More struggles with disturbing dreams

[SilverDragon]

It’s been 2 years now since I stopped masturbating and it seems that every month I’m getting worse and worse dreams. The content is often quite disturbing, even including acts that would be borderline criminal. I don’t know where to turn here. I can’t talk to a mental health professional since we don’t have Catholic ones in the area and I’ve just barely managed to get it through to them that it’s not some disorder making me not masturbate.

The dreams are bad enough that they’re waking me up at night, or making me wake up in the morning not rested. I’ve lived chastely, I’ve tried praying every night - nothing. This is starting to really interfere with my life, I wake up feeling sick from the dreams and can’t eat, and I have medical stuff that means I need to eat.

I’m really trying but it seems like the longer I go the worse it gets. I’m not feeling normal sexual attraction anymore, just these disturbing dreams with awful content. But I’m finding myself aroused by the depravity within them even though it’s nothing I’d ever do in real life.

 

[Techno2000]

It’s been 2 years now since I stopped masturbating and it seems that every month I’m getting worse and worse dreams. The content is often quite disturbing, even including acts that would be borderline criminal. I don’t know where to turn here. I can’t talk to a mental health professional since we don’t have Catholic ones in the area and I’ve just barely managed to get it through to them that it’s not some disorder making me not masturbate.

The dreams are bad enough that they’re waking me up at night, or making me wake up in the morning not rested. I’ve lived chastely, I’ve tried praying every night - nothing. This is starting to really interfere with my life, I wake up feeling sick from the dreams and can’t eat, and I have medical stuff that means I need to eat.

I’m really trying but it seems like the longer I go the worse it gets. I’m not feeling normal sexual attraction anymore, just these disturbing dreams with awful content. But I’m finding myself aroused by the depravity within them even though it’s nothing I’d ever do in real life.

brizek.com/prayer/pieta.htm PRAYER TO ST. MICHAEL

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in the day of Battle; Be our safeguard 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 power of God, cast into Hell, Satan and all the other evil spirits, who prowl through the world, seeking the ruin of souls.

Amen

---

(This powerful prayer of exorcism was composed by Pope Leo XIII; in a vision, he had been shown the fearful battle to be waged between Satan and St. Michael, over the Church of the future. Now, as never before, the Church needs the intercession of St. Michaell Please say this prayer every day.)

 

[Xpiatio]

I had struggled with not so good dreams for a couple years. They are not constant but when they do happen I end up yelling the name of Jesus out loud. I used to do just the St. Michael prayer, as he was my confirmation saint. But there is power in the name of Jesus.

What helped me so far, I bought a St. Benedictine Crucifix, had it blessed, and put in on the path on the way to bed. Each time I pass it I say “Jesus I trust in you.” to and from the bed. I also put a St. Benedictine medal under my bed.

Just an idea.

 

[ClearWater]

It’s been 2 years now since I stopped masturbating and it seems that every month I’m getting worse and worse dreams. The content is often quite disturbing, even including acts that would be borderline criminal. I don’t know where to turn here. I can’t talk to a mental health professional since we don’t have Catholic ones in the area and I’ve just barely managed to get it through to them that it’s not some disorder making me not masturbate.

The dreams are bad enough that they’re waking me up at night, or making me wake up in the morning not rested. I’ve lived chastely, I’ve tried praying every night - nothing. This is starting to really interfere with my life, I wake up feeling sick from the dreams and can’t eat, and I have medical stuff that means I need to eat.

I’m really trying but it seems like the longer I go the worse it gets. I’m not feeling normal sexual attraction anymore, just these disturbing dreams with awful content. But I’m finding myself aroused by the depravity within them even though it’s nothing I’d ever do in real life.

There’s no Catholic Social Services nearby?

 

[tawny]

Praying to St. Michael the Archangel for your protection.

 

[ClearWater]

That’s a real shame about the mental health people in your area not understanding.

 

[SilverDragon]

There’s no Catholic Social Services nearby?

They don’t deal with this sort of thing. The local social services ministers to basic needs, nothing more. They don’t have any sort of health services or counseling set up.

 

[ready]

After having lived an impure life St. Augustine experienced impure dreams for a while. But he became purified of his past and his impure dreams eventually went away. Your soul is injured because of your past and is in need of spiritual healing. Pray ceaselessly, do plenty of good spiritual reading, avoid all near occasions of sin, PRACTICE MORTIFICATION for the love of God, practice custody of the senses, do not read or view anything that is in any way seductive, read the Bible before going to bed and avoid watching television. With God all things are possible, so invoke Blessed Mary for her assistance and pray your rosary fervently and daily to her to be purified and healed of your past sins. God bless you.

 

[silver2soul]

Many times we attempt to understand the meaning, when we should be leaning on GOD’s grace through his son JESUS for strength and resilience. Remember the enemy is always roaring around us seeking whom it can devour.

