This was an awful story to me. Young Goodman Brown makes all the wrong moves in this tale.
Leaving his wife behind to travel to meet someone (Il Diablo??) in the forest at night for an errand. Magic that causes Brown to wake up after this "dream" and rejects everything and everyone he knew before.
His mind gets in the way of his love for his girl and his pious beliefs with his preacher.
I think that the whole story was to be a dream, and when he woke up that memory of the dream stayed with him and he carried it into his everyday life. Haven't you ever had a dream that was so real and then it just ruined your whole day?