Dreams - A Sufi Perspective
The
following response is to an e-mail inquiry concerning some dreams that several friends had
on the same night involving the mother of the person who sent the e-mail. The purpose of
this response is not to interpret the dreams in question, and, indeed, we do not encourage
visitors to this Page (i.e., The Sufi Path: A Journey to Mysical Self-realization) to send
their dreams to this Site in search of such interpretations.
The Page’s response is intended to point out a few of the general features of the
dream world from a Sufi perspective. As such, the discussion below may help readers to
develop a broad orientation through which to engage some of the principles which are given
expression by the nature of dreams and their formation.
These
comments are not, in any way, meant to be definitive. They are merely an introduction to
an experiential phenomenon which can play an important role in our lives.
As far as
the dreams your friends had are concerned, one should try to keep certain things in mind.
Relatively speaking, very few dreams are true in a literal way.
On occasion,
indeed, some people do see what is to come in the "future" in their dreams in a
way that can be remarkable in the detail it shows of the forthcoming reality. By and
large, however, dreams are not straight forward and, therefore, like life events, dreams
require interpretation.
You should
understand that the dream world is a barzakh, or isthmus, which links two different
worlds. These are the material/physical world, on the one hand, and, on the other hand,
the spiritual world.
The events,
people, objects, happenings, processes, and so on which take place during dreams
constitute symbolic forms or similes (likenesses) which bring together the aforementioned
two, very different modalities of being or ontology (i.e., the physical/material and the
spiritual). Thus, when trying to understand a dream, one needs to grasp the fact that the
language of dreams is trying to find a way to combine these different worlds in a manner
which keeps the essence or message of the dream intact, even if the surface form or symbol
through which the dream is given expression, becomes somewhat distorted and/or confusing
in the process.
The two
dreams which your friends experienced may have had nothing to do with your mother
whatsoever. Yet, your mother's likeness was in the dream because the language of dreams
felt that of all the symbols which could be drawn upon that might be understandable to
your two friends, for whatever reason, the form of your mother was seized upon to give
expression to a part of what was being communicated to them in the dreams.
The reason
why your mother's form may have been selected could be because of some quality, trait,
mannerism, or the like, which your mother has which the language of dreams chose to put
into the dream as the best way to communicate some aspect of the dream-message. And, oddly
enough, although your mother's form may have been selected by two different people on the
same night, the reason why her form was selected may have been very different in each
case.
To one
friend, your mother's image may have been used in order to try to communicate one
particular kind of quality or character or theme or issue which might be associated, in
that person's way of thinking and understanding, with your mother in some manner. To your
other friend, the process of dream formation may have "felt" that your mother's
image was the best choice to communicate some other particular quality or character that
is associated with your mother in the context of this other person's life.
Your
mother's figure was a common factor in both dreams, but something different may have been
meant in each case. While there always are exceptions to the rule, there are, for the most
part, no universal dream symbols which mean precisely the same thing to every human being.
There may be
certain forms of symbols which are common to the dream experiences of a wide variety of
people. Nonetheless, the process of dream formation invests these common forms and symbols
with very different meanings, purposes, significance, and so on.
Dreams are
very contextual and tied to the person having the dream. After all, the communication is
to them, not to your mother, and not, necessarily about your mother either.
A further
consideration is the following. when we dream we do not dream in our heads or our bodies.
To be sure, our bodies and minds do exhibit patterns of activity - such as EEG readings
and rapid eye movements (i.e., REM) which can be correlated with, but do not cause- our
soul's point of departure to alam al-mithal. At the very most, the patterns of activity of
the brain and the body which are associated with the dream state, are preparatory for the
dream state rather than being either the same as, or a cause of, dreaming.
In point of
fact, our souls are the locus of manifestation through which we experience dreams. The
soul becomes a locus of manifestation for the dream state when we travel to the realm of
alam al-mithal - the world of symbols and similes or likenesses.
While
visiting that realm, we can "run into", so to speak, other souls who live in the
physical/material world, as well as the spirits of those who have passed atheist meetings
have their own spiritual significance.
In any case,
let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that your friends ran into your mother while
she, herself, was traveling in that realm and having her own dream encounter. Now, your
friends have their own life-preoccupations, and when, they see your mother's soul in alam
al-mithal, each of your friends, according to the "logic" of symbol formation
that goes on within the language of dreams, seizes on the form of your mother as just the
"right" way to say what needs to be said in this facet of the dream of each of
your friends.
