Dreaming is a period of resting and reflection. It is the suspension of natural laws. Dreaming opens the communication layer with the hidden spiritual world which is not possible when we are awake. Dreaming is a form of temporary death from this materialistic world and life into the spiritual world where everything is possible. Sleep is believed to be the lesser temporary death, while death is believed to be the real permanent sleep into the spiritual world forever. In the Qur'an Allah says: 'God takes men's souls at the time of their death, and the soul which does not die, He takes in sleep. Then He keeps the soul that is destined to die at that time and returns the others to life for a set period.' (Qur'an 39:42). God has made it very clear to us that every time we sleep, we are dead. We should be thankful every time we wake up. That means God still has a purpose for us. Thus, the reason we are still live.
Dreaming is a gift from God. In dreams, we can experience many things that are not possible in our materialistic world. Dreaming allows us to accept the possibility of life other than the materialistic world. If we are able to experience things with absence of matter and space why can't God create such a life hereafter for His creation. Many people don't believe life after death exists (hereafter), but if dreaming for unimaginable things is possible and we are able to experience real things with unreal things in an unreal environment, we should not discount Gods promise to all His creation for eternal life in paradise where no eye has seen, no ear has heard of, and nobody can imagine.
I believe the purpose of our dreams is to find answers which are not possible with our normal senses. In dreams our brain can communicate with our subconscious mind and tell us about the problems, worries and hopes that we have. Our mind can play scenarios which can help us determine what the best solution is without having real consequences. Dreams allow us to step away from our normal senses which stress our body. When we dream, our normal senses don't function at full capacity. We rest and release stress. We also tap into other senses which makes it possible for Angels and God to communicate with us. Even though Angels and God can communicate with us while we are awake, sometimes our senses prevent us from receiving the important messages that we overlook.
Dreams come in three forms. They can be divine (come from God). They can come from within (psychological). Dreams can also be Satanic (come from Satan). Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “Dreams are of three types: a dream from Allah, a dream which causes distress and which comes from Satan, and a dream which comes from what a person thinks about when he is awake, and he sees it when he is asleep.” (al-Bukhaari, 6499; Muslim, 4200)
Not all dreams are the same. Not all dreams have meaning. Some dreams are a reflection of our worries and hopes. They are psychological. They are dreams of what we think about when we are awake, and we see them when we sleep. They have no real meaning. They are the source of stress in our life, and our body tries to come up with solutions be playing different scenarios. Sometimes when we wake up, a new idea pops out of nowhere, and we can attribute that to psychological dreams. Our dreams played scenarios for us and caused us to think and look deeper at the problems or hopes we have.
When we dream, we may have a recurring dream that will not go away until we find the root cause of that particular dream. Recurring dreams can be reminders from God that we are not living our purpose. We are focusing on things that are not important to us and for us. Our priorities are not straight. There is something big we are neglecting that prevents us from reaching our goals. These dreams can be both psychological and divine. If psychological, our body tries to get our attention to the issue. We are neglecting the real problem and should try to find a solution. If divine, God wants us to go in a different path than we are currently in. He has a different future for us. Thus, recurring dreams can be reminders and a guide to follow a particular course of action.
Divine dreams can be visions of the future. They can tell us what God has in store for us. They can be reminders and encouragement of what we need to do to get there. God can give us a vision of the future and start the preparation process. The vision keeps us motivated while the preparation takes place. However, not all dreams are visions of the future. Some dreams come from God directly to touch our hearts. Sometimes we just need love and life. We need to feel valuable. God can give life to a dying heart by giving good dreams. Some divine dreams can also be warnings from God. We may be doing something bad and God needs to get our attention. He may remind us the consequences of continuing in the current path.
The other category of dreams are satanic dreams. These are deceptive and evil dreams to instill fear, and grief in our lives, and to misguide us. Satans mission is to mislead all mankind. Satan tries to misguide and deter us when we are living righteously and following the commandments of God. Through evil dreams, Satan can instill great fear in us, to keep us away from the good works we are doing. He will bombard us with deceptive dreams to lure us into evil works. Satans ultimate goal is to make people go astray and eventually to turn them into disbelievers. The manner in which Satan pursues that goal varies in accordance with the interests and inclinations of his victims. For example, he uses piety to attack the pious; scholarly disciplines to attack scholars; false reasoning and logic for those who take pride in being knowledgeable, and ignorance to attack the ignorant.
We should always seeks Gods protection from Satan, and pray for guidance. Prophet Muhammad said: "A good dream is from Allah, so if anyone of you sees a dream which pleases him, he should not tell anybody about it except to the one whom he loves, and if he sees a dream which he dislikes, then he should seek refuge with Allah from its evil and from the evil of Satan, and spit three times (on his left) and should not tell anybody about it, lest it might harm him. " (Narrated by Al-Bukhari)
In conclusion, dreams have a purpose and are good for us. They can be a source of guidance and soultion in our lives. They can also be a source of deception and misguidance. We should always remember that God speaks by action not by dreams. We should never take action by basing our actions on dreams. We should always seek guidance from God. If God needs us to do something, He will open doors for us. He will provide for us. It is not our duty to open doors which God will keep shut for us. So we should let life unfold and let dreams speak to us but not steer the ship for us.
-F.D
-F.D