Dreams are some of the most odd, and sometimes most uncomfortable, experiences for us. They can sometimes also be so realistic that we do not even know if we are awake or still dreaming. One can feel the same after a false awakening, where one dreams of having been awakened. In a false awakening, the room in which a person becomes awake is commonly similar to the room in which he fell asleep. This feeling may end with a sign during a dream and then it suddenly dawns on the person that he is experiencing a dream instead of reality. This is called lucid dreaming, which can be described as being aware that you are dreaming and are in control of your dreams. A person can also enter the dream state while he is conscious and can control the dream. Before exploring the endless possibilities of lucid dreaming, we will start with the physical nature of dreams. The spiritual nature and interpretation of dreams from a metaphysical standpoint are discussed in previous articles [1-4] of The Fountain Magazine.

Dreaming is a state of consciousness in which one can experience anything imaginable [5]. What you can do or experience in dreams is usually not limited to physical boundaries. We walk, run, fly, and even pass through walls. We see many symbols that may represent multiple meanings. Dreams can relate to the past, present, and the future of a person. They can help us to remember our pasts, understand the present, and shed light upon the future. Dreaming is an interesting part of our lives and the contents of our dreams are usually fed from our daily experiences.

Dreams are defined as a succession of thoughts, images, sounds, or emotions which the mind experiences during sleep [6]. It is also described differently in many areas: physiologically as a response to neural processes during sleep; psychologically as reflections of the subconscious; and spiritually as messages from God, the deceased, or predictions of the future [7]. Dreaming is not only unique to humans. Studies show that some animals, and even plants, have high brain activity while they sleep which could mean that they dream. However, remembering dreams is unique to humans. It enables communication with the inner mind, helps self-knowledge, and advances an individual and society [8].

Dreams are also an important source of inspirations in history. We know many examples of inventions that were inspired by, and problems that were solved with, the help of dreams. Niels Bohr, famous Danish physicist, got the Nobel Prize in physics in 1922 due to a dream that enlightened him to figure out the structure of an atom. George Frideric Handel, German-English Baroque composer, heard the last pieces of his most popular work, The Messiah, in a dream he had. Elias Howe was inspired with a dream for his famous needle design that was required for a lock-stitch sewing machine. Famous chemist, Friedreick Kekule’s (1829–1896) dream helped him to make one of the amazing discoveries of his time [9], the discovery of benzene ring. After spending so much time on scientific problems, they become a part of their subconscious and feed their dreams.

There are mental blocks that prevent us from thinking creatively such as “a problem can’t be solved by using a specific method” or “a scientific approach against our current understanding of the theory”. Ray Kurzweil, one of the world’s leading inventors, thinks that these assumptions and limitations are relaxed in our dream state and so we can think about new ways of solving problems without limiting ourselves with these constraints [10]. Also, during dreaming our rational faculties are not evaluating whether an idea is reasonable or not, which helps us to think outside-of-the-box and produce creative solutions. Another constraint with these scientific problems is time. Repetitive experiments take quite some time with many unfruitful results. Thomas Edison, the inventor of the practical electric light bulb, literally tested thousands of different substances as filaments that would work in his experiments. Dreams can provide an opportunity to rapidly work on time consuming problems within a relatively short time span.

A common misconception regarding dreams is that we experience hours’ worth of events and activities  in a matter of seconds. Despite this common belief about the expansion of time in dreams, they seem to flow at the same rate as time does in the real world [11]. Five minutes of activity in our dreams probably would take about five minutes in our daily life. In that case, how can we explain that some of our dreams seem to last hours, days or even longer? The answer to this perception of time seems to be that dreams are cinematic. Movies generally cover a longer time period than the two hours that we spent in front of the screen. Just like these movies, we concentrate on the interesting parts of the dreams and leave out the rest. If you are trying to solve a scientific problem in your dream, wouldn’t it be nice to skip all the repetitive, unproductive, and time-consuming parts such as planning, research, experiment design, decision making, and analysis of the results?

All of these advantages of dreams for solving problems requires being awake and even in control of your dreams as is the case with lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is not a new term, as it was coined by the Dutch psychiatrist and writer Frederik van Eeden (1860–1932). The existence of lucid dreaming is well established and has been researched scientifically [12]. During a lucid dream, a person can actively be in control and change experiences in the dream environment. Lucid dreams can start as a normal dream when the person realizes that he or she is dreaming (DILD, Dream-Initiated Lucid Dream), or a person can go from a normal state to dream state while preserving the consciousness (WILD, Wake Induced Lucid Dream). There are many techniques to induce lucid dreaming such as dream-recall, reality testing, identifying dream-signs, mnemonic induction, and napping.  Many people experience lucid dreaming, but it is a skill one can develop. With proper training and exercise, one can increase lucid dreaming frequency from once per month to once per night.

