In the late first century a Muslim scholar, Ibn Sirin, wrote a book entitled, Dream Interpretation, which focuses on how to understand the dreams written in the Qu’ran an and also a further break down of how to interpret one’s own dreams and implement them as an aspect of themselves. http://pdf-free-download.com/interpretation-of-dreams-ibn-sirin.pdf Here is a list of PDF files you can download from this website that provide further reading on the interpretation of dreams and some analysis. The seventh link down the page outlines the three different categories where Islamic religion believes dreams can be classified. Ibn Sirin created these distinctions as an aid to those attempting to better understand their own dreams. The dreams that Manaan shared with me, I think would be considered Personal dreams and he knew this because he told me that he did not need to share all of his dreams with an interpreter, as he realized that some were too personal and intended for him to make sense of on his own. Often in Western culture we relate dream interpretation to Dr. Sigmund Freud, as he was one of the first psychoanalytic philosophers and began to illustrate the importance of dreams, as they express the subconscious mind of his patients. One of my favorite pieces of his literature is the case study he wrote covering the hysteria of his female patient Dora. By clicking on this link you will find the introduction of this text and a section of the text itself. http://books.google.com/books?id=KM5tlvpcti0C&dq=case+study+on+dora+sigmund+freud&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=0BOqTL_OGIG78gavr4HVDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false Freud decided that much of our dreams pertain to our repressed sexual selves that are typically so repressed and unacceptable we may not even be aware of these thoughts ourselves. Through our dreams we receive the projections of these repressed sexual feelings, however they are often convoluted and have many hidden messages that only an expert like Freud himself can discover.
The Islamic tradition of dream interpretation has little to do with our subconscious sex drives, but rather they analyze their dreams as predictions and advice given to the dreamer by God (sometimes, not all the time) that will help him prepare for his future and give him insight into his possible fate.
Manaan also told me that he is happy, and alluded to the fact that he is not happy by the commonly thought of American definition of happiness, but rather happy in the sense of stable contentment. Happiness he would define as peace and simplicity, contrary to the sentiments of bliss, success and action. This blog has beautiful photos of Muslim people living their day-to-day life. http://banglaphoto.wordpress.com/category/daily-life/page/2/ The second section on this page reinforces much of what Manaan has explained to me about family ties in Muslim culture, and notices that perhaps the people of Bangladesh are in fact the happiest in the world.
Some good stuff here, although it felt kind of out of the blue. i think would have benefited from a set up that reminded the reader of your character and then went into dreams as something he'd told you about. Also - when you link, you want to have a word on the page link to the urls, not the urls themselves. also these urls are dead. you need to use the link button when you're posting. if you can't figure it out, come see me.
ReplyDeleteB-