Understanding Dreams in Islam: True Dreams, Self-Talk and Whispers
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Every dream dictionary online, including the one on this site, needs a warning printed before it: a symbol has no fixed meaning, and no book can tell you what your dream meant. This page explains what the sources actually establish about dreams, so that what follows in the dictionary is read the way it should be.
The Three Kinds of Dream
The Prophet said that dreams are of three types: a good dream which is glad tidings from Allah, a dream in which shaytan frightens a person, and a dream from what a person talks to themselves about. Recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim.
That division does most of the work. The great majority of dreams belong to the third category — the mind sorting through what it was already occupied with. A person who spent the day worried about an exam and dreamt of an exam has not received a message.
What Is Established About the True Dream
The true dream, ru'ya, is treated seriously in the sources. The Prophet said: nothing remains of prophethood except the glad tidings. They asked what the glad tidings were. He said: the good dream. Recorded in al-Bukhari.
He also said the truest dreams are those of the people most truthful in speech, which ties the reliability of a dream to the state of the one who sees it rather than to the symbol seen.
Revelation began with true dreams: Aisha reported that the first thing the Prophet received was the true dream in sleep, and he would not see a dream except that it came like the breaking of dawn.
The Etiquette
For a good dream: praise Allah, and tell it only to someone you love or someone with knowledge. The Prophet instructed that a dream should not be related to anyone who might interpret it badly or enviously.
For a distressing dream: the Prophet taught that a person should seek refuge in Allah from shaytan and from its evil, spit dryly to the left three times, turn onto the other side, and not mention it to anyone. He said that if a person does this it will not harm them. Recorded in Muslim.
The instruction not to relate a bad dream is practical, not superstitious. A frightening dream repeated to a dozen people acquires a weight it never had.
Ibn Sirin
Muhammad ibn Sirin was a scholar of the generation after the companions, famous for the precision of his interpretations, and his is the name attached to the dream tradition. The dictionary known by his name is the source most cited in this field, and the meanings in the entries on this site follow that tradition.
Interpreters have always held that the same symbol can mean different things for different people. Water is provision for one person and trial for another; a snake is an enemy to one and, to a farmer, a snake in a field. The dreamer's circumstances, work and state are part of the reading.
How Interpretation Actually Works
Classical interpreters were explicit that the same symbol means different things for different people. Water is provision for one person and trial for another. A snake is an enemy to one and, to a farmer, simply a snake in a field.
Interpretation was understood to depend on the dreamer's circumstances, character, work, and state of faith, on the details of the dream, and on the time it occurred. That is why the serious interpreters asked questions before answering, and why a fixed dictionary entry cannot do what they did.
Using the Dictionary
The entries that follow record the meanings assigned to each symbol in the classical interpretive tradition. Read the entry, then read it against your own situation — the interpreters always did both.
If a dream troubles you, the instruction from the sources is to seek refuge in Allah and let it go. If a dream comforts you, thank Allah and act on the good it encourages.