A common method to determine if you are in a dream is called reality testing. The test simply includes performing an action and checking whether the expected results are consistent with real life. An unexpected result of the test lets the person realize that they are in a dream. When the person is lucid and aware in a dream, then he can exercise control and practice basic tasks, even the actions that contradict with known physical rules. A new world opens its doors to endless possibilities where all the actions are bound only with imagination. Flying, jumping from a plane without a parachute and landing safely, walking on water, teleportation between distant locations, transforming scenes, and telekinesis would be your everyday activities. You may feel how limiting our daily life is and that you are meant to live in a world where you can use your unlimited imagination.

An obvious benefit of lucid dreaming is being the basis of the most effective therapy for nightmares [13]. If you are aware that you are dreaming then there is no need to fear anything, including even the most horrifying monsters, because nothing can cause you physical harm. This may encourage you to face the threat rather than avoiding it. Lucid dreams feel extremely realistic and it is not easy to differentiate from real life. Many people use lucid dreaming for rehearsals. It can be used to improve public speaking, artistic performance, athletic activities, and courage for competitions. Realistic features of lucid dreaming can be used to fulfill one’s longing for his loved ones, relatives living abroad, or even for ones passed away. Lucid dreaming can be used as a meeting place for the ones living apart and do not have a chance to meet regularly. This will be a virtual meeting not only in the sense of telepresence but also the ones you meet will be a construct of your brain.

The brain is highly active during dreaming and not constrained by physical senses. This contributes to creative thinking and novel combinations of events and objects in our dreams. When combined with the cinematic behavior of dreams, lucid dreams can provide a platform for creative thinking and ideas for scientific issues by skipping the repetitive and time-consuming steps. There are other ways to use lucid dreaming for educational purposes. A quickly scanned book can be recalled from memory and read thoroughly. One can practice memorization of scriptures or even dictionaries. It can be used for learning and practicing a foreign language and all other repetitive learning processes.

Another area of application for lucid dreaming is healing. Patients can use dreams to enhance waking performance, improve physical health, alleviate and soothe pain, overcome phobias, achieve self-confidence, practice physical skills, recover neuromuscular functions, recover from injuries, and an increased sense of freedom for the disabled. Our last example but maybe the most exciting application area of lucid dreaming is entertainment. The movies and computer games cannot provide the experience as realistic as you can get in your dreams including even movies with a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars and the latest projection technologies. You can create your own big budget movie and be the main actor in your lucid dream. How would you design your new Jurassic Park or Matrix movie?

The realistic experience in dreams leads us to the question, “If this is not real, what is?” What if the world we think and live in is another construct and that we are waiting to wake up into another “real” world? We need to look beyond our daily lives and question the nature of reality and our purpose in this life. Are we living in this world to be a small actor in a dream or to take back the control and get ready to wake up into the “real” world? Maybe it is time for a reality check…

Acknowledgment: This article was produced by using MERGEOUS [14], an online article and project development platform for authors and publishers dedicated to the advancement of technologies in the merging realm of science and religion.

References

1. John Young, “Interpreting Dreams,” The Fountain, Issue 29, January–March, 2000.
2. John Young, “Dreams: A Spiritual Approach Part II,” The Fountain, Issue 30, April–June, 2000.
3. Muhammed Toprak, “A Historical Review of Dreams,” The Fountain, Issue 65, September–October, 2008.
4. Stephen LaBerge, “Lucidity Research, Past and Future”,
5. http://www.lucidity.com/NL53.ResearchPastFuture.html
6. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. 2000. Retrieved 2009-05-07.
7. Wikipedia, “Dream”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream
8. School of Metaphysics, “The Intuitive Nature of our Dreams”, Retrieved 2010-06-05.
9. Halil I. Demir, “Forbidden Inspirations”, Mergeous Pre-print Articles.
10. http://www.mergeous.com/articlepreprintins.asp?aid=57&type=fulltext
11. Association for Computing Machinery, “Singularity: Ubiquity Interviews – Ray Kurzweil”.
12. Daniel Erlacher and Michael Schredl, “Time required for motor activity in lucid dreams”, Perceptual and Motor Skills, 2004. 99, 1239-1242.
13. Watanabe Tsuneo, “Lucid Dreaming: Its Experimental Proof and Psychological Conditions”. Journal of International Society of Life Information Science (Japan), 2003. 21 (1): 159–162.
14. The Lucidity Institute, “Frequently asked questions about lucid dreaming”, Version 2.3, July 16, 2004.
15. Mergeous, online article and project development platform. http://www.mergeous.com

Despite many theories we still do not fully understand the purpose of sleep, nor do we know the functions of different kinds of sleep. There are two main kinds of sleep that possess markedly contrasting physiological characteristics and mechanisms, and both of them occur normally in any extended period of sleep. One of these is known as activated sleep or rapid eye movement (REM) sleep that may also be referred to as “dreaming sleep” because it seems to be the stage where dreaming takes place.1 This state is characterized by a high degree of central nervous system (CNS) activity, a suppression of peripheral motor activity, and a temporal association with the vivid, hallucinatory experiences we call dreams. Brainwaves speed up, heart rate and breathing increases, blood pressure rises and the eyes dart around behind closed lids. Research has shown that if a person is awakened every time REM begins, preventing them from dreaming, after about three nights the individual will begin to show signs of having a nervous breakdown. Clearly dreams are an inner release mechanism which helps provide us with emotional balance and maintain our sanity. Dreams can be considered as guardians of our mental and emotional well-being.

