Islamic Dreams
In the search for answers and signs in my current state of mental health, I often find myself looking up the meaning of my dreams. I refer to the interpretations of Ibn Sirin, the respected scholar.
I have to confess that it has become quite an obsession of mine and can have a huge impact on my mood that day. It would be good to know if anyone else struggles with this issue and to know that I’m not alone here. I once heard a teacher say, what is important is what happens when you are awake. However, people like myself with mental well-being issues can become borderline obsessed with such habits and it can contribute to self defeating/self sabotaging behaviours.
A lonely life is also quite often a silent life. Those heartfelt desperate prayers for help sometimes feel met with yet more silence. This then leads to perhaps sometimes frantic searches for answers and hope. Anxiety and panic fuelled quests for meaning in a confusing world.
Upon reflection, this search seems to stem not only from anxiety but from my lack of inner trust and from feeling out of control of my own life. Those days where there is not a soul in the world to advise you or take care of you when you feel unable to care for yourself, the need for reassurance that everything will be OK needs to come from somewhere, and a dream is a good a place as any.
What I do find is that More often than not is that my mental health state declines after looking up the dream Interpretation. For anyone who has attempted to interpret their own dreams, the answers range from regular impending doom to complete success and healing; and this can vary from day to day (do not even consider having a siesta).
It isn’t the interpretation itself that my issues arise but more the method of interpretation. Trying to do this from a book or a website with no knowledgeable background insights is perhaps almost impossible. It makes me once again reflect on our community as a whole; traditionally for a dream to be interpreted the local Imam would be sought out and his knowledge of you as a person and your nature in general alongside his background knowledge of the Deen would lead him to perhaps give a balanced interpretation or even tell you that it doesn’t mean anything this time. I know that I would definitely find this method so much more calming. Connecting to a pillar of the community in that way would feel so refreshing to me. Perhaps I am an idealist and I definitely am an over thinker. However, I am also a realist and know that this isn’t going to happen for me so I need to reconsider my self-defeating behaviour and move towards staying away from my own interpretations.
