What is “to have a dream”?

Dreaming is a special state of awareness that may take place during sleeping.[1]

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[1] Awareness is the natural ability of the normal person to realize their obvious surroundings of ordinary life using their five senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch). But during the state of sleeping, these senses come, presumably, to a temporary standstill. This alternative state of sleep awareness is called ‘a dream’, and is distinguished from the wake awareness in source, shape, and meaning (I will discuss this in detail later on another article).

Several Sunni Muslim scholars define ‘dreaming’ as “beliefs that Allah create in the dreamers’ minds” (Fath Al-Bari, Ibn Hajar). Although, there is no doubt that Allah is the creator of everything, this definition is not accurate if compared to the saying of the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him): “A dream has three types: A true dream [from Allah], a dream from oneself, and a saddening dream from Satan” (Authentic Hadith, narrated by Al-Tirmidhi). Thus, I believe that the definition of dreaming above-mentioned in the main text is more correct and inclusive to all the different cases of dreaming stated in the Hadith.

Question 1: Is it more suitable, in terms of accuracy, to use the word ‘vision’ to mean the true dream from Allah? Or shall we just keep to the word ‘dream’ or ‘dreaming’? I would prefer to use the term ‘true dream from Allah’ because it is more accurate to mean a dream that could be understood and interpreted within the beliefs of Islam. On the contrary, the word ‘vision’ might be used by anyone of any beliefs, and may indicate too non-Islamic concepts, so using the word ‘vision’ could be confusing.

Question 2: In Arabic language it is normal to say ‘I saw a dream’ to mean ‘I had a dream’. In the Noble Koran the verb ‘see’ also is used to describe a dreaming experience. But why using the verb ‘see’ in particular for a dream that might include sounds, smells, feelings too and not just views? That is because such sleeping type of awareness could only be called a dream if having at least a single view; it is a must. But listening to sounds, smelling something, or having feelings could be missing in a dream, and it is still called a dream too.

This article is written originally by Jamal Hussein. All rights reserved for the writer.