I'm curious of the forum's thoughts on this. I'm really on the fence on whether it's sinful or not.
Are nocturnal emissions/wet dreams sinful?
- Thread starter TheSurveyor
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I think nocturnal emissions are primarily a result of refraining from sex and masturbating. I have read you can still get them even if you are sexually active or if you masturbate. However, I think this is the exception, not the rule. It is my impression that emissions happen one way or the other, and if you don't take action to release them, you'll have nocturnal emissions. Therefore, they are the mostly inevitable outcome of avoiding sin.
In Mosaic Law, nocturnal emissions made you unclean, and you then had to go through a cleansing process before you could go back amongst the people, to not encroach on God's holiness amongst His people.
I lean on maybe.
I lean on maybe.
It's a maybe in my opinion. We talked about this a bit in the Monk Mode Celibacy thread. It depends.
For instance, we can become lucid in a dream and use our will to make an immoral choice like cave to a seductive succubus, or we can pray it away.
Other times we can be completely blacked out and just wake up to a mess. It can truly be out of our control. I don't think this type of emission is sinful if we aren't lucid in the dream and if it's just purely physical.
However, we also have to consider if we had been looking at women with lust or watching things we shouldn't (not necessarily porn) and we primed ourself for it.
There's really so many factors going in to this I don't see how we could says it's definitely no or yes. It's a maybe.
There's also something that isn't a full blown orgasm but still considered an emission. As far as I'm aware it's not even the same type of fluid really. It's just a small dab of fluid.
For instance, we can become lucid in a dream and use our will to make an immoral choice like cave to a seductive succubus, or we can pray it away.
Other times we can be completely blacked out and just wake up to a mess. It can truly be out of our control. I don't think this type of emission is sinful if we aren't lucid in the dream and if it's just purely physical.
However, we also have to consider if we had been looking at women with lust or watching things we shouldn't (not necessarily porn) and we primed ourself for it.
There's really so many factors going in to this I don't see how we could says it's definitely no or yes. It's a maybe.
There's also something that isn't a full blown orgasm but still considered an emission. As far as I'm aware it's not even the same type of fluid really. It's just a small dab of fluid.
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A woman who gives birth is unclean according to Leviticus 12. Uncleanliness is a distinct concept from sin.
I voted yes simply because I believe it is capable of being sin because of how you view sex, the need for an orgasm, and what primes your lust. When I went as long as possible without any sexual activity I began to have a few dreams that could have been nocturnal emissions but I remember consciously choosing to reject the possibility of doing the act in my dream. This was important to me because I want to be similarly capable of rejecting sin if I am in a weird post-death realm where I don't know what I am experiencing. For me, dreams are a kind of spiritual realm where we get practice, or we are able to glimpse our spiritual state. But, of course, don't take my word for it, this is mere speculation and not the result of deep study.
If you are a physically active and healthy male over 18, and you are not masturbating (you shouldn't be by any means) and you are not having sex with a girl then these will plague you whether you like it or not. All the nofap motivation stuff is great, but the focus should be on not committing a mortal sin willingly. If it happens in your sleep and you wake from the emission, pray on it and ask for forgiveness either way because it is a loss of seed. All seed must go into a woman, anywhere else and it is a filthy unclean act.
There are demonic influences surrounding a frequent occurrence of these things, and it is linked to your waking sinful thoughts and actions. I know guys who are still acting like its the early 2000s chasing girls while their decades are piling on, and they don't seem to have these, likely because they don't internalize the concept of not jacking off and retaining your seed, and using that natural creative energy which it gives us to lead a productive life and find the best possible wife and mother for our future children.
There are demonic influences surrounding a frequent occurrence of these things, and it is linked to your waking sinful thoughts and actions. I know guys who are still acting like its the early 2000s chasing girls while their decades are piling on, and they don't seem to have these, likely because they don't internalize the concept of not jacking off and retaining your seed, and using that natural creative energy which it gives us to lead a productive life and find the best possible wife and mother for our future children.
Healthy male bodies produce new sperm all the time. Your body has to expel the old sperm if you are not having sex or masterbating. It does so whilst you are asleep, and not conscious.
It's a perfectly natural process. The idea that your body doing what it is supposed to do, what it is designed to do by God, and the idea that it is sinful in any way is ludicrous at best, dangerous at worst.
It's a perfectly natural process. The idea that your body doing what it is supposed to do, what it is designed to do by God, and the idea that it is sinful in any way is ludicrous at best, dangerous at worst.
You do not need to have wet dreams for your body to "expel the old sperm" in the absence of sex or masturbation. There's nothing scientific about that claim. How do you think the body functions for people who do not have wet dreams for many years and yet do not engage in any sexual activity? According to your logic, what should be happening to them - are they going to be poisoned or die? Or do you think such people don't exist? Trying to treat it as a healthy process completely belittles the idea that lustful dreams are nefarious and are to be resisted.
