Dreams....

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Eirinn

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I recently joined the Church through RCIA. I believe that I do all that I am supposed to do - I pray with vigour daily, attend Mass daily, read the Bible and do my best to raise my child with in the Church. My RCIA experience was uplifting and lifechanging to say the least. The problem I have is that every step forward I take is a battle. I feel absolutely bombarded with thoughts, emotions and images(some good, some not so good). The worst however is the dreams. They absolutley haunt me and rob me of rest, and make me physically ill.
When I made the decision to join the Church, it was a dream that lead there. After watching Mel Gibson’s The Passion and seeing the portrayal of the 4th station of the cross(Jesus meeting his mother), the image of Mary crying with the look of, I don’t even know words to describe it, utter grief(?) it has been burned into my mind. I see her crying with that same look on her face in my dreams. At first, I didn’t know what to make of the dreams, then my Uncle(a deacon) suggested that maybe Mary was crying for me. It was at that moment I decided to join the Church. All through RCIA, I had the dream, thinking that when I joined the church at Easter, these dreams would stop. Instead of stopping they have completely completely taken over my sleep.
The Mary dream is disturbing, I don’t know why she is crying and I don’t know how to make it stop. There are other dreams as well. All are in different settings (although most start in a church and end in a cemetry) but revolve around the same theme - fear. There is some sort of evil that I fear - I never see it, I have no idea what it is, but I know it is there and I fear it. Whenever this occurs, I run, too scared to face whatever it is. Another thing that disturbs me is that I can hear a familiar voice telling me to stop and they’ll protect me. I know I’ve heard the voice before - but I can’t place it.
All this disturbs me greatly, and makes me wonder where my original dream of Mary came from? What if that dream was not divinely inspired? What if the motivating factor for me joining the Church was sent from evil?
 
If it was from evil, the evil one sure would not want you joining the church and receiving the body and blood of our Lord! Maybe try going to Adoration, in quiet, the Lord may reveal more to you. That is where I find the most comfort.

Being a mother I was very effected by Mary in the Passion of the Lord. However, when she looks over at the devil on the road to the crucifixion this brought such comfort to me. She has defeated him and will crush his head. Turn to the Blessed Mother for comfort. Meditate on her. I was told one time invision her sitting next to you. I found this hard to do so I meditated on the Joyful mysteries. I found such peace when I did that.

God Bless You !
 
Hi Eirinn,

I do believe that God can speak to us through our dreams - this is mentioned in the bible in reference to the last days - “Men will dream”, and God spoke to the prophets and St Joseph in a dream.

I am not sure that the Evil One has authority to speak to us through dreams though I am ready to stand corrected…

The origins of your first dream on Mary may not be connected to the series of dreams you are now having revolving around fear. Your waking hours support that your resultant action from your first dream was good. You have joined the Church and you are happy.

The origin of dreams mostly comes from us, they don’t have to be all divinely inspired and this is where the new series of dreams may be coming from. Sometimes when we dream of certain objects, they are symbolic representations of something else in our lives which rises up from our unconscious mind during REM sleep.

Try this - If you make a conscious decision to disconect any association from the the Mary dream to the fear dreams, this may get rid of the fear dream.

If things persist, maybe go see a Christian Counsellor.

