68- About Dream Complications
(Regarding the Previous Article)
By: Mr. Seyyed Mohammad Taghi Vahedi, from the City of Kermanshah
After reading "A solution to Dream Complications" by our dear brother, Mr. Heshmatullah Dowlatshahi (Heshmat al-Sultan) in number nineteen of this magazine, I was encouraged to present my ideas and assessments in this matter (despite a scattered and frail state of mind) to our dear writer and other intellectuals.
Dear readers- non-Muslim scholars have contradicting ideas regarding consciousness and the spirit and try to make sense of them through the notion of nature and surroundings, even though these matters stem from the supernatural nature of such notions. On the other hand, they lack firm pillars and stable foundations. However, we are the blessed believers of Islam and the Holy Quran. In addition to these blessings, we are also graced by the doctrines of our Holy Prophet's dynasty. They are associated with the Holy Quran and are true explanations of its orders and interpreters of problems. Therefore, why should we seek assistance from others when we are already in possession of the sea of information?
The Holy Quran teaches us this matter: "God takes the spirits at the time of their death, and those who do not die are taken in their sleep. Then, He keeps those for which He has decreed death and releases the others for a specified term." (Az-Zumar, Verse 42). As you can see, circumstances of sleeping and death are described in this Holy Verse vividly. However, understanding the essence of humans and spirit remains ambiguous and beyond our comprehension. As denoted in Verse 85 of the Surah Al-Isra: "And they ask you about the spirit. Say, the spirit is an affair and order of my God, and humankind has not been given knowledge about it, except a little," the path towards comprehending this affair is obstructed for humankind”. Furthermore, as the renowned Prophetic Hadith verifies: "He who knows his essence knows his God," just as identifying the essence of God is beyond the boundaries of human beings, identifying the spirit is also unattainable.
Therefore, the essence of death and sleep (which is all by God's will) is concealed to humankind. We can distinguish between the state of sleep and death, which this Holy verse explicitly expresses: "He keeps those for which He has decreed death and releases the others for a specified term." Plus, our dear readers have noticed that our Holy Prophet denotes: "sleep is a brother of death." This notion is followed by stating that: "you die in the same form that you sleep, and you will be resurrected (in the afterlife) in a similar manner that you wake up." According to this principle, we can believe that the state of humans in the realm between death and resurrection is identical to the realm of sleep. The only difference is that sleep never exceeds a few hours, while this interval between death and resurrection is long and indefinite. In other words, no one is aware of it but the almighty God.
So far, I have neither disagreed nor contradicted Mr. Dowlatshahi except for the notion of the perispirit. (and that it remains with the human body during sleep and acts as a mediator between body and spirit). Mr. Dowlatshahi says perispirit remains in the body and is the link between the body and the spirit. However, this is hard for me to comprehend because the spirit, when leaving the body, utilizes the perispirit (astral body). Maybe what we see in our dreams (enjoying a trip or facing that horrifying incident) are all actions of the astral body, while our body is resting in bed.
To verify this theory, I will write the following story from memory:
In 1932, I was staying in Tehran for a while. One day, I was invited to lunch at the house of the Ogha newspaper manager, Mr. Motarjemossaltaneh Sheikh Bahaii (Rouzbeh). Mr. Zahirossoltan, the successor of the deceased Khalad Magham Zahirodolle Safa (whom I only had the fortune of meeting on that occasion, and I have had no contact with him afterward), was also there. He was carrying a book and let me skim through the pages for a while. It was in English, so he started translating that book's contents to me and told me that it was about magnetic sleep. It mentioned that through technological advancement, they had invented cameras capable of capturing the state of a subject throughout a magnetic sleep procedure, from the moment the hypnotist initiates to the point where the subject is in a deep sleep.
In the gravures, a dense foam or smoke came out from a place between the subject's forehead, mouth, nose, throat, or chest while he was being put to sleep. That thing gradually densifies with slow movements and eventually forms into the face and the subject's body.
The gravures I saw belonged to a woman who was subject to hypnosis. The gravures continued until her face and perispirit became visible before her. Since this incident happened many years ago, I do not recall any more details from that day. Due to my worldly entanglements, I did not have the opportunity to follow up on the subject matter with further investigations.
In conclusion, if the book's contents were accurate, I believe that the perispirit leaves the body with the spirit in sleep. Moreover, the perispirit will be the carrier of the spirit's activities while the body is sleeping.
In this case, we should believe that, during sleep, since God's will is for humans to live, the body's regular activities are maintained with tools that their essence is not clear to us. These regular activities continue until the spirit returns to the body by God's will, and the person is "awake." Finally, I believe it is necessary to note that since the spirit is in the hands of God while in the state of sleep, it is not a physical phenomenon. So, the notions of closeness and any dimensions of time and space do not apply. Therefore, statements such as closeness and distance of the spirit and its effect on the person's waking need further investigation and correction. I also have other issues related to this discussion that I will leave for future correspondences. Now, I wish to hear and learn from our master of knowledge and wisdom from these questions' answers.
There is no power or strength but from God.