|
DREAMS, THEIR
TRUTH AND MEANING
I am neither of
the night nor a worshipper of the
night;
Rather I am a
child of the day and therefore
give tidings of the day.
Those fancies
that are the traps of saints;
Are the
reflections of the moon-faced ones
of Divine gardens.
While you sleep
with your eyes closed, your ears
deaf, your tongue mute, and your
arms and legs motionless, how do you
travel, meet people, and do many
things in a few minutes or even
seconds? When you get up in the
morning, you feel deeply influenced
by that few seconds’ adventure.
Although Freud and his followers
attribute dreams to the subconscious
self, to thoughts and desires,
impulses and past experiences, how
can you explain dreams that inform
you of a future event with which you
have no contact or have never
thought about? How do we dream? With
what part of our body or being do we
dream? Why do dreams last only a few
seconds? How (and why) do we
remember what we dreamed while
asleep? All of these and many
similar questions are like puzzles
awaiting to be solved by science.
Sometimes while
we are asleep, our thoughts and
desires, impulses and past
experiences, which constitute our
subconscious, are revealed
unconsciously. We may be sick or
hungry, or have a problem that we
cannot solve. The imagination gives
form to the deviations of a bad
temper, or the mind remembers an
exciting event that happened some
time ago and gives it a new,
different form. All dreams coming
from such moods are jumbled; they
have some meaning, but they are not
worth interpreting. For example, if
we eat salty things before sleep, we
may dream that we are lying by a
pool; if we go to bed angry, we may
dream that we are fighting with
others.
There are some important
hidden truths in sleep and dreams.
Like the dream of
the Prophet Yusuf (Joseph), which is
the kernel of the Qur’anic chapter
of Yusuf, several verses (such as, We
have appointed the night for you as
a rest. (78:9)) show that there
are some important hidden truths in
sleep and dreams.
The people of truth do
not approve of using the Qur’an
as an ‘oracle’ to consult, nor
of relying on dreams.
The people of
truth do not approve of using the
Quran as an ‘oracle’ to
consult, nor of relying on dreams.
Since the Quran gives to
unbelievers severe and frequent
blows, it may cause despair when the
verses that threaten unbelievers
appear before one who opens the Book
to receive counsel. Likewise, since
dreams are often opposite to the
reality, they may also cause despair
or demoralization even if they are
essentially good and promising.
There are many dreams which, though
bad and dreadful in appearance,
prove to be good and pleasing in
actual life. Since not everyone is
able to find the true relationship
between a dream and its actual
meaning, people become uneasy and
anxious. It is for this reason that
in the beginning I said as the
people of truth say and quoted Imam
Rabbani: “I am neither of the
night nor a worshipper of night.”
True
dreams are one out of the forty-six
aspects of Prophethood.
God’s Messenger
says in an authentic narration that
true dreams are one out of the
forty-six aspects of Prophethood.
[That is, since God’s Messenger
had true dreams in the initial six
months of his twenty-three years’
Prophethood, true dreams are some
kind of Divine inspirations.] This
means that true dreams contain some
truths and have some connection with
the Prophetic mission. This is,
however, a lengthy matter, profound
and significant and related to
Prophethood, so I will cut it short
here, leaving its elaboration to
some later occasion.
There
are three kinds of dreams
Dreams are of
three kinds. Two are included in the
category of (in the Quranic
expression) jumbled dreams. Either
the imagination gives form to the
deviations of a bad temper or the
mind remembers an exciting event
which happened some time ago, and
gives it a new different form, and
the dreams a man has in such moods
are ‘jumbled ones’, (as
mentioned in the sura Yusuf
in the Quran1) not deserving of
interpretation.