Luke 🙂
 
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Eirinn:
I recently joined the Church through RCIA. I believe that I do all that I am supposed to do - I pray with vigour daily, attend Mass daily, read the Bible and do my best to raise my child with in the Church. My RCIA experience was uplifting and lifechanging to say the least. The problem I have is that every step forward I take is a battle. I feel absolutely bombarded with thoughts, emotions and images(some good, some not so good). The worst however is the dreams. They absolutley haunt me and rob me of rest, and make me physically ill.
When I made the decision to join the Church, it was a dream that lead there. After watching Mel Gibson’s The Passion and seeing the portrayal of the 4th station of the cross(Jesus meeting his mother), the image of Mary crying with the look of, I don’t even know words to describe it, utter grief(?) it has been burned into my mind. I see her crying with that same look on her face in my dreams. At first, I didn’t know what to make of the dreams, then my Uncle(a deacon) suggested that maybe Mary was crying for me. It was at that moment I decided to join the Church. All through RCIA, I had the dream, thinking that when I joined the church at Easter, these dreams would stop. Instead of stopping they have completely completely taken over my sleep.
The Mary dream is disturbing, I don’t know why she is crying and I don’t know how to make it stop. There are other dreams as well. All are in different settings (although most start in a church and end in a cemetry) but revolve around the same theme - fear. There is some sort of evil that I fear - I never see it, I have no idea what it is, but I know it is there and I fear it. Whenever this occurs, I run, too scared to face whatever it is. Another thing that disturbs me is that I can hear a familiar voice telling me to stop and they’ll protect me. I know I’ve heard the voice before - but I can’t place it.
All this disturbs me greatly, and makes me wonder where my original dream of Mary came from? What if that dream was not divinely inspired? What if the motivating factor for me joining the Church was sent from evil?
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Mel Gibson’s movie was kind of the final straw for our family also in joining the Church. I’m glad to hear you’re home, but sorry to hear that your troubled. I have been kind of interested in dreams in the last few years, since I had a troubling dream a few nights before 9-11-01. Anyway, it seems that your dreams are either from a physical or spiritual source, and the spiritual source could be good of bad. Given hpw troubling it is to you, though, it doesn’t seem to be something from God. If it is coming from Satan, I would suggest that you speak to your priest. From my own experience, it seems that those in RCIA seem to be a favorite target of Satan. If that is not helpful, however, you might consider it being from physical sources. I have a relative, for example, who suffers from a mild case of obsessive/compulsive condition, and some of your symptoms ring bells with what I recall that person having said. I will keep you in our prayers.
 
Welcome to the board, Eirinn, and welcome home to the Church.

I think the devil may be using the beautiful image that helped you be reconciled with the Church to cause you to fear fully entering into it with your whole being. I experienced something quite similar when I entered the Church. Pray this prayer for help from St. Michael the Archangel. Make him your friend and you will have nothing to fear.

Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host -
by the Divine Power of God -
cast into hell, satan and all the evil spirits,
who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.

Amen.
 
first welcome home, and if you did not hear it from your RCIA team, you are supposed to attend classes at least monthly for a year after your initiation. Part of the reason for that is to help you with questions, doubts and dilemmas that arise after you enter the Church. Call your sponsor, your RCIA director or anyone else with whom you developed a good relationship.

you have been growing in your prayer life, and it is probably time for some good spiritual direction to help you deal with some of the demons of prayer that come up whenever we advance in our closeness to Jesus. The enemy cannot stand that and will begin to throw up roadblocks. The area of dreams that may have a spiritual content is something we need help to discern. When next you go to confession, which I hope is frequently, ask the priest to help you find a spiritual director.

I can tell you one thing, that one way to discern dreams and other spiritual experiences is by their results. If they have evil origin they will not have good results. The dream that brought you close to the Church was most likely of good origin. If you the dreams you have now trouble you to the extent that you begin to doubt, that you stop praying, or stop trusting in God, that would be an evil result, and suggest a possible evil origin. but this is just a general statement and I really urge you to get spiritual direction to discern these movements and experiences.
 
I agree with what most of what has be written but I will raise 3 points:
  1. We can receive divine inspiration while we are awake. This divine inspiration may be mixed with our own thoughts, good or bad, and maybe also from the other guy. We, hopefully, exercise discernment through critical thinking, sorting out the truth from nonsense, and make a decision.
  2. Dreams are mostly our thoughts and thinking as we sleep with an inordinate feeling or emotional component. Unfortunately in a dream we are unable to discern as it unfolds so discernment is delayed till we wake. The delay in discernment allows an unbridled thought to move from start to finish, complete with unbridled emotions at times. If we were awake for the evolving of the same thought, it would go through a series of refinements based on critical analysis along the way. If our thought processes while we were awake were like how they are as we sleep without critical thinking, we would all be manic depressive… 🙂
  3. We can also receive divine inspiration as we spleep, but again,
    does Satan have the power to influence our thinking while we are asleep - dreaming?
All I am suggesting is that the basis of the fear dream may be from within and it is symbolically represented in the dream as connected to the Church, just because the Church is such a big part of your life at the moment where you have recently made a great life changing decison.

