Thoughts on Watchfulness and Vigilance After Watching "A Nightmare on Elm Street"

I was at my local drive-in theater a few days ago watching the 1984 original A Nightmare on Elm Street, which I've seen at least a dozen times over the years, though this was my first time outdoors in the woods. For those who don't know, the movie centers around the spirit of Freddy Krueger, who in life was a serial killer that targeted children, and who now uses a gloved hand with razors to kill his victims in their dreams, causing their deaths in the real world as well. The more I see this film, the more I see Orthodox Christian themes of watchfulness and vigilance that one often encounters in its literature.

On Dreams (St. Gregory the Dialogist)

By St. Gregory the Dialogist

(Dialogues, Bk. 4, Chs. 48 & 49)

You must understand that there are six kind of dreams. For sometime they proceed of too much fullness or emptiness of the stomach, sometime by illusion, sometime both by thought and illusion, sometime by revelation, and sometime both by thought and revelation. The two first all by experience know to be true, and the four latter we find mentioned in Holy Scripture.

On Spiritual Deception (St. Ignatius Brianchaninov)

By Bishop Ignatius (Brianchaninov)

Disciple: Give me a precise and detailed notion of spiritual deception. What exactly is this condition?

Elder: Spiritual deception is the wounding of human nature by falsehood. Spiritual deception is the state of all men without exception, and it has been made possible by the fall of our original parents. All of us are subject to spiritual deception. Awareness of this fact is the greatest protection against it. Likewise, the greatest spiritual deception of all is to consider oneself free from it. We are all deceived, all deluded; we all find ourselves in a condition of falsehood; we all need to be liberated by the Truth. The Truth is our Lord Jesus Christ (Jn. 8:32-14:6). Let us assimilate that Truth by faith in it; let us cry out in prayer to this Truth, and it will draw us out of the abyss of demonic deception and self-delusion. Bitter is our state! It is that prison from which we beseech that our souls be led out, that we may confess the name of the Lord (Ps 141:8). It is that gloomy land into which our life has been cast by the enemy that hates and pursues us. It is that carnal-mindedness (Rom. 8:6) and knowledge falsely so called (I Tim. 6:20) wherewith the entire world is infected, refusing to acknowledge its illness, insisting, rather, that it is in the bloom of health. It is that “flesh and blood” which “cannot inherit the Kingdom of God” (I Cor. 15:50). It is that eternal death which is healed and destroyed by the Lord Jesus, Who is “the Resurrection and the Life” (Jn. 11:25). Such is our state. And the perception thereof is a new reason to weep. With tears let us cry out to the Lord Jesus to bring us out of prison, to draw us forth from the depths of the earth, and to wrest us from the jaws of death! “For this cause did our Lord Jesus Christ descend to us,” says the venerable Symeon the New Theologian, “because he wanted to rescue us from captivity and from most wicked spiritual deception.”

On Dreams (Metr. Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos

In the previous chapter we discussed fantasy and imagination, the damage they cause to our spiritual health, and how we can be ultimately healed of their negative influence.

Dreams are also closely linked with imagination, as we shall see in the following pages. Because many Christians are inexperienced in this aspect of spiritual warfare and incapable of dealing with the matter of dreams, they create problems for themselves. It is not uncommon for people to pay close attention to dreams and to examine what they dreamt the night before, without realising that by so doing they become dupes of the devil. There is also a tendency for people to examine dreams in accordance with the teachings and conclusions of secular psychotherapy, which are different from the Orthodox Tradition.

The holy Fathers were concerned about this issue. In the following pages I shall set out their teaching on dreams, the distorting consequences they have for man, and how they can be cured. It will become clear that the way the Fathers treat the subject of dreams deserves our attention.

Saint Paisios the Athonite on Spiritual Delusion

Ascesis and delusion

- Elder, I am afraid of delusion.

- So you should. Whoever is afraid of delusion will not be deluded, because they are careful and they deposit their every thought - they hide nothing and are thus helped.

- Elder, what is a predisposition for delusion?

- The predisposition for delusion is to imagine that you are something special and showing others that you are achieving something. It is to imagine that you have reached spiritual heights because - for example - you have accomplished an ascetic feat (when others have not yet perceived the meaning of the spiritual life) and then behave arrogantly. It is when you force yourself egotistically during ascesis in order to attain the measure of a Saint so that others might admire you: that is the beginning of delusion. Violence is one thing and force is another. I told someone once, "Take care that you don't become deluded, with those tactics of yours; it won't be to your benefit." "Me, deluded?" he replied. "I even abstain from meat." But he didn't go to confession either. He used to disclose his sins to an icon. "What are you? Orthodox or a Protestant?" I said to him. "Where did you find that in writing?" "Why?" he retorted. "Can't Christ hear me?" What a remark!

On Dreams, Superstitions and the Evil Eye

By Archimandrite Vasilios Bakoyiannis

A Greek proverb says “The devil has lots of legs.” He can walk many paths, some of them very torturous. So he is perfectly capable of trapping you at any time.

Mediums, the occult, astrology and so on, are paths that the devil treads. Just how and why, we will have a look at now.

DREAMS

Should we believe in dreams? If you have a dream that suggests something bad is going to happen to you, should you take it seriously or not pay any attention to it? There are human, diabolical and God-sent dreams. The only ones that are valid are those sent by God.

St. John Climacus: On Demons and Dreams

By St. John Climacus

- A dream is a movement of the mind while the body is at rest. A phantasy is an illusion of the eyes when the intellect is asleep. A phantasy is an ecstasy of the mind when the body is awake. A phantasy is the appearance of something which does not exist in reality.

- The reason why we have decided to speak about dreams here is obvious. When we leave our home and relatives for the Lord’s sake, and sell ourselves into exile for the love of God, then the devils try to disturb us with dreams, representing to us that our relatives are either grieving or dying, or are captive for our sake and destitute. But he who believes in dreams is like a person running after his own shadow and trying to catch it.

Saint Barsanuphios the Great on Demonic Dreams and Delusions

Q: Can the demons communicate anything good? And how does one discover that it is demonic? And what distinguishes it from something good from God?

A: To someone it might seem that he receives something good, but this is from the evil one for his deception. For every good thing which comes from the devil for the deception of a man, being precisely examined, turns out to be unreal; for the devil is a liar, and there is no truth in him (John 8:44), as is shown by the consequences of that (false good). His light ends in darkness, according to the Apostle’s word which speaks about diabolic heralds transformed into the servants of righteousness "whose end will be according to their deeds" (II Corinthians 11:15); and the Savior says: "By their fruit ye shall know them" (Matthew 7:16). If you investigate with understanding and judgment, you will find in the false good (which comes) from the devil, there was not even a trace of good, but either vainglory, or disturbance, or something similar; but the good which comes from God always increases enlightenment and humility of heart and gives a man quietness. But when, out of ignorance, we suffer in something from the deception of the evil one, and later we recognize in this a temptation, then let us call ourselves and hasten to Him Who is powerful to do away with this temptation. One should know that to some the difference (between the good of the devil and that of God) is understandable from the very beginning; while to sinners, only at the end (of the temptation), just as a skilled master in gold work can take gold (in his hand) and tell before it is tested with fire of what sort it is, while an unskilled one does not find this out until it has been tested with fire.