If its natural when you're asleep, why is it not natural when you are awake? Your chain of logic leads to basically accepting lust as natural and nothing to be concerned about. I'm not sure how a Christian can reason themselves to such an outlook. As pointed out earlier, we are regarded by Scripture as unclean if we have nocturnal emissions. You're making yourself your own god by claiming that nocturnal emissions are part of God's design and that His own word is ludicrous or dangerous.
One other point I'd note is that the presupposition for most people on this thread seems to be that we have no control over what is happening when we are asleep which would then exclude the possibility of anything being sinful. For a start, what we dream when we are asleep is at least partially a consequence of what we watch, do or think about when we are awake. For example, if you stuff yourself with rich foods, you are more likely to have lust-filled dreams and nocturnal emissions. These are things that are well documented in Patristic literature and that any good confessor will tell you. Not to mention nowdays we are flooded with secular media content. Secondly, we are not entirely incapacitated even when we are asleep. It is true we have a more limited control during sleep, but our will is not completely absent. We can acquiesce or cooperate with certain situations in our dreams. That's happened to me many a time. I would say that our capacity to resist is reduced but it is not completely absent, as everyone seems to be implying.
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Just because you don't understand a complex system does not mean that the devil did it.
You also expel excess semen when urinating. Do you test your urine everytime you go to the toilet, to check whether you are unclean or not?
If you follow the rules laid out in the Torah for such things, you should do it properly.
As a Christian, I am not required to follow any of the rules from the Torah, except the 10 commandments, thanks to Christs intercession on my behalf.
Essentially that means that I can enjoy a nice pork chop, retain my foreskin, not relegate my wife to the garden for a week when she has her period, nor worry if my young son has a "wet dream" someday.
"God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean" - the apostle Peter, Acts 10 verse 28
OK, that is an entirely different conversation. The topic wasn't which laws are covered by Christ's atonement and which ones aren't. It sounds like we may agree for the most part on that, but the only thing asked was if it's a sin or not. I can believe my sins are paid for by the blood of the lamb, while still acknowledging what is and isn't a sin.
Good point, it's true that in dreams we may have some control or ability to respond to the scenario. I didn't mean to imply with my post that you could go along with the dream or relish it and be free of any guilt because it's just a dream.
I was thinking based on my own experiences with dreams where I really don't have agency until I realize I'm dreaming and then I always wake up immediately after that realization, I never linger in dreams with agency just due to how I'm wired I guess. But if one is playing around with lucid dream techniques etc. you could abuse this sinfully.
Well, there were a few posts above mine talking about uncleanliness and how that is bad, almost equating it with sin, when that isn't true at all.
There are plenty of passages in the New Testament regarding these rules and how the coming of Christ makes them obsolete.
I always note that those how talk about the rules listed in the Torah tend to not follow all those rules themselves, especially the ones they find the most intrusive into their lives.
With regards to what happens in a dream state, you are not responsible for what happens in a dream state, you do not have any control over it. Lucid dreaming is something a tiny minority of people can do and even then, the argument that it is a sin is a difficult one, either way.
This isn't exactly true. There are 4 commandments in addition we are called to follow that were originally stipulated from the Old Testament.
-Don't eat blood
-Don't eat strangled meat (blood isn't drained from it)
-Don't eat food offered to idols
- Abstain from sexual immorality
Saint James in Acts 15 was asked this question because the Gentile converts to Christianity and the Jewish converts were coming to a conflict. The Jews were saying they needed to follow the entirety of the law, some of the Gentiles were presumably saying they don't need to follow any of it.
Saint James took a literal interpretation of the Law, and just said what it says. Gentile converts need to follow the above four things that are asked of them, but they don't need to follow all the other things - don't wear different fabrics, use two kitchens, get circumcised, etc.
If you look at where those four things are commanded in the Old Testament, they're some of the few commandments that apply also to the resident alien/guests in Israel, which is why it is still applied to us today.
How this applies to the question in this thread, for the Orthodox here, ask your priest.
Later on, Paul does say that things that are non-essential like what food you should eat, are up to the individual and not prohibitive, unlike anything involving idols or sacrifices.
And in case you are wondering, technically a rare steak does not include blood.
The theological implications of the no blood commandments are interesting, if I'm not wrong the concept is that consuming blood is akin to ingesting the "force" (lacking a better word) of that blood. So consuming animal blood as the pagans do brings us into an animalistic nature, whereas partaking in the blood of Christ unites us with God. I believe this also ties into the Satanic practice of consuming the blood of the young in an attempt to remain youthful.
Some Icelandic food is made using blood. They were pagan in the Norse times, but it continued into modern time after they were Christianized. I understand some other northern cultures have relied on blood as a food source.
I've always been shocked by this because of the biblical proscription, but I wonder if it matters when it comes from native traditions?
I've always been shocked by this because of the biblical proscription, but I wonder if it matters when it comes from native traditions?
As far as I am aware the proscription was due to the use of blood in rituals and/or sacrifices.
As I said, in Romans, Paul says if the blood is consumed as food, then it is up to the person to decide about whether it is ok to consume it.
Can you point me to which verse you are referring to? The points that DanielH mentioned from Acts seem to clearly set aside consumption of blood as a different matter from the full dietary laws of the Mosaic Law.