The significance attributed to dreams will be presented here from a historical perspective starting from ancient times, passing through the Abrahamic religions and finally compared with contemporary psychological evaluations.

In most ancient cultures, consideration and even veneration of dreams played a great part. Some groups felt that dream life was more real and important than waking life. Not only were dreams looked to for information about hunting, as in Eskimo and African groups, but also for ways of healing physical and psychological ills, as seen in the Greek Dream Temples of Asclepius.2

Sources for information about dream divination in the ancient pagan world range from Homer in the eighth century bce to Artemidorus in the second century ce and the Greek Magical Papyri, some of which were written in the fourth century ce. Artemidorus’ five books are a compilation of dream interpretations that he collected from a variety of sources and then classified in a system. The system represented a synthesis of knowledge of dream interpretation at the time.3

Even though dreams are still a mystery, religious traditions value dreams and acknowledge that they can be used by God for divine revelation. Although the three Abrahamic religions differ on many other topics, they find substantial agreement on this particular point: dreaming is a valuable source of wisdom, understanding, and inspiration. In the Qur’an, as in the Jewish Torah and the Christian New Testament, dreams serve as a vital medium by which God communicates with humans. Dreams offer divine guidance and comfort, warn people of impending danger, and offer prophetic glimpses of the future.

Dreams have long been considered a legitimate form of divine revelation, particularly in Jewish mysticism. In Judaism information about dream divination is found in the Torah and the Babylonian Talmud. In the Torah dreams play an important part in the history of the

Jews, particularly as the motif of Jewish dream interpreters in a foreign court. Solomon, peace be upon him, received a dream from Yahweh who asks what he may give him (Kings 3:5). Solomon asks for the wisdom for which he became famous. Jacob, peace be upon him, dreams of the gates of Yahweh’s heaven and Yahweh promises Jacob land and blessedness for his people (Genesis 28:12). Joseph’s dreams in Genesis are prophetic and play an integral role in his brothers’ anger and conspiracy to kill him, peace be upon him. The brothers say “Here comes the dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits, then we shall see what will become of his dreams” (Genesis 37:19–20).

Daniel’s dream visions illustrate how faithfulness to Jewish practice brings divine aid to triumph over enemies. In Joel, Yahweh declares that dreams are a valid form of spiritual information, “I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions. . .” (Joel 2:28) In Numbers, Yahweh declares that he speaks to prophets in visions and dreams; however, this story is singling out Moses, peace be upon him, as a leader because God speaks to him “face to face.” In the Talmud, there are 217 references to dreams covering the origin of dreams, their purpose and meaning, wish-fulfillment in dreams, the relation of dreams to reality, and the technique of dream interpretation.3

The New Testament is full of dreams that are explained by prophets. There are constant references to communication between humankind and God, between humankind and the angels, and between the human being and his or her higher self through the medium of dreams. The moral standards of the individual are exactly reflected in the clarity and degree of quality of his or her dreams. Joseph, the eleventh son of Jacob, peace be upon them, had the ability not only to remember and interpret his own dreams, but to interpret those of others.4

God has chosen to communicate with humankind through dreams and visions according to the New Testament (Acts 2:17). He guides and counsels us through our dreams (Psalms 16:7). He establishes covenants with us through our dreams as in the dream of Abraham (Genesis 15:12, 13, 18). He grants us supernatural gifts in our dreams, like that given to Solomon (I Kings 3:5, 9, 12, 15). He has utilized dreams from Genesis to Revelation, and declared that He will continue to use them in the last days.

Islam has historically shown greater interest in dreams than either of the other two Abrahamic traditions, and has done more to weave dreaming into the daily lives of its followers. From the first revelatory visions of Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, to the myriad dream practices of present-day Muslims, Islam has developed and sustained a complex, multifaceted tradition of active engagement with the dreaming, imagination, origins, functions, and meanings of dreaming. Muslim scholars and theologians have followed the prophetic path in dealing with dreams, and have judged dreams according to the Qur’an and the Sunna, examples from the Prophet’s life.