I may be sticking my neck out too much but I would be suprised if dream 1 and dream 2 are connected. However, if Satan can influence our dreams, well then it is an unsettling strategy he is using.

Bless yourself with holy water before going to bed and pray the prayer to St Michael for protection from these dreams.

Luke
 
Do you wear a scapular? That is a beautidul way to have Mother Mary’s arms around you at all times!

I also got a booklet called “Novena to overcome fear”. I find it very calming.

Welcome to the Church and may God continue to bless you!
 
Sometimes we have fear of something hich manifests itself as fear of something else. For instance, when I was very young I had an incredibly crazy fear of nuclear war. I would lie awake nights afraid that every airplane was coming to drop the big one on my house. Years later, with the help of a therapist I realized that my fear of the bomb was irrational and I was really just making the bomb the depository for fear of other things, specifically family issues which my little mind could understand, but which caused me great anxiety.

Examine your life to see what conditions might be causing you to feel misplaced anxiety or fear, which manifests itself in the dreams you describe. If you need help working through this, by all means, seek it.
 
Of course God can speak to people while they are asleep. It doesn’t happen all the time. Furthermore, it is different than normal dreaming. Normal dreaming (which is MUCH more common) is physiological. Visions- or Spiritual dreams, are purely spiritual in origin.

More often than not, when you are asleep, your brain still functions (i.e. sends electrical signals). Since you are not doing anything, your body has no external way to make sense of the electrical signals going through your brain, so it it uses what you already have- i.e.: memory. Dreams usually are nothing more than re-presentations of your memories (in various ways, obviously), so your brain can do something with the electrical signals.

It is important not to over-dramatize things.
 
I agree… I also think that it is important for folks to understand that not everything which seems spirtual in nature necessarily is. This concept is pointed out repeatedly in a book I am reading by a Catholic priest on the topic of spiritual deliverance and exorcism. Sometimes there are real physical origins for these kinds of problems. To overlook the physical aspect of the person and only focus on the spiritual is to only look at a single side of a double-sided coin.
 
I totally agree Writer!

We have not heard from Eirinn who started this thread. I wonder what she is making of all our opinions?

Luke
 
Fear is a tool of the evil one. If you feel fear, it is not from God or Mary.

The evil one is probably not happy that you have joined the church. He may be persecuting you. The best way to get rid of him is to go to confession every 2-4 weeks. The grace you will recieve will sustain you, and it is a wonderful tool for breaking the oppression of the evil one.

You may wonder what to confess so often, as many people only go often enough to confess mortal sins. Go anyway, and confess your venial sins, nasty thoughts, yelling at your kids (if applicable), being impatient in traffic, gossiping, etc.

Pope John Paul II went to confession once a week. Try this.

This may not stop the dreams, but it should help alleviate the fear. Perhaps Mary is crying because of all the sin in the world. Visionaries often see her crying.
 
Hi Petrina,

While I don’t doubt what you write, we cannot take it for granted that the second series of dreams are from the evil one. Dreams are the basis of our thought patterns as we sleep. We know that God does speaks to people on occasion through dreams but I don’t know if the evil one has that permission in someone walking in Christ’s light. We need Magisterium direction on this, not teaching from apparitions which do not constitute the deposit of faith and never will.

We must consider that the majority of our dreams and for that matter, our conscious thoughts eminate from us. Our fears, passions, likes, dislikes form our character. To suggest otherwise is to suggerst that all our good thoughts come from God and all our bad thoughts come from the devil. This is not Church teaching and nor does it explain the virtuous of the unbaptised.

Luke
 
First of all I would like to thank everyone for responding. Since my post I have spoken with my priest and have gone to confession. I described some of my dreams to him. He thought that some of the tamer ones show that I am on the right path. As fore the other ones he wasn’t sure. There are a lot of mitigating factors in my life right now, including being deployed to a war torn country, being seperated from my daughter, and taking malaria medication. We changed my meds and the priest has offered to be my SD while we are deployed, as I cannot got to my RCIA meetings. We’ll see how this works…and continue praying!

God Bless!
 
Thanks Eirinn for giving us an update and we will pray for you that all goes well in dreaming and deployment. 🙂

Luke
 
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