Young Mormon men, of which I used to be one, generally spend two years in their late teens and early twenties on a mission, teaching about our beliefs and performing service. This often requires learning a new language, which is done through a two-month crash course at one of 15 Missionary Training Centers throughout the world.
I served my mission in Montana, speaking English, so I don’t know about this firsthand, but I’ve heard many friends say that a big moment on their missions came when they started dreaming in their mission language. “Three months in, I had my first dream in Portuguese, and that’s what I knew I was a really missionary.” (I guess the equivalent for me in Montana would have been when I started dreaming about giving directions based on landmarks instead of street names and addresses.)
Anyway, that’s all just a long-winded back-story that leads up to this: I dreamed last night that I ate a bunch of pizza on a day other than cheat day. And in the dream, I was extremely frustrated with myself. And when I woke up, I thought of it as a bad dream. That’s right, I’ve reached the point where I consider a dream about eating pizza a bad dream. I’m dreaming in healthy!
I really relate with what you say about dreaming in healthy. I had a very similar experience, years ago, as I was on the road to recovery in changing some self-destructive behaviors. Your article gives me a better perspective on that dream. Thankfully, I was able to make the positive changes (through much cultivating) and have not returned to those behaviors. Thanks, Jeff, for sharing your experience, learnings and convictions with us in your blog.