The episodes about Prophet Joseph, peace be upon him, in the Qur’an are similar to those in the Old Testament (Genesis 37–50), and these episodes combine to make a clear point: dreams, and the ability to interpret them, are an important sign of God’s favor (Yusuf 12:4–100). In chapter 37, The Ranks (Saffat), the Qur’an retells a story found in the book of Genesis. Here the main subject is Prophet Abraham, peace be upon him, whose life is recounted in Genesis 12–25. The Qur’anic version focuses specifically on God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice his only son.

Prophet Abraham is true to his dream, not by literally enacting it in the physical sacrifice of his son (which is finally prevented by God); rather, he “fulfills his vision” by a demonstration of his absolute obedience to God. There is a very important point here which is worth noting. It is the unquestioned assumption by both Prophet Abraham and his son that the dream is a command from God, peace be upon them.

In addition there are narratives about the dreams of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, in Qur’an, in chapter 8, The Spoils (Anfal). After the Muslim victory at Badr (March 15, 624 ad), where some three hundred and fifty believers vanquished close to a thousand non-believers, the Prophet received a revelation in which God affirms that He brought to pass the encounter which, without His contriving, neither of the parties would have sought. In this context the Prophet was told: “When God showed them to you in your dream as few; and if He had shown them to you as many you would certainly have become weak-hearted and you would have disputed about the matter, but God saved (you); surely He is the Knower of what is in the breasts ”(Anfal 8:43).5

Muslim scholars have ruled that true dreams are from God-some warn and others bring glad tidings. Ibn Mas’ud narrated, “The Prophet said, ‘Prophecy is finished but tidings remain.’ People asked, ‘What are these tidings?’ He replied, ‘A true dream which a man sees, or others see for him’” (Bukhari and Maalik). These tidings could be good or bad as God says in the Qur’an, which says, “So give them tidings of a painful doom” (Inshiqaq 84:24). These dreams are the ones about which the truthful and trustworthy Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said, “At the end of time, the believer’s dream will rarely be incorrect; the more truthful a person is, the truer his dreams are; and the dream of a faithful believer is a part of the forty-six parts of Prophecy” (Bukhari and Muslim). What people see in their sleep is one of the three types. As narrated by Awf Ibn Maalik, the Prophet said, “Dreams are of three types: some are from Satan to sadden the son of Adam, some are the result of what a person thinks about while he is awake so he sees it in his sleep, and some are one of the forty-six parts of prophecy” (Ibn Majah).

Although dreams are not considered decisive, especially when there is an apparent contradiction with common sense, there is a very strong tradition on dreams in Islam, and there have been several scholars who have put a significant effort into composing books about dreams and their interpretations. Looking in more detail at Muslim teachings, the first example to consider comes from the scholar Ibn Arabi (1164–1240). His classification of dreams establishes the basic framework used throughout later Muslim history. According to Ibn Arabi, there are three basic types of dream. The first is an “ordinary” dream, produced by the imagination when it takes experiences from daily life and magnifies them as in a mirror, reflecting in a distorted symbolic fashion our wishes and desires. The second and much more significant type of dream draws its material not from daily life but from the “Universal Soul” (Preserved Tablet), a source of knowledge closely associated with the faculty of abstract reasoning. “Universal Soul” dreams reveal fundamental truths about reality, although, like the first type of dream, these are distorted by the imperfect mirror of the human imagination. Interpretation is therefore required to discover what the symbolic images mean. The third and final type of dream involves a direct revelation of reality, with no distortion or symbolic mediation-a clear vision of divine truth. Ibn Arabi’s typology portrays a wider range of dream experience than is usually acknowledged in Western psychological thinking, which focuses its attention almost exclusively on his first category, the “ordinary” dreams of daily life.

A further elaboration of this classification appears in the monumental Muqaddimah (“An Introduction to History”) written by the scholar Ibn Khaldun (1332–1402). Briefly, he emphasizes the idea that in sleep, people are liberated from their senses, freeing their rational souls to gain glimpses of transcendent truth. The distinctive feature in Ibn Khaldun’s theory is that he asserts the divine wisdom of creating sleep could be that it is an opportunity for humans to “lift the veil of the senses” and gain access to divine realities and higher forms of knowing. Dreaming appears in this light as one of God’s gifts to humankind, a “natural” means of spiritual insight potentially available to all people.

