Dream theory from the perspective of Islam

Background and Objective: Sleep as a sign of the God wisdom and power, is the agent of stability and tranquility. Sleep has a spiritual dimension. Sincere dreams are the continuation of prophecy and guidance of the God. This study aimed to explain the dream theory from the perspective of Islam. Materials and Methods: This evolutionary study has focused on these questions: “what is the process of dreaming in Islam? Can people control their dreams”? Islamic evidences were taken from the verses and narrations related to the words “soul, sleep, dream and death”, using al-Mu’ayyim, authentic Shi’a commentary books, Bihar al-Anwar, Kofi principles, the Book of Resurrection and life after death. The religious and scientific evidences were analyzed based on the Walker and Event content analysis method. Dream theory was extracted from religious evidence. Results: Based on "revelation epistemology" during sleep, the ‘template of a higher universe’ travels to the unseen world and divine guidance can be provided. People with spiritual health) (owners of the Sound heart) can control the type of their dream, and solve problems by the guidance of God. In the perspective of Islam, there are three types of dreams: sometimes is divine guidance and glory from God, sometimes is sorrow from the devil, and sometimes are conflicts of daily living or past events. Conclusion: Regarding the spiritual aspect of sleep and its deep impact on physical and mental health, it is essential for medical staff to become familiar with dream theory from the perspective of Islam. They should explain to patients and family members the importance and impact of sleep on the acceleration of tissue repair and the treatment of anxiety and depression. To those who are willing to enjoy the divine guidance through the dream, they can teach the Islamic method of dream control.

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI'S GHOSTS, SOUL-SLEEP, AND VICTORIAN DEATH CULTURE

Ghosts haunt Christina Rossetti's poetry. Amidst the lyrics, devotional poems, and children's verse, poems about ghosts and hauntings recur as material evidence of Rossetti's fascination with spectral presences. That fascination poses a particular interpretive puzzle in light of her religious convictions and piety. We might be tempted to identify the recurring ghosts as just another nineteenth-century flirtation with spiritualism – the spiritualism by which her brothers William and Gabriel were intrigued, attending séances and testing the validity of communications from the dead. Rossetti, however, clearly dismissed spiritualism as false belief and a means to sin. We might also be tempted to divide Rossetti's poetry into the secular and the sacred and to categorize the ghost poems as the former, yet much recent criticism on Rossetti has argued successfully for the pervasiveness of her religious voice even in works that seem not to be religious. Finally, in seeking to hear a religious resonance, we might be tempted to interpret her ghosts as representative of the Holy Ghost, yet that interpretation could only be asserted at the expense of the poems themselves; as narrative poems, most of them involve ghosts of dead lovers, desired by the living for themselves – not as experiences of God's presence. Rossetti's use of ghosts within short narrative or dialogic poems of the late 1850s and 60s concerning human desire for lost love invites closer inspection, especially when such poems overtly treat her religious beliefs.

The Hellhound of the Qur'an: A Dog at the Gate of the Underworld

Q. 18:9–26 tells the story of the ‘Sleepers of Ephesus’/‘Companions of the Cave’. Unique to this version of the legend, the Qur'an mentions the presence of a dog alongside the Sleepers: this dog has long been understood as the Sleepers' pet, yet it can be read as much more than this. Many other sources of the Sleepers' legend equate the mysterious sleeping figures to the sleeping dead awaiting resurrection, and the Qur'an offers many clues that its account of the Sleepers' story serves as a warning against the worship of the dead, as this confuses God's signs with the divine reality that sends them. By positing the saintly dead in a sleep-state (e.g. the Syriac Christian doctrine of soul-sleep; the Islamic barzakh), their cults are rendered useless. In this light, the dog in the Qur'anic account can be read not as just a simple pet, but as a guardian over the dead in symbolic continuity with figures such as Anubis and Cerberus. Thus the Sleepers' dog can be read as simultaneously functioning as an underworld guardian that protects the departed, and a fearful creature that warns Muslims not to worship deceased human beings.