive to overlook/excuse the sins of others (within reason) while judging ourself most harshly of all. Our natural fallen tendencies are just the opposite. But if everyone did that, we would have heaven on earth.

[shadowbinding shoe]

I have lucid dreams from time to time but the ones you could categorize as evil don't include me so judging them is not that straightforward. I'm more in the position of evil creator or puppeteer. No that I dream about rapes.

Does that make me better or worse than rapist Thomas Covenant?


rusmeister - the question seems to be, does praying help you handle your evil impulses? It seems like more often it's used to make peace with yourself after you think about sins and opens the way to start thinking about them again with a clear conscience and that's not even mentioning actually doing it. If Jesus is so all forgiving why strive so hard never to try his patience?