1. The king
said: ‘I saw (in a dream)
seven fat cows which seven lean
ones devoured; and also seven
green ears of corn and (seven)
others dry. O my courtiers! Tell
me the interpretation of my
dream, if you understand the
meanings of dreams.’ They
said: ‘A jumble of dreams; and
we are not skilled in the
interpretation of jumbled
dreams.’ (Joseph) said: ‘You
shall sow, as usual, for seven
years. Leave in the ear the corn
you reap, except a little which
you may eat. Then will come
after that seven years of
severity, which will consume all
but a little of that which you
have stored for them. Then will
come after that a year in which
the people will have abundant
water and in which they will
press (juice, oil, etc.)' (Yusuf,
12.43-4, 47-9.)
True dreams
One type of dream
has nothing to do with the
subconscious self. Such dreams carry
important messages: either they are
good tidings from God, which
encourage us to do good things and
guide us, or warnings concerning the
evils we have done. Those dreams,
which we call true dreams, are very
clear and unforgettable.
Some true dreams
contain news of the future. To
understand the nature and mechanism
of such dreams, consider the
following:
As the essence of
a piece of writing, its meaning,
exists before it assumes a written,
visible form, everything has an
essential form of existence in God’s
Knowledge before it appears in the
world. Islamic philosophers call
these essential forms archetypes.
When God wills to send them to this
world, through the manifestation of
His Wisdom and Power and the
appropriate Divine Names, He clothes
them in material bodies. Between the
world of archetypes (where God’s
Knowledge has primary manifestation)
and this world is another world-the
world of immaterial forms or
symbols. In this world, things exist
in ideal forms or as symbols, and
the concept and measure of time are
completely different from their
counterparts in our world. One who
dreams finds or receives these
symbols differently, based on such
factors as time and place, culture
and even national and individual
characteristics.
When we sleep,
our spirit ascends to this world of
ideal forms without completely
breaking its connection to the body.
It continues this connection through
a cord. It enters a different
dimension of existence in the world
of ideal forms or symbols, where
past, present, and future are
combined. As a result, it may
experience a past event or witness a
future one. However, since things in
that world exist in ideal forms or
symbols, the spirit usually receives
symbols that require interpretation.
For example,
clear water in that world may
correspond to knowledge in this
world. If you see your own waste
matter, it may be interpreted to
mean that you will earn money in
lawful ways; if the waste matter
belongs to others, its may mean that
money will come to you in unlawful
ways. As mentioned in Sura Yusuf,
a fat cow may mean a year of
abundant crops, while a lean one
means a year of severity. The
metaphors, similes, and parables
found in the Qur’an and the
Prophetic sayings, and sometimes
among people, may provide
significant keys to interpret
dreams. Some true dreams are so
clear that no interpretation is
needed.
As the
measurement of time is completely
different in these two worlds, and
as the spirit is far more active
when not confined by the limits of
the body while the person is
dreaming, great saints who free
their spirits, to a certain some
degree, can travel long distances in
a much shorter time than normal
people.
Examples of true
dreams
Abraham Lincoln’s
dream the night before his
assassination is famous. In his
dream, he saw the White House
servants running to and fro, telling
each other that Mr. Lincoln had been
killed. He woke from his sleep in
great excitement and spent an uneasy
day. Despite warnings, he went to a
theater that evening and was killed.
Eisenhower’s
dream just before he landed on
Normandy in June 1944 changed the
course of the Second World War. A
few days before the date on which he
had decided to land, Eisenhower
dreamed that a big storm broke out
and overturned the landing crafts.
This caused him to move up the date.
History records that his dream was
accurate. The
mother of Anne Ostrovosky, a Russian
writer, saw many scenes of the
German-Russian battles 5 years
before the Second World War broke
out. Her dream was published in
several newspapers.
Several
scientific or technological
discoveries were first seen in
dreams. Elias Howe, while trying to
figure out how to thread a sewing
machine, dreamed that he was a
prisoner of a tribe who wanted him
to thread a sewing machine. In
mortal fear and puzzled, he suddenly
saw holes at the ends of his captors’
spears. He woke up and made a little
“spear” with a hole at one end. Niels
Bohr, who was studying atomic
structures, dreamed of planets
connected to the sun with threads
and turning around it. When he woke
up, he conceived of a resemblance
between what he had dreamed and
atomic structures.
