Posted by Mohammad Awais Tahir
E- Differentiating between the three types of dreams
Ibn Qutaybah ad-Dinawari ﻪﻣﺣﺭﷲ says in his book about dream interpretations,
"There is nothing in which people deal with from the different sciences that is more obscure, delicate, exalted, noble, difficult and problematic than dreams because they are a type of revelation and type of Prophethood."
We are living in an age where the knowledge of the material world is increasing exponentially, rendering it impossible for a person to grasp even a tiny portion of it in totality. And as for the knowledge of metaphysical dimensions, we are far behind the people of the past.
We see Yaqub ﻪﻳﻠﻋﻡﻼﺳﻟﺍ forbidding Yusuf ﻪﻳﻠﻋﻡﻼﺳﻟﺍ to narrate his dream to his brothers, because even those deviant kids had knowledge to take out some meaning from the dream (See Reference # 2). And in the age of ours, we tend to wobble at even the first step of interpretation,that is to know whether the dream needs an interpretation or not, which used to be a child play in the times that have passed. As elaborated above one needs to know whether the dream is meaningful or a meaningless one because one's reaction to the dream depends on this. Realizing, the importance of the topic we will try to list down mandatory and probable characteristics of the three types of dreams. Before we go on with the list few points are to be clarified :
1- We are not discussing the topic of interpretation of dreams, rather, we are dealing with a topic, a satisfactory grasp of which is a must have for interpretation. Hence, we are dealing with a prerequisite of science of interpretation of dreams.
2- We will try to list down mandatory and probable characteristics of the three types of dreams. For a dream to belong to a particular type it should possess all the mandatory characteristics but it may or may not possess all the probable characteristics. Hence, instead of getting confused on comparing one's dream to few of the listed characteristics. One should go through the whole list to have conviction on his filtration.
3- Books written on the topics of interpretation of dreams do mention the characteristics of the three types of dreams, but all the characteristics are mentioned as mandatory ones, which might not be the case always. Hence, the set of rules given fails some times, and makes the dreamer confused. The idea of mandatory and probable characteristics is unique in this regard.
4- The purpose of this list is not to be able to identify any dream as type 1, 2 or 3. Rather, the main idea is to be able to filter out dreams of type 1 from the remaining two.
5- Many ahadith mention only two types of dreams that is ﺎﻳﺅﺭﻟﺍ and ﻡﻠﺣﻟﺍ , and do not draw any line between type2 and type 3. The reason being, the thin differentiating line between these two types. Many a times dreams are so jumbled out that one can't figure out different between type 2 and type 3. Also, it is needless to differentiate between type 2 and type 3 as both are meaningless.
6- Nevertheless, we will mention all the characteristics for the three under different headings. For our ease in future, we should take them just as characteristics of true (type 1) and false (type 2 and 3) dreams in future. One should develop his own two column table of these characteristics. This exercise is left to the individuals because dreams have a lot to do with one's own orientation and thinking and sleeping patterns.
7- As a rule, one should ponder over, care for and relate only those dreams which pass through the complete filter (the list you tabulated yourself), and the dreamer has conviction that this surely was a true dream (type1).
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