Having said this much about the dreams and their significance in the history of Abrahamic religions, let us turn now to psychology for a contemporary evaluation of dreams. Freud looked upon the dream as a somewhat disturbed form of mental activity, or as a form of psychic activity that, if it worsens, would tend to become pathological-an activity that is not significant in itself and at the very most manifests a more or less infantile desire. Freud insisted that one’s dreams were one’s earliest mental images and memories. He regarded the brain as a sponge.6 He said one’s primal evolutionary impulses were catalogued in dreams. Freud believed these were held in one’s memory for interpreting events that occurred later in life. Freud explained the dream as a picture-word puzzle.7

Jung completely abandoned such prejudices against the dream. He sees the dreams as a spontaneous, normal, creative expression of the unconscious in the form of images and symbols.1 Jung believed that dreams speak in symbols, images and metaphors, a language that is the unconscious mind’s natural way of expression. For Jung the dream world was just as rich, as diversified, and as polymorphic as the conscious world. One is not able to understand this “language” right away because the images are different from the language in one’s everyday life.6 Jung divided dreams into two levels. The first level is the objective level, when dreams illustrate the relation with the external world. This would be a thing such as people, events or activities. The second level is the subjective level. This level deals with the thoughts and feelings of the person.7

Many religious traditions still “believe that the ability to receive visions through dreams and in the waking state is a faculty that is latent in human beings, whose attachment to material things clouds their receptivity to impulses from the spiritual realm.”8 What has changed our view of dreams as divine revelations? Could it be simply our strong desire for worldly and material things that is blocking our divine communication channels?

Muhammed Toprak is a research fellow at The Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden.

Notes

1. Grunbaum, Gustave Von, Roger Caillois. The Dream and Human Societies, University of California Press, 1966, p. 85.
2. Crisp, Tony. Dream Dictionary: An A to Z Guide to Understanding Your Unconscious Mind, Gramercy Books, 2005.
3. http://www.sonoma.edu/users/h/holmstrl/DIVINATION.html
4. Virkler, Mark and Patti Virkler. Hear God Through Your Dreams, Communion with God Ministries, New York.
5. Translation of the Qur’an by M.H. Shakir.
6. Lohff, David C. The Dream Directory. Philadelphia: Running Press Book Publishers, 1998.
7. Bulkley, Kelly. “Dreams of Social Transformation.” Association for the Study of Dreams. 27 Nov. 2001.
8. Hoffman, Valerie J, “The Role of Visions in Contemporary Egyptian Religious Life.” Religion (1997) vol. 27, no. 1, p. 53.

Before giving information on dream interpretation, it is necessary to expound on the issues of sleep and dreams, because without knowing the essence of dreaming, no appropriate interpretation is possible.

What is dreaming? What constitutes its core? Is it the peculiar images seen during sleep, which is said to be like a temporary death? Why and how we dream is an unsolved mystery. Since the creation of humanity, philosophers and scholars have tried to explain dreaming, but none of them have demystified it completely. And so the subject continues to attract people’s interest.

Some basics of dreaming are the following. A dream is a vast metaphysical world that is also related to the Hereafter. Feeling this relationship is possible if people undertake the necessary emotional cleanliness and spiritual purification practices. If they do not do so, they live in a state of unawareness and thus cannot understand the subtle realities presented in dreams.

The fact that many Qur’anic verses and Prophetic hadiths mention dreams means that Muslims should pay attention to them. The narration of the Prophets’ dreams and their interpretations in the Qur’an, as well as Prophet Muhammad’s statement that dreams are the doors to spirituality, indicate that they contain a crucial type of knowledge (‘Ilm).

THE REALITY OF DREAMING

According to some scholars, the essence of dreaming consists of traces left on the shared sense (hiss-i mushterek) that descends from one’s imagination. Philosophers assume that this shared sense is not one of the five basic senses.

In addition, people have a nafs-i natika(1) a “spiritual intellect” that is the perception itself. This intellect perceives what is happening around it, but its preoccupation with bodily activities hinders it from reflecting upon knowledge related to the Unseen (ghayb).(2) During sleep, the burden of the five senses is lightened, which enables this spiritual intellect to receive ghayb-related knowledge from the metaphysical world. Then it turns to the body. Since it is located within the body, it becomes bound by corporeal things and can function only via bodily faculties. The spirit transmits what it perceives from its world to the faculty of the imagination, after which one’s imagination describes and pictures this information in an appropriate manner and presents it to “the shared sense.” The sleeping person feels as if he or she is actually seeing those things. This is a partial explanation of dreaming.

Now, let us dwell upon the matter of sleep during which dreaming takes place.(3)

SLEEP AND DREAMS: A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH

It is generally believed that an adult needs an average of 8 hours of sleep a night. However, researchers point out that the need for sleep differs from person to person: babies need about 16 hours, while elderly people show a great variation from the average. In addition, some people dream frequently while sleeping; others wake up frequently.

The actual cause and function of sleeping is not understood completely. Allan Rachtschaffen, a sleep researcher at the University of Chicago, states that sleep has no active function for the body. Despite the reduction in muscular fatigue and weariness, the body does not actually need sleep to renovate itself for our cells can restore and mend themselves under any condition. According to recent research, the human body does not have to undergo this renovation process to be in a passive condition or a sleeping mode. Electroencephalograms (EEGs) administered during sleep detect no such passive activity in the brain. According to Dr. Evans, a psychologist at England’s National Physics Laboratory, Computer Science Section, the main purpose of sleeping is to allow a person to dream.