Be resilient, pray to GOD in the name of his son JESUS to see a glimpse of the truth,; asking Jesus also for help to aid you in your battle. His name and the love of his church; being the high priest and the lord and savior of true believers are gifts and we need to adamantly respect and honor GOD for those gifts and love he has bestowed upon us.

Many are plagued and have fallen asleep, allowing the wrong type of seeds to germinate and sow in their lives. Stand vigilant and do not give in and think about oppression, possession and possibly witchcraft or the sort. Many of us have been blinded to the under currents that are sweeping many away; that once was considered taboo, wrong and unwholesome…has now become common ground and more accepted sadly enough.

If it is GODS’s will. he will enable you to clean/free yourself. I cannot truly define the recovery to your dilemma, but GOD and his son Jesus know your heart so put your trust in the way, the truth and the life.

They say that when you quit and abstain from an addiction you have withdrawals, but I believe that those whom are freed from sin become strengthened targets of the enemy, but then it also is stated that “if we resist the enemy it will flee from us.” It just takes time.

Praise be to GOD the heavenly father and his son Jesus Christ forever.

 

[INCONSPICUOUS]

I have had bad dreams for years. Pray to your Guardian Angels to protect you in your sleep. Sleep with a Bible or Rosary on your chest. Wear a Cross, Scapular or a Sacred Medal on your neck. Make sure to be holding the Bible and Medal when you go to sleep.
Anoint yourself with Holy Oil or Holy Water before going to sleep. All of these things will make it harder for the devil to attack you.

Try to become aware of when you are dreaming. Try to pray in your dreams for help, or force yourself awake if you can. Pray to St Michael and pray the Exorcism Prayers often.
God Bless.

 

[fred_conty]

In times of temptation we need to pray but not get all nervous. Just think about Jesus in the desert who also underwent temptations from the devil. It is a part of our spiritual upbringing to help us develope our life in Jesus.

Temptations, no matter what they are about, are never sins. You may have them anywhere, even in church during Mass. It is only a part of our ordinary struggle and in themselves are not bad.

Do not think of them as evil because temptations are not evil. Only a human act can be evil. And any amount of intense temptations do not make us evil for having them. We live in a world which has evil in it, and we have a human body which has been changed by sin to have a pull toward evil. This in itself is ok because it is not sin which is the only thing God does not approve.

So don’t think you are bad just because of the tempting thoughts to evil. It dosen’t mean that you are a degraded person for having such thoughts. That does not displease God it the least. You may have the most disgusting and reviling thoughts and God is right there within you in sanctifying grace in your immortal clean soul. He is proud of you for standing firm and loves you and will reward you or someone else because you are resisting them.

Saints have had some of these most disgusting temptations and even worse, and were amazed when such thoughts came to them. But they offered their resistence of them to the dear Lord and Saviour to make up for all the sins that others are calous to commit, and the indifference they show to him. This is one of the ways that temptations pay big dividends. For Jesus said he would reward us for all good things we do.

If we take on temptation as a way of upholding Gods honor, and of winning grace for ourselves and others, then they become great blessings.

May God bless and keep you. May God’s face shine on you. May God be kind to you and give you peace.

 

[SilverDragon]

They’re NOT temptations. I haven’t been struggling or having any sort of hard time at all staying away from sexual sins. In fact it feels like my sex drive shut down entirely. But it’s just, no matter how much I pray and stay chaste, the dreams just get worse and worse. I’m not concerned about temptation so much as I’m concerned about the fact that I’m not sleeping because of these dreams. Sometimes they’re so bad I’m waking up wanting to vomit.

 

[fred_conty]

I’m really trying but it seems like the longer I go the worse it gets. I’m not feeling normal sexual attraction anymore, just these disturbing dreams with awful content. But I’m finding myself aroused by the depravity within them even though it’s nothing I’d ever do in real life.

If it isn’t a temptation, then it must be the horror of the thought that is presented to you, and that these thoughts themselves terrorize you because you feel that they came from within you, which makes you feel so bad that you are upset. So in short, it is these thoughts that are making you sick and not their attraction?

If so, then the source of these thoughts could be a number of things.

When something changes in my spiritual or physical life that adversely affects me, I look for a change in my life style first. That is what did I do differently or what did I add to my life at the time these things began to happen? For example, I began to get welts, and I thought and thought about what I was eating, or changed in sleeping, or work, or friends, or…or… And kept thinking what I was doing differently. It was a different soap that I started to use. That was it.

Now this is only one example of a physical change, but we also sometimes undergo other things that we do differently. Try to think about what may have been different in you life about the time these thoughts began to happen and you may find a clue. Even medicine or a change in medicine, or a change in food, or lifestyle, or a death in the family causing stress, a change in work. Just try to think what changed or was different. Don’t give up if you don’t know of anything right away because it takes the mind a while to work on these things.

If you are married, you may want to ask your spouse if any changes occurred about that time.

