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In the second part of this series, the discussion moves further into the relationship between our waking experiences and what takes place in our minds while we sleep.
It examines how memories, emotions, religious beliefs and past experiences can influence the way we understand our dreams, while introducing the concept of karma and the enduring consequences of human actions.
The relationship between religious teaching and children’s psychological wellbeing has also attracted public attention in Japan, where guidance concerning religionrelated child abuse has addressed situations involving repeated fear-based teachings, including threats that children will go to hell if they disobey particular religious instructions or fail to fulfil certain obligations.
The wider significance of such discussions lies in the questions they raise about the boundaries between religious instruction and psychological intimidation. The presence of religion alone does not determine whether a child is being harmed; the child’s age, the nature and intensity of the teaching, the degree of coercion and its effect on the child’s wellbeing all matter. Children can be taught moral responsibility without being made to fear that every question is an offence, and they can be introduced to spiritual beliefs without
being terrorized into obedience. This distinction is important because fear can remain long after the original warning has disappeared from the child’s immediate environment. It may continue to influence adult decisions, personal relationships and the interpretation of unfamiliar experiences, including the dreams that emerge when conscious control begins to loosen.
When we fall asleep, we do not enter that state as empty minds. Although the body rests, the brain remains active, and dreaming can involve fragments of memory, emotion, recent experiences, familiar faces, fears and desires. Researchers continue to investigate the precise functions of dreaming, but sleep does not simply erase the person we were while awake. We carry our history into it: our upbringing, cultural beliefs, religious teachings, private worries, unresolved grief and experiences that may have faded from conscious memory but still hold emotional significance.
This is where religion and dreams begin to intersect. Religious beliefs do not necessarily determine the content of a dream, but they can influence the person experiencing it and the meaning that person assigns to what happens during sleep.
Someone raised to fear hell may interpret a nightmare involving fire or darkness through that fear, while a person who believes that deceased ancestors can punish wrongdoing may understand a dream about a dead relative as a warning. Another person may believe that dreams carry messages from God, whereas someone approaching the experience from a scientific perspective may look for connections to stress, memory and waking events. The same dream can therefore produce very different interpretations, depending on the beliefs and experiences of the person who has it.
The concept of karma introduces another dimension to this discussion. In several Indian religious and philosophical traditions, karma concerns the relationship between action and consequence, although its precise meaning differs across traditions and is more complex than the popular expression “what goes around comes around.” Its relevance here lies in the question of how our actions continue to matter beyond the moment in which they occur.
An action may produce a consequence, that consequence may become an experience, and the experience may be stored as a memory that influences future behaviour. When a behaviour is repeated over time, it can develop into a habit and eventually contribute to the way a person understands their own identity. Psychology examines related processes through learning, conditioning, memory and behaviour, while karma places action within a broader moral and, in some traditions, cosmological framework.
These perspectives should not be treated as identical, since psychological research does not establish karma as a supernatural law. Nevertheless, both invite us to consider the lasting influence of what we do and the ways our past experiences can shape our future choices.
The relationship between karma and forgiveness raises a further question. Many religious traditions teach that people can seek forgiveness for their wrongdoing and find a way to move forward without being condemned forever by their past.
This can offer genuine comfort and create an opportunity for repentance, moral reflection and personal change. Yet it is worth asking whether forgiveness necessarily removes every consequence of an action. Imagine someone who has harmed another person, feels remorse and sincerely asks God for forgiveness. Depending on the person’s religious beliefs, they may come to believe that their sins have been forgiven, but what does that mean for the person who was harmed? Does forgiveness automatically restore broken trust, repair a damaged relationship, reverse a physical injury or return something that was taken? Does it guarantee that the victim will feel safe again, or remove the responsibility of the person who caused the harm to make amends? These questions extend beyond theology because they concern the relationship between moral intention and the consequences that actions leave behind.
Forgiveness may change a person’s relationship with God, with themselves or with their community. It may release them from endless self-condemnation and give them the courage to begin again, but it does not necessarily mean that every consequence has disappeared. A person may be forgiven and still need to apologize, repair the damage they have caused and accept that the person they hurt may require time before trust can be restored. They may no longer need to define themselves permanently by their worst action, yet they must still acknowledge that the action occurred. Seen in this way, forgiveness and consequence do not necessarily have to be enemies.
Forgiveness can create the possibility of transformation, while responsibility ensures that transformation is reflected in conduct rather than remaining a private feeling of relief. The difficulty arises when forgiveness is understood as permission to avoid accountability, allowing someone to seek peace through prayer while refusing to face the harm they have caused. Remorse is not the same as repair, confession is not the same as restitution, and forgiveness does not always mean freedom from every consequence.
These questions may also help explain why a person can sincerely believe that they have been forgiven and still find themselves thinking about past wrongdoing, sometimes while awake and sometimes through dreams. They may pray before going to bed, ask for mercy and feel confident that their faith has offered them a fresh beginning, only to dream about the person they hurt or the event they wish they could undo. Such a dream does not, by itself, prove that divine punishment is taking place or that the person has not been forgiven. It may reflect the persistence of memory, unresolved emotion or a continuing awareness of responsibility.
Yet the experience can still feel deeply significant to the person who has it, especially when their religious or cultural background has taught them to understand dreams as messages carrying moral or spiritual meaning. The mind may continue returning to a past event even when the conscious individual believes that the matter has been settled, leaving them to consider what forgiveness means not only for their relationship with God, but also for their relationship with other people and with themselves.
Perhaps the more useful question is not whether forgiveness exists, but what it asks of us after we have received it. If forgiveness removes every sense of responsibility, it can become an excuse for avoiding the consequences of our actions. If, however, it makes genuine change possible while preserving the need for accountability, it can become the beginning of a more meaningful relationship with ourselves and the people around us.
