DREAMS have fascinated humans — both simple and sophisticated — for thousands of years. Moreover, they have engaged great minds, such as Aristotle, the Arab philosopher al-Kindi, the Muslim physician and philosopher Ibn Sina and others.

Many great modern psychologists, such as Freud and Jung, have devoted much of their time studying them. Religions and faith traditions as well have given importance to dreams.

The Quranic narration of dream stories reflects a special way of knowing and predicting the future through a mode described as ‘ta’wil’ (interpreting meanings). It elaborately mentions dreams of Hazrat Yusuf. In addition, there are many sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) which link dreams to prophecy.

The Quran eloquently describes (12:43-49) the king of Egypt’s dream in which there are seven plump cows and seven thin cows. The thin cows eat the seven plump cows. When he awoke perplexed, the king asked his courtiers to interpret his dream. None could offer any satisfactory explanation.

A former inmate, who had been with Yusuf in prison and whose dreams Yusuf had once correctly interpreted, told the courtiers that Yusuf could be asked to do this. The prophet patiently heard the narration and confidently interpreted the ta’wil (inner meaning) of the dream. He went on to say that the next seven years would be of plenty, followed by seven years of famine.

It is interpreted by some scholars that the dream was a warning to the king from God. Yusuf advised the king to let him oversee the granaries, so that the years of plenty could take care of the next seven years of famine. The king was impressed by Yusuf’s ta’wil of his dream, which made sense to him. This incident marked a significant turning point in Yusuf’s life thereafter. The story illustrates that dreams need to be interpreted metaphorically, decoding each aspect of the story.

Dreams seem to signal important messages.

Edgar, an expert on dreams in Muslim contexts, reports that there are three types of dreams. Firstly, there are the true dreams (al-ru’ya al-sadiqa), second, false dreams, and finally, the meaningless everyday dreams (known as hulm).

However, the category of everyday dreams could be brought forth by the dreamer’s ego or base appetite based on what they experience in the real world. Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, theorised that dreams reflect the dreamer’s unconscious mind, and specifically, that the dream content is shaped by unconscious wish fulfilment. He argued that important unconscious desires often relate to early childhood memories and experiences. “The dream is a fulfilment of a wish,” he stated.

While for Freud, dreams may have been an expression of repressed wishes and desires, Carl Jung, another famous psychologist, saw them as the work of the unconscious, the hidden iceberg of human consciousness.

He argues that “dreams prepare, announce, or warn about certain situations, before they actually happen. Most crises or dangerous situations have a long incubation, only the conscious mind is not aware of it”.

He further argues, “…the more we pay attention to our dreams, the more we

will find the inner strength and intui-

tive wisdom needed to thrive in a

sick society”.

In a lecture given in 1934, Jung says, “It is as if our consciousness were … a ship on the great sea of the unconscious. As the fate of a ship is partially determined by the activity of the sea, likewise the direction of our life is highly influenced by the un­­conscious.” For Jung, thus, dreams are as windows into the un­­conscious, they provide us with information about health, or sickness.

Why are dreams expressed in vague or ambiguous language? Jung reflects that, “while the conscious mind is capable of rationality and logic, the unconscious is by nature irrational — it does not operate by the laws of logic and it communicates primarily in symbols, not words”, like great poetry, or art.

In sum, the dream world is understood by various religious and scientific perspectives in accordance with their worldviews. From the perspective of Quranic stories and Prophetic sayings, dreams seem to signal important messages, or even predictions.

Each one of us can try to interpret our dreams. They could be of no significance, and we could ignore them. Or we could regard them as valuable clues to our past, present and future relayed by the unconscious on the radar of our conscious mind. They are an amazing mysterious world worth paying atten-tion to.

The writer is an educationist with an interest in the study of religion and philosophy.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2025