Dr. William Dumont, a doctor at Stanford Medical Center, Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Division, claims that dreaming is very important, for dreams help to maintain the body’s physical balance.

Dr. Colin D. Hendrigh of Stanford University writes that all organs perform systematic movements and activities at different times and various rates, and to extents that are specific to them. These changes, which are the rhythms’ highest and lowest levels, are different for every person. Physical activities reach their peak at midday and their lowest level at dawn.

Dr. Franz Halberg introduced the term circadian for changes that occur regularly on a 24-hour basis. Physical balance can be maintained by the rhythmic changes in accordance with time.

When the organs’ rhythm is the most inadequate, we feel sleepy. The first period of sleep, the non-rapid eye movement (NREM) state, is the most tranquil state for the body. Breathing is regular and quiet, and EEGs show that all mental activities are normal and orderly. Snoring occurs in this period.

The active sleeping state is the rapid eye movement (REM] state. Here the body is steady, except for irregular facial muscle and fingertip movements. Breathing becomes irregular, which leads to a continual rhythmic oscillation between slow- and fast-paced breathing. There is no snoring in this state. Some researchers claim that the REM period is not a part of sleep, but rather a kind of epileptic fit. REM sleep usually lasts for 1.5 to 2 hours, and NREM and REM cycles range from 70 to 110 minutes. On the average, they are expected to last for 90 minutes.

People who are spiritually depressed feel relaxed as long as they are not in REM sleep, for this is the state in which dreaming usually occurs. Many people cannot avoid REM sleep, however, even if they take sedatives or soporifics designed to block it either partially or entirely.

The first REM period of sleep lasts for about 10 minutes. As the night passes, REM periods might last longer, sometimes even as long as an hour. We dream, regardless of this period’s duration, but usually forget what we have dreamed when we wake up. (Researchers wake sleepers and ask whether they dreamed or not in order to record the dreams.)

During dreams, many details are removed from our memory. Usually we remember dreams consisting of nice and pleasant meanings and suggestions. If we were to recall all of our dreams, we would stay under their influence during the entire day and be unable to use our senses.

If there were no REM period, people would wake up for 10 or 20 minutes every 1 or 2 hours, instead of sleeping through the whole night. Experiments indicate that people deprived of REM sleep show psychological, spiritual, or bodily disorders. Other experiments show that when people deprived of REM sleep are given soporific drugs, they have longer REM periods. Ernest I. Hartman states that human beings need constant NREM periods with variable in-between REM periods. In other words, everybody has a constant period of NREM sleep, but REM periods vary from person to person.

“Long sleepers” are mainly those with demanding manual jobs or those who work long hours. If they do not sleep properly, they face problems in various aspects of their lives, are unhappy and constantly complaining, and have neurological problems. On the other hand, people with a romantic or artistic nature sleep to escape from society.

We cannot change our sleeping habits. If you cannot sleep for more than 6 hours, it just means that you only need that much sleep. The 8-hour average is just a generalization used in scientific circles, and thus is not supposed to apply to everybody.

DREAMS: A SPIRITUAL APPROACH (Part I)

Ibrahim Hakki of Erzurum, in his Marifetname, writes:

Ahl Allah (people who have proximity to God) said that: “The spirit has two windows for the world of Barzah(4): sleep and inspiration. In dreams, sometimes a person sees future happenings directly and sometimes in symbols. The latter should be decoded. If the sensory organs are closed to the physical world, and the internal mirror (the heart) is clean of all evil and polished, spiritual beings and unknown writings in theLawh-i Mahfooz(5) can be reflected and seen in this mirror. But if the senses are occupied with the material world and the internal mirror is rusty, the spirit cannot view the world of Barzah. Rather, it becomes busy with images left in the memory from the five senses. When a person dies, however, the spirit can view the metaphysical world and learn about the world of the Unseen (ghayb), for the senses and the body can no longer serve as obstacles. By inspiration, people can learn many previously unknown things. But if their hearts are not clean, they will not recognize and understand the actual source of these inspirations” (Marifetname, pg. 581). WT

Ibn Khaldun devotes a portion of his book al-Muqaddimah (Prolegomena) to dreams:

“A dream is a spiritual activity that consists of seeing and observing the forms and shapes of entities reflected to the spirit from the Unseen (ghayb) after the spirit enters into the metaphysical world during sleep. When people are awake, they do not contemplate their spirituality, for they are occupied with their carnal and physical functions. Thus they forget the information reflected from the Unseen. Since people reduce their connection with the flesh and physical existence while asleep, they become spiritual entities somewhat like other spiritual beings and, when they turn toward the world of the Unseen, can observe angels and other ethereal beings [lateef entities(6)]” (Bayram, 33).

