Wet Dreams

I recently decided to do an entire month of NoFap on hard-mode (no porn, masturbation, or orgasm [even from sex]). My girlfriend has been very supportive of it, it's been a great experience for me, and I think it's bringing us closer together in a lot of ways. I've been clean from porn for over 240 days now, and that's been a really positive experience, so I wanted to see what it would be like to just take a break from all orgasm for a month.

Anyway, with that background information out of the way, I woke up this morning to a bit of a mess. It was the first wet dream I've had since I was twelve years old. Only, it wasn't really a dream. It was rather more like a nightmare. In the dream, I was in a hotel or something and I was on my laptop, searching desperately for some of the porn I used to watch when I was deep in my addiction. In the dream, I was masturbating while I was searching, but I couldn't seem to find what I was looking for. I became frustrated, and the next thing I knew, I was awake in my bed, my pants all messy.

I know it wasn't a relapse, since it was just a dream and completely out of my control, but it was a really upsetting experience for me. I'm not a psychologist or anything, but it seems like there's some part of me (maybe subconsciously) that still holds on to porn.

I'm not really sure what else to say about it. The experience was really distressing for me, and I just wanted to share my thoughts about it here. Thanks for reading it.

 

The more I've researched it, the more I see that it's pretty common with addiction to have dreams like that. I've heard of alcoholics having dreams of drinking, cocaine users having dreams of using cocaine, etc. I guess it's part of the recovery process for a lot of people.

I'm trying to take it as a sign that I'm working really hard at this, and that my recovery is really important to me. Hopefully the next time I have one of these dreams I'll be able to treat myself with more kindness.

 

Thanks for the encouragement. I'll keep going forward in my recovery and I'm sure the dreams will eventually move on.