Dream Words

Note: Most of the (afore-mentioned supernatural perception by means of dream visions) occurs to human beings unintentionally and without their having power over it. The soul occupies itself with a thing. As a result, it obtains that glimpse (of the supernatural) while it is asleep, and it sees that thing. It does not plan it that way.

In the Ghayah and other books by practitioners of magic, reference is made to words that should be mentioned on falling asleep so as to cause the dream vision to be about the things one desires.

These words are called by (the magicians) “dream words” (al-halumah). In the Ghayah, Maslamah mentioned a dream word that he called “the dream word of the perfect nature.”

It consists of saying, upon falling asleep and after obtaining freedom of the inner senses and finding one’s way clear (for supernatural perception), the following non-Arabic words: tamaghis ba’dan yaswadda waghads nawfana ghadis. 311

The person should then mention what he wants, and the thing he asks for will be shown to him in his sleep.

A man is said to have done this after he had eaten but little and done dhikr exercises 312 for several nights. A person appeared to him and said, “I am your perfect nature.”

A question was put to that person, and he gave the man the information he desired. With the help of these words, I have myself had remarkable dream visions, through which I learned things about myself that I wanted to know. However, (the existence of such dream words) is no proof that the intention to have a dream vision can produce it.

The dream words produce a preparedness in the soul for the dream vision. If that preparedness is a strong one, (the soul)312a will be more likely to obtain that for which it is prepared. A person may arrange for whatever preparedness he likes, but that is no assurance that the thing for which preparations have been made will actually happen. The power to prepare for a thing is not the same as power over the thing (itself).

This should be known and considered in similar cases.

Other types of divination

Some people can foretell things before they happen. They have a special natural qualification for it which sets them apart other humans. They do not have a craft for their predictions. Nor do they get them with the help of astral influences or anything else.

Their forecasts are the necessary result of their natural disposition.

Among such people are diviners (‘arraf) are:

• men who gaze into transparent bodies such as mirrors or bowls of water
• men who examine the hearts, livers, and bones of animals
• men who draw auguries from birds and wild animals
• men who cast pebbles, grains of wheat, or (date) pits.

All these things are found among mankind. No one can deny them or be ignorant of them. Statements on supernatural things are also placed upon the tongues of the insane, who are thus able to give information about (supernatural things). Sleeping and dying persons, being about to die or to fall asleep, likewise speak about supernatural things.

Men who have followed Sufi training have, as is well known, as acts of divine grace, obtained perceptions of supernatural things.

How is the human soul is prepared for supernatural perception?

The soul is a spiritual essence which is the only spiritual being that exists potentially. It exchanges potentiality for actuality with the help of the body and bodily conditions. This is something everyone can attain to.

Everything that exists potentially has matter and form. The form of the soul, through which its existence materializes, is identical with perception and intellection.

The soul at first exists potentially. It is prepared for perception and for the reception of the universal and particular forms. Its growth and actual existence then materialize through keeping company with the body, through the things to which (the body) accustoms (the soul) when (the former’s) sensual perceptions are foisted upon (the latter), and through the universal ideas which (the soul itself) abstracts from the sensual perceptions of the body.

It intellectualizes the forms time after time, until perception and intellection become the actual form of the soul.

Thus, its essence materializes. The soul, then, is like matter, and, through perception, the forms come to it one after the other in an uninterrupted sequence.

This is why we find that a child in the earliest stages of his growth is unable to achieve the perception which comes to the soul from its essence, either in his sleep or through removal (of the veil of sense perception), 315 or anything else.

For the form of the soul, which is its very essence, namely, perception and intellection, has not yet materialized (in the child). Nor has the power of the soul to abstract the universals materialized. Later on, when the essence of (the soul) has materialized in actuality, the soul has two kinds of perception, as long as it remains in the body= one through the organs of the body, for which the soul is enabled by the corporeal perceptions, and the other through its own essence, without any intermediary.

The soul is prevented from the latter kind of perception by its immersion in the body and the senses, and the preoccupations of (body and senses). By means of corporeal perception, for which the senses were originally created, they always draw the soul to the external.

Frequently, however, the soul plunges from the external into the internal. Then, the veil of the body is lifted for a moment, either by means of a quality that belongs to every human being, such as sleep, or by means of a quality that is found only in certain human beings, such as soothsaying or casting (of pebbles, etc.), or by means of exercises such as those practiced by (certain) Sufis who practice the removal (of the veil of sense perception).

At such moments, the soul turns to the essences of the highest group (the angels), which are higher than itself. This is possible because in the order of existence the stages of the soul and the angels are connected with each other, as we established earlier. 317

These essences are spiritual. They are pure perception and intellects in action. They contain the forms and realities of the existentia, as was (just) mentioned. Something of those forms is then disclosed in (the soul). It derives some knowledge from them.

Frequently, it transmits the perceived forms to the imagination which, in turn, puts them into the customary molds. (The soul,) then, has recourse to sensual perception to explain the things it has perceived, either in their abstract form or in the molds into which (they were put by the imagination).

In this way, it gives information about them. This is how the preparedness of the soul for supernatural perception must be explained.