- Scott Heiner on The Going-Back-On-The-Mission Dream: “I’ve had all those dreams several times: (1) returning to my mission in middle/advanced age; (2) forgetting all about a class I had registered for and it’s time for finals; and (3) being in public wearing just my garments. It’s surprising to learn how common these dreams/nightmares are with other people in general.” Apr 18, 11:18
- on The Going-Back-On-The-Mission Dream: “I’m 43. I left the church about 10 years ago. However, when I was a believer, I had that dream on a regular basis for at least 7-10 years after my mission. I was an extremely dedicated missionary and loved my mission but whenever I had the dream, I’d always accept the call to return but I always felt sick to my stomach. It was like I knew that I had to say yes but I really didn’t want to do it all over again. I wouldn’t call it a nightmare but I definitely felt sick in my dreams at the thought of serving again, even though I loved my mission as a missionary. I’m sure that for those who didn’t like their missions, this dream would be a nightmare. For me, I think that even though I enjoyed the mission, a mission is a lot of hard work and involves a lot of rejection and maybe the feelings of uneasiness in my dreams just have to do with my subconscious saying, “I don’t think we want to voluntarily go through all that hard work and rejection again.”” Apr 18, 09:59
- on The Going-Back-On-The-Mission Dream: “I’ve had the dream multiple times. It’s not consistently stressful or joyful, but overall I think it’s still filled with a desire to do more, in a good way. I think serving a mission now would be both better and worse. I’d hope that I would be smarter about how I would do things but I’d maybe have less tolerance for the inefficiencies that inevitably follow such efforts. I’ve never really felt I had an inspired dream, I assume it’s just an indication that my mission was a significant part of my life. There was an intensity of living at that time that would be hard to match in middle age. I still dream about schooling too – generally more stressful and relating to a lack of preparation for an assignment or class, dreams I’d rather not have.” Apr 18, 09:26
- on The Going-Back-On-The-Mission Dream: “Though I’ve been inactive for over 20 years, I still have the recurring return-to-mission dream. In the dream I am very much the older agnostic inactive Latter-day Saint/Mormon I am today. Oddly though, I accept the call and return to the mission to do an additional 2 years of service. Whatever the Freudian implications, and I think Freud had plenty of worthwhile things to say, I think this is natural. Lot’s of us have that dream where we are back in school, and we didn’t study for the big final. Similarly, I did professional theatre for a couple of years after college graduation. Almost two decades ago, I had the privilege of being in a hit show in regional theatre. Occasionally, I dream that we are reopening the show and I have to be back on stage that night… but I haven’t rememorized my lines and hope I can somehow bumble my way through. Weird. Unlike the mission dream, where I am at peace and confident with returning to the field to do more proselyting (as an inactive agnostic?), the theatre dream is always nerve-wracking unpreparedness (even though in real life I’d love to have another chance to be onstage).” Apr 18, 08:49
- on The Going-Back-On-The-Mission Dream: “This is one of my recurring dreams. Usually, I’m tracting without a companion and wearing normal clothes. In one tracting dream, I met a gorilla making cricket noises and a talking dog wearing blue underwear.” Apr 17, 14:16
- on My Atheist Conversion, Part 2: Spiritual Experiences: “Thanks, Tori. Sounds like interesting family discussions and glad I could add something. RLD, that’s a great list of “faithfulness” and one I’d answer very strongly, yes. Again, feel quite committed to the church even with some variant beliefs and am happy to try to help make space for others who might feel similarly.” Apr 17, 10:44
- on The Going-Back-On-The-Mission Dream: “I’ve had that dream only a couple of times. The one I have most frequently is the “I’m back in college and have a recital that I forgot about and haven’t practiced for” dream. (I majored in music.) I have a lot of unfinished business psychologically when it comes to my career and how it’s panned out since college, so those recital dreams make a lot of sense. My mission isn’t something I ever want to do over, but I feel like I’ve worked through everything I need to work through concerning it.” Apr 16, 21:01
- on The Going-Back-On-The-Mission Dream: “I have that nightmare (and it is always a nightmare) many times. And the rationale is always the same, as with yours, I still have a few months to make up (which is funny, because due to various factors, I wound up staying an extra month in reality). Sometimes, all the same missionaries from my mission are there too, and sometimes it’s me with a bunch of young’uns. I hate that nightmare, but whateves. Makes a nice contrast to all the other dreams, I guess, which involve bizarre mash-ups like Battlestar Galactica but with My Little Pony characters (and which switches to the plot of Babylon 5 halfway through when the Wookies show up).” Apr 16, 18:37
- on My Atheist Conversion, Part 2: Spiritual Experiences: “Stephen, your experience definitely resonates with mine, though you got the grad-level version and mine was undergrad at best. (Some of the episodes happened while I was in grad school, but my studies weren’t terribly relevant). I’m less interested in orthodoxy than…well, I’d call it loyalty but that has negative connotations in some quarters. Faithfulness is better, but likely to be misunderstood. Whatever we call it, it’s pretty easy to ascertain. Do you think the Church’s leaders are basically good people trying to do an impossible job? Then I’m not too worried about exactly how much you agree or disagree with them. Do you think people should join the Church? Then I’m not too worried about why you think they should. (I’ll give a pass for thinking maybe LGBT people shouldn’t.) In my experience, people who answer no to questions like those are the people to worry about.” Apr 16, 14:48
- on The Going-Back-On-The-Mission Dream: “I’ve dreamt that the bread I brought for the sacrament was moldy. (This was when my sons were deacon/teacher age.) I’ve dreamt of arriving at stake conference and realizing I never chose any music for the choir to sing. (Apparently it didn’t come up in rehearsal.) Worst of all is the dream that I forgot about a class I was registered for and now have to take the final despite never going to it. I’ve gotten that one many times. I’m usually lucid enough to talk myself out of it, but it takes effort. (You’re in your 50s! You have a full-time job! Yes, you can really be sure you didn’t register for an undergrad class and then forget about it!) Compared to those, the couple of times I’ve dreamed about being called to go back on a mission were downright pleasant. I wouldn’t say I was excited to go in those dreams, but I was fine with it.” Apr 16, 14:24