It is like
in everyday life when we are walking along and we bump into someone. Something about the
person we bump into triggers a realization that we have to do something, or we have
forgotten to do something, or that someone is coming later to visit, or some such thing.
What has
been remembered may have nothing to do with the person we bumped into except there is
something about that person's quality, character, appearance, and so on which has
triggered-off a response in our memory banks. The language and logic of memory
programming, as it were, has seized upon the 'chance' meeting with a given individual to
generate symbols which can be translated into a form that can be recognized as having
importance to some other aspect of our lives - i.e., the realization of things left
undone, or forthcoming dinner parties, appointments, birthdays, meetings, and so on.
For example,
in computer technology and software development, there are different levels of translation
which need to take place as one moves from, say, machine language, to compilers and
assembly language, and, finally, to the higher-level of programming languages (such as
HTML) which can be used so dummies like me can have a chance of goofing up. Similarly, in
dreams, there are different levels of compiling and assembling of dream language syntax
and semantics so that the finished product can be in the form of a symbol or likeness
which the dreamer might have a chance of understanding and using.
The dreamer
may find it maddening that the language of dreams can't be clearer about what it has to
communicate. Nevertheless, there are reasons for this, just as there are reasons why
various kinds and levels of computer language should be structured the way they are,
despite the frustration which many of us may feel for the, seemingly, unnecessarily
obscure, dense, and roundabout character of its logic and syntax.
The
particular symbols involving your mother in the dreams of your friends probably have
meaning and significance, but they have meaning and significance in the context of those
people's lives, personality and problems. One cannot abstract dreams out of a concrete
framework and say this is absolutely what their dream means.
Najm al-Din
Razi (may Allah be pleased with him) once described how the single symbol of fire could
have tremendously different meanings - from the very lowest, to the very highest, realms
of existence -depending on the person doing the dreaming and depending on the
circumstances in that individual's life , as well as the person's position within the
realm of spirituality. Consequently, as far as the dreams of your mother which your
friends experienced, I would try to put things in the foregoing perspective.
In short,
there could be some non-coincidental reason why both people dreamed about your mother on
the same night. One possibility, of course, is that the dreams really were about your
mother (as a soul) and not just as a repository of likenesses from which the process of
dream formation could seize upon in order to communicate something or other to the one's
doing the dreaming.
Nonetheless,
one cannot take the seemingly ominous nature of their dreams as necessarily meaning that
something dark and sinister is going to happen to your mother. For example, sometimes when
different Names and Attributes of Allah are in dynamic tension with respect to a given
individual, this tension can be expressed in the form of being shot at.
Furthermore,
the symbol of being given a lethal injection might mean that something within your mother
is dying, but need not mean that she is dying, or going to die, in the near future in a
biological sense. Sometimes symbols of death can be a good thing, as when we are dying to
our attachments, desires, biases, grudges against others and so on.
The other
possibility is that the two dreams on the same night were still not coincidental, and,
yet, they had little to do with your mother. Your friends dreamed about her because they
may have, as indicated earlier, "bumped into" her soul in alam al-mithal and
this provided a seed of likeness or simile out of which the language of dreams fashioned a
symbol to communicate something of significance to your friends, but for different reasons
in each case.
Our lives
are in Allah's hands. God twists our hearts between the forefingers of Divinity in
whichever way is deemed appropriate for the real purpose of our lives.
We all must
taste death. We all should live with death as a constant companion, knowing that the Angel
of Death is ready to perform the duty of whisking us away from life at God's command - but
not one second before that command is given.
As Hafiz of
Shiraz has said: "The One Who is looking after your affairs is already busy looking
after your affairs. Your worry adds nothing but worry to your affair."
I do not
feel the dreams of your friends have to do with the possibility of your mother's impending
demise. Yet, if they do, deal with it when it happens, not now.
Now, you
should be busy letting your mother know how much you sincerely love her and appreciate
her. Now, you should be busy doing things for her and serving her.
Don't let it
be said of you on the Day of Judgement that when your mother's time to go came, that there
were kind, loving and compassionate things you could have done for, or with, or said to,
your mother which were left undone or unsaid. Now, you have opportunities to interact with
your mother, so, don't let them pass you by.
The future
is already looking after itself. Your duties lie in the present.
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