The bond between body and spirit, merely a connection, becomes ideal during dreams. With this development, the human spirit becomes an incorporeal being and can perceive without the help of the body and the sense organs. In this state, the human spirit is lower than an angel, because an angel’s perfection comes from its nature and creation. As an angel’s intuition or cognition never develops, it cannot improve itself. However, as long as the spirit inhabits a physical body, it can develop and grow in metaphysical understanding. This ability can be classified into two groups: special (belonging to the saints in the form of gifts) and general (found in everybody in the form of contacting the Unseen).

The spirits of Prophets are purely spiritual, for they transcend the body. This state is the highest rank of spirituality. Its onset could be observed whenever a Prophet received Revelation, for his

body’s perceptive faculties would enter a dozing-like period different from regular sleep. In reality, sleeping is greatly inferior to such a state. Concerning this state, the Prophet said: “The (good) dreams of a believer are one part of the forty-six parts of Prophethood (Al-Bukhari, vol. 9: no. 116). Some Muslim scholars interpret this hadith as meaning that when the Revelation began, it was in the form of dreams for the first 6 months. (His Prophethood lasted for 23 years in total, and so the first 6 months would constitute l/46th of this period.)

A Prophet’s dreams are not ordinary, for they come true exactly as they are seen. All Prophets had dreams in the first stage of their Prophethood. This only indicates the association of dreams to Prophethood, not the reality of dreaming to the essence of Prophethood, of which dreaming constitutes only a small part. In addition, it is an innate human ability that allows us to reach spiritual and unseen worlds. The smallness of this fraction (l/46th) contrasts the relationship of this common ability to dream with a Prophet’s ability to contact spiritual and unseen worlds.

Contacting these nonmaterial worlds is very difficult, although it is a general potential for human beings. Many obstacles prevent us from making the best use of this ability. The first one is the external senses. God made sleeping an innate and natural characteristic and state of mind so that we could bypass, temporarily, these external obstacles. During sleep, one can try to understand the reality behind events and also have some of his or her concerns addressed in dreams. For this reason, Prophet Muhammad regarded dreaming as a harbinger. He said: “Nothing is left of Prophethood except al-mubashshirat (harbingers, glad tidings).” His Companions asked: “What are al-mubashshirat?” He replied: “The true, good dreams (that convey glad tidings). Only pious people and you have such dreams” (Al-Bukhari, vol. 9: no. 119).

The nafs-i natika can perceive and think only via the human spirit, for they are tied to each other. Creation, through combining and synthesizing physical elements, prevents ethereal entities from influencing material objects. Since the human spirit is both ethereal (lateef) and located within material entities, it needs a means (the nafs-i natika) through which it can receive the stimuli of material things. The nafs-i natika, which fulfills this function, acts within the human spirit and has both internal and external perceptive abilities. Internal perceptions come through the brain’s faculties, while external perceptions come through the five senses.

These means of perception, despite their innate abilities, inhibit the perception of metaphysical realities. The external senses, which are all corporeal, are used by the nafs-i natika so often that they become exhausted and require sleep to rest.

Even though the spirit can leave the body, tired senses inhibit the nafs-i natika from perceiving metaphysical realities. God implanted within the spirit a desire to depart from the material realm, as shown by its turning from the external senses toward the internal senses. As the night’s coolness helps this departure, the body’s natural heat withdraws deep inside the body and the spirit, which causes the nafs-i natika to ascend to the spiritual realm. The human spirit remains inside the body. This is why people fall asleep.

When the human spirit leaves the external senses and supervises the internal faculties, the nafs-i natika’s tasks are alleviated. This reduces the obstacles to its ascent, which allows it to deal with sensory images. Imagination engenders virtual figures by synthesizing and analyzing sensory images, because the carnal soul perceives, observes, and becomes mostly accustomed and familiar with these figures. This is the basic habit of the nafs-i natika. After this, the collective sensory powers, which gather all external sensory perceptions in the brain, observe those images as if they were actually perceived with external senses.

During sleep, the spirit does not deal with internal or external powers. Rather, it grasps its spirituality as if it were a physical perception, and acquires information about the Unseen. The human spirit then submits these images directly to the imagination, which either accepts them totally or puts them into resembling shapes (symbols). Dreams that result from the latter process require interpretation, for the meaning is not immediately clear. If the nafs-i natika analyzes and synthesizes the images acquired through external senses and hidden in its memory with what it perceived from the Unseen during sleep, the dream is confusing and mixed up.

In an authentic hadith, the Prophet says: “There are three kinds of dreams: those inspired by God during sleep, those from angels, and those inspired by Satan” (Al-Bukhari, vol. 9: no. 144). This does not invalidate the above argument. Dreams that need to be interpreted are from angels, while confusing and mixed dreams come from Satan. The latter are beguiling and erroneous.