Many other true
dreams have predicted future events
or resulted in scientific or
technological discoveries. But these
few examples must suffice to
understand the true nature of
dreams-that is, they are the result
of the sprit’s journey in inner
dimensions of existence (the world
of immaterial forms or symbols) and
receiving signals therein.
Finally, dreams
provide a strong proof for the
existence of immaterial worlds as
well as for Divine Knowledge and
Destiny. If God Almighty had not
predetermined and recorded all
events in “the Supreme Guarded
Tablet,” how could we be informed
of future events? Also, dreams show
that the measure of time differs
greatly according to each world’s
features.
A true dream is
the result of the elaboration of a
presentiment
A true dream is
the result of the elaboration of a
presentiment. Presentiment is found
in everybody to some extent; it is
possessed even by animals. I have
even discovered that man and animals
have, in addition to their inner and
outer ones, two other senses that
may be called ‘motivating and
enticing senses or impulses’.
Although the people of misguidance
and corrupt thinking foolishly call
those unperceived senses ‘instincts’,
they should rather be regarded as
‘inborn inspiration’ through
which Divine Destiny directs man and
animals. It is through such
direction of Destiny that, for
example, when its eye is blind, a
cat goes and finds the herb with
which to heal its eye, and, by
rubbing it against that herb, its
eye is healed.
Likewise, such
flesh-eating birds as vultures,
which may be regarded as the
sanitary officials of the surface of
the earth because of being
creationally charged with removing
the corpses of wild animals, are
informed of the existence of a
carcass tens of miles away through
that direction of Destiny or the
inspiration of presentiment or
through Divine orientation and are
able to locate that carcass.
It is in the same
way that some days-old bee can fly
miles away and, without losing its
way, return to its hive. It even
happens frequently that a man
unexpectedly appears before you at
the moment you have mentioned him.
This is because your spiritual
faculty has felt, through
presentiment, the coming of that
man. Such occurrences are so common
and often that it is said in Turkey
as a proverb: ‘When you mentioned
a wolf, get hold of a staff to hit
it with.’ You are, in fact,
unaware of the coming of the man or
a wolf, nor could you have been
informed of it by reason. Rather, it
is because you felt it through
presentiment that you mention it
unintentionally. This presentiment
develops so far in men of piety,
especially in saintly people, that
it becomes the source of wonders.
Since the common
people are also endowed with some
kind of sainthood, they grasp in
true dreams some things of the
future or the Unseen World. Just as
sleep is like a rank of sainthood in
respect of true dreams, so also it
is a time or space of recreation in
which magnificent Divine moving
pictures are shown.
Now, a man of
good conduct thinks of that which is
better, and he who thinks of that
which is better sights beautiful
tablets. By contrast, a man of evil
conduct thinks of that which is
worse and thereby sights ugly
tablets.
Sleep is, again
on account of true dreams, also a
window opening on the World of the
Unseen in the corporeal world.
Further, it is a field of release
and freedom for mortal man confined
in a restricted area, and also a
theatre which has a kind of
permanence and where time consists
in the present only in which past
and future are united. In addition,
sleep is a period of repose for
living beings crushed under the
burdens of life. It is because of
such aspects of sleep that the Wise
Qur’an teaches us the truth of
sleep in such verses as, We have
appointed sleep for you as a rest.
True dreams
demonstrate God’s Compassion and
point to Divine Destiny
True dreams have
long convinced me through direct
experience and provided a decisive
proof for me that Divine Destiny
encompasses everything. Those dreams
have, in fact, come to mean for me
that what will happen to me
tomorrow, down to the most
insignificant event or business or
conversation, has already been
predetermined. I learn of them at
night in dreams as if I read them
with my eyes. It has happened not
once or a hundred times, but perhaps
a thousand times, that the people I
have seen or the matters I have
talked about in dreams, turn out the
following day to be true with only a
slight interpretation. This means
that nothing is accidental or
coincidental in the universe, nor it
is random; rather, everything down
to the most insignificant events,
has already been destined and
predetermined.
|
|
