Dream and Consciousness
The moment
man sleeps all those rules are cancelled, for he can travel to the States and
come back several times in few moments. He can also see strange things and new
places that he has never visited before. All that he can see with closed eyes
although if someone approaches his eyes and almost touches it, he will not see
or feel it because the eyes are closed, but yet with those eyes closed he can
see very clear and he may say strange things that no one can argue about just
like the king of Egypt saw in his dreams at the time of prophet Youssef
(Joseph) (PBUH). Allah says about what the king saw in his dreams:
<<I saw (in a dream) seven fat cows, whom seven lean
ones were devouring>>
Ayah 43 from surat Youssef
Is it
possible that a cow can eat another in our day life? Of course not, we have never
seen that happen before. And can the weak cow eat the strong one? No, that is
really unbelievable. And man walks in his dreams with his legs on bed not even
moving, and he moves from one place to another with his body staying in the
same place, not even few centimeters away. Man also sees the people who died
many years ago and chats with them. He sees himself young when he is already
old and he sees himself fighting a lion and killing it.
All those
and other things happen to us in our sleep, we dream about it and we see it and
it never happens outside the area of mind and memory and that’s why when we
wake up we can tell people what we saw in details because it is stored in our
memories. And some kind of seeing device other than the eyes saw what happened
clearly with all the details or else how could we describe our dreams. And the
discussion with the people that moved to the hereafter life is one that we are
aware of because we can remember it and repeat may be the same phrases and
words.
So man
moves within a moment from some set of laws to another that we know nothing
about, but to which we submit in our sleep. The question here is whether we
have will or control over those laws that we submit to while sleeping, or not?
That is can any of us while sleeping chose the events that he would like to see
in his dreams? Can he say that he is going to see this and not that? Or say
that this night he can go to Europe and the following night to the Soviet
Union? Of course not, because when man is asleep he is out of the area of human
choice. He is not free to choose what he can or cannot see and he is no more
able to choose the words that he talks with and those that he hides within
himself and does not utter.
He is not
controlling anything he sees although his dream coincides with the notion of
the human brain. For example if someone tells you that he saw something in his
dream, you do not deny him that and you do not argue with him because you know
that there is dreams and that sometimes you are exposed to it. So you do not
accuse him of bringing out a subject that is above the human mind, but instead
you give the day life laws a break so you do not use it as a measure to what
happens during sleep. Your mind also does not question anyone’s dream and you
do not try to argue with him about it because you know from your own experience
that man can see in his dreams things that does not submit to the normal day
life laws.
But still
no one is able to give us a scientific explanation for the laws that controls
man in his sleep and how the soul moves from one set of laws to another within
the same moment and then returns to the day life laws the moment he wakes up
from his sleep and again back to the sleep time laws. And no one regardless of
the scientific degree that he reaches, can explain how this transfer from one
law to another happens, but we know that sleep is a reality and that everyone
experiences it. We also know that in the sleep time laws we go beyond the
measures of time and that’s why when Allah (SWT) made the people in the cave
(Ahl Al-Kahf) asleep for three hundred and nine hijri years, by the time they
were awake they did not know how long they slept. And although they have slept
all those years, what did they say by the time they woke up? Al-Haq (SWT) says
<<Said one of them: “How long have you stayed
(here)?” They said: “We have stayed (perhaps) a day or part of a
day”>>
Ayah 19 from surat Al-Kahf
So man when sleeping does not feel the
time and that’s why the seven sleepers - Ahl Al-Kahf - measured the time that
they have slept by the normal sleep time measures which is usually part of the
day or by most a whole day if he is very exhausted, but not more than that.
And to
apply that on our selves, when we go to sleep and then wake up we do not know
for how long have we been sleeping until we look to some kind of time
measurement device as the watch or any other sign for time measurement like day
and night. So we might have slept in the day light and then wake up late at
night or vice versa, but no one can know the actual number of sleeping hours
unless he turns his eyes to the watch.
To be continued....
