{"id":46997,"date":"2024-04-16T04:27:09","date_gmt":"2024-04-16T10:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=46997"},"modified":"2025-05-28T20:21:45","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T02:21:45","slug":"the-going-back-on-the-mission-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2024\/04\/the-going-back-on-the-mission-dream\/","title":{"rendered":"The Going-Back-On-The-Mission Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Anecdotally, a common recurring dream among members (and a lot of ex-members<\/a>) is the classic \u201creturn-to-the-mission,\u201d where somebody is called to be a missionary again in middle age.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dream interpretation can be irresistible to conjecture about, but any particular interpretation is ultimately non-falsifiable. While it makes sense that that particular dream is manifesting some Freudian, deep-seated anxiety our current psychometric tools are way too blunt to test anything. It’s so widespread I suspect the return-to-the-mission dream means something psychologically, but I don’t know what. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In my own version, the primary feeling is one of inconvenience and anxiety. I’m in the middle of life and I’m told I have to drop everything to go back to my old field of Eastern Spain.\u00a0<\/span>While in my non-dream, real world mission I did in fact serve the full 24 months (not that I would be ashamed if I didn\u2019t), in the dream the rationale is often so that I can finish a complete 2 year term that I terminated early, and I’m thrown back into the field with a bunch of 19-year olds for a few transfers. Another feeling is one of moroseness; I was super excited to leave the mission and move on with the next steps in life, and returning to the field felt like a step backward.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Makes me think about what it would be like if it was like the old days and I was companions with Bob from accounting with three kids. There’d be a lot less room for zealous excesses (try telling a bunch of middle aged men that if we made a pact with God and sacrificed lunches God would bless us with more baptisms), but we\u2019d be driven more by anchored conviction than flash-in-the-pan youthful energy. It’s an interesting thought experiment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anecdotally, a common recurring dream among members (and a lot of ex-members) is the classic \u201creturn-to-the-mission,\u201d where somebody is called to be a missionary again in middle age.\u00a0 Dream interpretation can be irresistible to conjecture about, but any particular interpretation is ultimately non-falsifiable. While it makes sense that that particular dream is manifesting some Freudian, deep-seated anxiety our current psychometric tools are way too blunt to test anything. It’s so widespread I suspect the return-to-the-mission dream means something psychologically, but I don’t know what. \u00a0 In my own version, the primary feeling is one of inconvenience and anxiety. I’m in the middle of life and I’m told I have to drop everything to go back to my old field of Eastern Spain.\u00a0While in my non-dream, real world mission I did in fact serve the full 24 months (not that I would be ashamed if I didn\u2019t), in the dream the rationale is often so that I can finish a complete 2 year term that I terminated early, and I’m thrown back into the field with a bunch of 19-year olds for a few transfers. Another feeling is one of moroseness; I was super excited to leave the mission and move […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10403,"featured_media":47000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latter-day-saint-thought","category-missionary"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Screenshot-2024-04-15-at-10.16.25-AM.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10403"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46997"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50243,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46997\/revisions\/50243"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}