If lustful thoughts are a sin, how can you be held accountable for your dreams?

Answer 1

What makes you think lustful thoughts are a sin? The first commandment in the Bible is "be fruitful and multiply." Lustful thoughts usually help to fulfill this commandment.

Answer 2

Lustful thoughts are sinful but, we can only be accountable for the things that involve the will. If you do not will the lustful thoughts, and do not entertain them (trying to rid yourself of them immediately) they are not sin. They come from the sin within you that will be totally destroyed on the cross with death. Because it is the will that needs to be involved for serious sin, in dreams the will is not engaged so there is no sin. Here again one must not entertain the thoughts of the lustful nature from the dreams.

Answer 3

Oh, it's quite easy to cut yourself off from your dreams. I do not recommend it though. Once you realise what a mistake it is, it's a beyotch getting reconnected. I'm still trying.

If lustful dreams are a sin, then cheese can lead to sin. Better slaughter all the cows, just in case you get tempted. Perhaps cows are the work of the devil?

Consider this: Sometime between sleeping and waking your dreams cross over into conscious thought, and this is a very blurred distinction. How do you know the difference and so how do you know whether you have "sinned" or not?

Answer 4

You cannot control your dreams. As far as thoughts while you are awake, it is not a sin to have a thought. It is what you do with that thought that matters, Do you get rid of it, or do you dwell on it ? That is where the sin comes in, if you know a thought is wrong and you continue to think about what might be that is sin.

Answer 5

we arent held accountable if we acknowledging the fact that we are struggling and ask forgiveness. Try to be mindful of where you set your gaze (things you watch, ogling a cute guys,flirting,etc.) The mind is the enemys playground...you can cast him out in your subconscious state by asking the Lord to come and help you - the dream will just vanish. Satan is fighting a losing battle and he tries to sneak in while we are asleep and put guilt provoking lies into our head to cause shame and doubt. We are accountable for our words and actions- which stem from thoughts (not dreams).

Answer 6

Everybody is troubled in their dreams sometimes with either a thought about someone or a scary event or something. If your subconcious thoughts are disturbing you it's not a sin, you just try to change the music, the programs you are watching, the books you are reading, and tune into God's channel for some peace about it. Sometimes my spouse watches Sci Fi and then he tells me he has a strange dream.
It's sin to watch evil or to entertain it. Sometimes programs are not healthy for you. And they create a trouble inside of your belief system. Is it worth it? Sin is a break in your relationship of faith with God. It's your lifeline, your salvation. If something disturbs you enough you end up dwelling on it. That chain is something you must break. Build up your lifeline with God, using prayer. You'll never regret it.

Answer 7

It's not a sin to have a lustful thought pop into your head - that can't be helped...but it is a sin to decide to dwell on those thoughts.

Same with dreams, if it can't be helped, you can't really be accountable for it, but if you decide to dwell on that dream, or actually try to dream stuff like that - it's another story.

Answer 8

Those outdated, superstitious ideas about "sin" have little or no relation to the real world. They don't recognize the reality that your brain is a physical thing, a biological entity that has evolved what it is and does over millions of years, and often is as much in control of you as you are of it. If your brain didn't function on its own, you'd have to consciously think to make your heart beat, to draw every breath, to control your hormone levels -- and when you sleep you'd stop controlling your body functions, and you'd die. Your brain is part of you, and you are part of your brain...and you do not have complete conscious control over your brain or your body. This is a good thing.

One function of your brain is to use sleep to sort through the information gathered during the day, and find long-term storage for what it considers important to keep. To do this, it has to create new neural connections among the billions you already have, kind of like sorting and filing papers into a huge existing file cabinet that already has lots of stuff in it. To make these new neural connections, it accesses existing ones, and your unconscious, sleeping mind "sees" these accessed memories as dreams. Sometimes they sort of make sense, as your brain sorts through things and makes new connections...and sometimes they don't. They quite frequently have to do with things you did the previous day, since those are the memories your brain is trying to store. But it's all somewhat random, is something you're not in conscious control of, and doesn't "mean" anything -- it's just the biology of your brain doing its thing to keep you healthy and alive.

You have no more conscious control over what you dream than you do over your heartbeat...so don't let ancient superstitious ideas about "sin" make you feel guilty about your body doing what it's supposed to do.

Peace.

Answer 9

What we see, think and do while we are awake is stored in subconscious mind and the same thing pops up in the dream state while we sleep. Thus one should always check what kind of things one is associating while awake and then can change it consciously. In the dream, one is not accountable for sins, nevertheless it is a kind of mirror to know the conscious acts done while awake.

Answer 10

Lustful thoughts are not a sin per se.

Its the habits that come from those thoughts that are.

and since our thoughts form the basis of our actions, we are told to keep our thoughts clean and pure.