Most of our dreams are neither deliberate nor intentional. When one’s spirit focuses on the Unseen world to learn the hidden reality about itself or something else, the reality of these things may reflect on it instantly, and the subjects of concern may become clear. If this is not the case, the spirit cannot see and observe whatever and whenever it wants to during sleep.

Medieval Islamic literature records many instances of pre-Islamic Arabs relying on soothsayers who also dealt with dream interpretation. For example, Shiqq (from the family of Enmer bin Nizar) and Sutayuh (a descendent of Mazun bin Garsan) were well-known soothsayers. Sutayuh had no bones in his body, except for his skull, and so could be folded like cloth.

The most well-known stories about these soothsayers are Shiqq’s interpretation of Rebia bin Muzar’s dream heralding the Abyssinian invasion of Yemen, and Sutayuh’s interpretation of the famous Persian scholar Mubezan’s dream. Chosroes of Persia sent ‘Abdulmesih to ask Sutayuh to interpret Mubezan’s dream. Sutayuh said that it foretold the coming of a new Prophet and the destruction of Chosreos’ kingdom (Bayram, 38).

‘Abdulgani an-Nablusi states, in light of Qur’anic verses and the Prophet’s hadiths: They shall have glad tidings in this world and in the Hereafter (10:64). According to some Qur’an interpreters, glad tidings in the earthly life means dreams about a person regardless of who dreams; glad tidings in the Hereafter means seeing God.

The Prophet said: “One who does not believe in true dreams does not have a sound belief in God and the Resurrection.” ‘A’isha, the Prophet’s wife, stated that: “The commencement (of the Divine Inspiration) to God’s Apostle was in the form of true dreams in his sleep, for all of his dreams turned out to be true and clear as bright daylight” (Al-Bukhari, vol. 6: no. 478)

The Prophet once told Abu Bakr as-Siddiq: “I dreamed we were climbing up some stairs, but that I was two steps ahead (of you).” Abu Bakr interpreted this as follows: “O Messenger of God, after God raises your soul to heavens near Him and grants you His Compassion, I will give for another 2 1/2 years” (Bayram, 38).

Your Lord will approve you (Yusuf) (as in your dream) select you and grant you the knowledge on interpretation of dreams (12:6), and 0 my Lord. You have indeed bestowed on me (something of) sovereignty, and taught me something of the interpretation of dreams and events… (12:101). According to these verses, God granted the knowledge of dreams to Yusuf (Joseph).

to be continued…

FOOTNOTES

1. Nafs-i natika is the faculty of the soul that is responsible for thinking and talking.
2. Ghayb means hidden, secret, or unseen. It is usually used for the metaphysical world, as in ‘alam-i ghayb (the Unseen world). Here, we translate it as “the Unseen.”
3. This section is borrowed from an article of Mr. Ali Toker, published in Kopru (The Bridge) magazine. (See also references.)
4. Barzah literally means precipice, chasm, or abyss. In Islamic terminology, it is the period between one’s death and resurrection. It refers to the place between this world and the Hereafter, or sometimes the world of the dead.
5. Lawh-i Mahfooz literally means a protected or preserved tablet. In Islamic literature, it means the Tablet preserved in God’s presence and contains His decrees and the destiny of all creation. It is a title for Divine Knowledge.
6. Lateef literally means soft, intangible, and pretty. In Islamic literature, it means something nonmaterial, incorporeal, and impossible to see with the eyes, and a type of being that is less dense than physical entities. We translate it as “ethereal” to indicate this peculiarity.

REFERENCES

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• Hakki, Erzurumlu Ibrahim. Marifetname (The Book of Wisdom). Turkey (then Ottoman State): 1756 (compiled and simplified by M. Faruk Meyan. Istanbul: 1993).
• Al-Huseyni, Sayyid Suleyman. Kenzul Menam. (Treasures of Sleep). Istanbul: 1340-41 AH.
• Ibn al-‘Arabi, Muhyiddin. Tabirname-i Muhyiddin ‘Arabi (The Book of Dream Interpretations by Muhyiddin Ibn al-‘Arabi). Istanbul: 1270 AH/1854 CE.
• Ibn Sirin, Muhammad. Muntehabul Kalaam fi Tafsiiri’l-Ahlaam. (The Selection of Words for Dream Interpretations) Egypt: 1359 AH/1940 CE.
• Ivadullah, Ahmed as-Sabahi. Delil-u Tafsiri’l Ahlaam. (The Evidence of Dream Interpreting). N.p.: 1974.
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• Miras, Kamil. Sahih-i Buhari Muhtasari Tecrid-i Sahih Tecumesi ve Serhi. (The Authentic Translation and Commentary of Sahih al-Bukhari) Istanbul: 1972.
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• Al-Zahiri, Halil b. Shahin. Al-Isharat fi ‘Ilmi’l-‘Ibarat. (The Signs for the Science of Symbols) Egypt: 1359 AH/1940 CE.