As in these pages verified dreams are occasionally described, perhaps the intelligent reader will not be displeased to meet with a definition of dreaming, and of its various species. Let it not remain hidden to the minds of the wakeful and vigilant that sleep is the state of the body during which the external senses cease to perceive sensuous manifestations, because the animal spirit has withdrawn itself to the interior. If in this state the soul receives an impression, it is called a dream, which may be either true or false. A true dream takes place when the human soul is liberated from sensuous occupations, and becomes, on account of its conformity with superior essences, and its connection with the upper entities, acquainted with some images to which it was predestined from the beginning. Sûfis and philosophers are of opinion that all the images of the nether world are existing in the celestial souls, and that human fancy may become impressed with all kinds of images. When, however, the reasoning faculty is strong, and the imaginative weak, it can neither dispose of nor alter the noble and sublime arcana revealed to it during sleep, but surrenders them as it received them to the retentive faculty, so that on awakening the sleeper finds the idea which had from the celestial reverted to the human soul impressed on his imagination. Such a dream is true, and needs no interpretation. When, on the contrary, the imagination is strong, it operates on the impressions received from the celestial soul, and having clothed them in appropriate garments, abandons them to the memory. Such a dream is true, but stands in need of an interpretation.
From these preliminary remarks it appears that a true dream is, like a dream in general, also divided into two species.
It is not unknown to the intelligent that true visions fall to the lot of such persons only as are enriched by the garlands of religion and law, and that when the spirit is weak, but the imagination strong, the latter always predominates by virtue of its supremacy over the former during the assimilations, resemblances, connections, and distribution of ideas which are taking place in dreams, and thereby prevents it from taking cognizance of the intellectual world.
Distich: The bad humour which over a temper presides,
Leaves it not. Only with death it subsides.
As the function of the imagination consists in always mixing up everything, it commingles details with each other, but occasionally separates connected portions, and in this manner produces innumerable vain and absurd images. Sometimes it happens that one of the four humours predominates in the body, and that in conformity with this state the imagination furnishes appropriate images to the spirit. Thus, for instance, when blood prevails in the body, the image—which the intellect has, by the aid of the imagination, found in a state of wakefulness—having become impressed upon the corresponding internal senses, will manifest itself in sleep. From what has just been said, it appears that false dreams are of three kinds.
Among the number of true dreams on record, that of A’bd-ul-Muttalleb is one, which took place as follows: One day, when he was asleep, the pen of fate wrote a wonderful line on the tablet of his mind, and the speculum of his intellect received a strange impression. Therefore he hastened with a palpitating heart to a witch, who had no equal in the art of interpreting dreams. When she saw him arrive with fear and trembling she asked about the cause, and he informed her as follows: ‘In my sleep I beheld a white chain with four ends issuing from my loins. One end touched the sky, the other the earth, the third the east, and the fourth the west. I looked with amazement at this spectacle, when all of a sudden the chain was transmuted into a green and fresh tree, loaded with all the fruits existing in the vegetable kingdom. At the foot of the tree stood two old men of serene and dignified aspect. I asked them about their names and positions, whereon one of them said: “I am called Nûh” [Noah]; the other said: “My name is Ebrâhim [Abraham] the friend.” Then they continued: “O A’bd-ul-Muttalleb, this tree of noble origin has come down to thee from thy ancestors and forefathers. has been continued by thee, and will from century to century, and from generation to generation, be propagated according to covenant and alliance.”’ The witch replied: ‘If it be true what thou hast narrated, in thy family a man will be born, the cloak of obedience and ear-ring of submission to whom will be assured by the dwellers in the tabernacles of heaven and in the regions of the earth. The chain means the strengthening of the laws of religion and the multitude of auxiliaries; the links thereof constitute the establishment and confirmation of the dignity of that blessed individual, and whoever opposes him will, like the people of Nûh, fall into the tempest of misery and vortex of annihilation. That happy man will make such efforts, and so revive the ordinances of the religion of Ebrâhim, that as long as the world endures the foundations of the castle of his prophecy and Emâmship will not experience the inroads of decay.’