The final idea I would leave you with is to wear a religious blessed sacramental around your neck and not remove it. Each night before retiring, hold it in your hand and invoke the saint who is on the medal to watch you during the night and protect you.

I may sorry to hear of your distress, and I will pray for you.

Your brother in Christ, Fred.

 

[SilverDragon]

If it isn’t a temptation, then it must be the horror of the thought that is presented to you, and that these thoughts themselves terrorize you because you feel that they came from within you, which makes you feel so bad that you are upset. So in short, it is these thoughts that are making you sick and not their attraction?

The dreams themselves are depraved, fetishistic, and often violent in ways that horrify me. Things I would never in a million years dream of doing, but that I’m ashamed that I am even capable of imagining in such detail. They started when I stopped masturbating 2 years ago, and it seems like they’ve just gotten steadily worse since then.

 

[fred_conty]

The dreams themselves are depraved, fetishistic, and often violent in ways that horrify me. Things I would never in a million years dream of doing, but that I’m ashamed that I am even capable of imagining in such detail. They started when I stopped masturbating 2 years ago, and it seems like they’ve just gotten steadily worse since then.

Sounds a lot like nightmares. Here is an article that has info on what may be the causes of nightmares. I hope this will help you in some way.
webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/nightmares-in-adults

May God bless and keep you. May God’s face shine on you. May God be kind to you and give you peace.

 

[SilverDragon]

The thing is I’m waking up clearly quite aroused. They don’t feel like nightmares - they feel like sex dreams.

I don’t know where to turn. I’m too ashamed to admit I ever had this problem to anyone in church - most circles I’ve been in people act like you’re some sex addict for even knowing how to masturbate, let alone admitting you were doing it every day for years.

 

[SilverDragon]

The thing is I’m waking up clearly quite aroused. They don’t feel like nightmares - they feel like sex dreams.

I don’t know where to turn. I’m too ashamed to admit I ever had this problem to anyone in church - most circles I’ve been in people act like you’re some sex addict for even knowing how to masturbate, let alone admitting you were doing it every day for years.

This has actually been one of my ongoing struggles. I wish there were somewhere safe for me to talk about this sort of thing, something that doesn’t involve telling a man who didn’t even know this was possible about what’s going on. I’m finding myself aroused by things I would find disturbing, I’ve been trying to pray about it but the dreams are getting worse. I just wake up feeling disgusting and like I’ll never be free of this. I didn’t know - no one even told me until college in a way that I could know what I was doing or what’s going on. Why do I have to keep suffering from this?

 

[Loboto-Me]

You mention that you’re going through medical stuff. I am also going through medical issues and found out that one of the side effects of 2 of my medications can cause disturbing dreams. I was having very vivid and violent dreams which in time eased off (thank God). Check out your meds first and foremost… and the above recommendations in prayer never hurts either

 

[SilverDragon]

It’s…not that sort of thing, it’s not anything they even can give me meds for. I just have to eat frequently.

I don’t know. The dreams are clearly sexual in nature and I’m waking up feeling aroused and disgusted at the same time. The farther it gets the more just plain disgusted I am. Sometimes the dreams include highly sacreligious images yet in the dreams I get off on defiling them. I can’t bring myself to touch or even be near any sort of sacred thing when I wake up because I can’t get those images out of my mind.

I’m just tired of feeling like a pervert all the time. And I know if I spoke up in real life, if I even admitted that I knew how to masturbate, people would be treating me like one. I didn’t even know as a kid that getting aroused like that was possible at all.

 

[fred_conty]

It’s…not that sort of thing, it’s not anything they even can give me meds for. I just have to eat frequently.

I don’t know. The dreams are clearly sexual in nature and I’m waking up feeling aroused and disgusted at the same time. The farther it gets the more just plain disgusted I am. Sometimes the dreams include highly sacreligious images yet in the dreams I get off on defiling them. I can’t bring myself to touch or even be near any sort of sacred thing when I wake up because I can’t get those images out of my mind.

I’m just tired of feeling like a pervert all the time. And I know if I spoke up in real life, if I even admitted that I knew how to masturbate, people would be treating me like one. I didn’t even know as a kid that getting aroused like that was possible at all.

I hope that you understand that this dosen’t offend God in any way. Obviously you have something wrong for which you are not responsible and even tho the images may be offensive and even sacraligious in themselves, they are not offending God in any way. He would certainly understand what you are going thru better than you. He created you and loves you. He knows every hair on you head, and every other part of your body and it dosen’t offend him one bit. The body is his creation.

Whether or not you come to some resolve with your problem, you must concentrate on what I have just said so that you don’t lose hope and worry over nothing that means nothing to God. Even in your waking moments, these kinds of thoughts do not offend him…even worse thoughts don’t. Just give these thoughts to him and accept them as your suffering and pain for him as he endured his suffering and pain for you. Nothing can touch us except what we allow…no matter how ugly.

May God bless and keep you. May God’s face shine on you. May God be kind to you and give you peace.