I'm making this post to record a very strong and weird, but meaningful dream I had last night and to provide myself with some context based on how long I've spent trying to fight this.
Short story is, today is day 2, and I relapsed frequently throughout all of February and early March. I've usually not made it past day 2 or 3 without looking at porn, which invariably ends with hours of wasted time or masturbation. The last couple of relapses have really driven this point home, and even now I am biting back the urge to look at "harmless" suggestive drawings. The plus side is that I have a lot to focus on aside from shitposting on the internet all day, so that will help me do something more productive. I've also been allowing myself to segregate my time into work and play, which makes me feel better about things because I have a distinct on-off mindset rather than the limbo of the internet and pornography.
Anyway, the dream went as follows:
>Don't recall how it begins, but at some point I end up having a conversation with the Simpsons family at Ned Flanders' house.
This is odd because I've never been a huge Simpsons fan.
>There is some cause for emergency, and everyone scrambles to leave, but Ned hustles Marge into a closet.
>The closet has a trap door, which brings her to a hidden, garishly coloured room under the house, where several other women have been captured.
>Ned appears and quickly subdues/binds her before retreating to the ground floor.
This sounds odd, but it's a pretty familiar situation from many of my sexual fetishes (minus the Simpsons characters). Bondage, vore, bad ends, various peril situations - you get the idea. The women were even stuck halfway in the floor, which was molded like clay. At the risk of going into too much detail, it bore significant resemblance to a lot of art/porn I've seen.
>I should also point out Ned is shirtless and immatulately athletic.
>Emergency runs out, family and I return, Ned tells us Marge is gone and fights us away from the house with his physical strength and a small army of killer toy robots he built in his garage.
>We run away, knowing that something must be done to help the women but unsure what to do (police will confront him, but in the meantime the women are still in danger).
>I decide to confront Ned myself and challenge him to a duel which I kind of know will end in my death due to him being much stronger/more fit than I am, but to which I still commit because it feels right.
>I don't tell anyone of this, but while walking to Ned's house (and getting lost in the suburbs) I meet a non-cartoon, kind of overweight guy who asks me for directions and starts a conversation.
>We talk, and he asks me where I'm going.
>I tell him I'm going to challenge someone to a fight to the death before interrupting myself and saying "a duel" instead.
>He gets the idea and becomes very surprised, but ultimately says "good luck, man" before I go off again.
>Night falls quickly.
>I end up hopping fences and cutting through peoples' yards because I have a desperate urge to go there and fight.
>I note that the physical activity makes me feel good before arriving at Ned's house. Somehow I know the women are still in the room in the basement.
At this point, Ned taunts me and begins speaking about how I should just wait for the police because I'm going to get myself killed (which is true given he's more fit than I am and I'm surrounded by small killer robots). I don't recall exactly what he says, but you can probably guess it was the kind of doubt-ridden stuff anyone would have when confronting a part of himself.
>We begin fighting with knives.
>Dream ends.
It doesn't take a psychiatrist to recognize the meaning of each element. Ned is my ideal/potential future self: Christian, happy family, fit, computer scientist (I'm studying software engineering), but with a dark secret literally in his closet. In the dream, I represent my current/old self, who is fat and lazy. The guy I met on the street was my conscious mind (face didn't resemble me, but his body and behaviour did), who was surprised to see all this stuff happening beneath the surface.
I think it's a pretty clear indication from my subconscious mind that there will be great difficulty in what I am about to do (nofap), and it may result in the death of my current self (giving up juvenile pleasures like pornography, atheism, and the internet). If I can succeed, then I can shape myself into a good man, but I will still have something lurking beneath the exterior.
Now that I'm reflecting upon it, that's what has me so worried: I'll go to all this trouble and still be the same depraved lunatic I am now. I want to believe this won't be the case, and logically I'm sure it won't be, but it's still a scary hurdle which has held me back so far.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading this.
