Dreaming of Forest in Islam

A forest is read by whether the dreamer has a path through it. Walking in a forest and knowing the way is read as an affair with many parts that is nonetheless under control. Being lost among the trees is the more common reading: a matter entered without knowing its extent, or a confusion in which each step looks like the last. A forest that is green and full of fruit carries a better reading than a dark or dead one, and coming out of a forest into open ground is read as clarity arriving after a period of not being able to see far. Cutting a way through is read as effort that works, and cutting down living trees the older readings treated unkindly, as harm done to something that was giving benefit. A forest at night, or full of noise is read as fear about what is unseen rather than about anything present. Meeting someone in a forest shifts the reading onto that person as either a guide or a further complication, and the dream itself usually makes clear which.

There is no Qur'anic image of a forest and no Arabic idiom under it, so it is best to say what the reading actually rests on: the interpreters connected it to the plain nature of the thing. A forest is many of one kind, close together, with the horizon taken away — and any affair with too many parts to see past has the same character. It is not read as danger. It is read as not being able to see out.

A dream of being lost in a forest is not a warning about a decision and does not tell you to abandon anything. It is not a ruling and not a prediction. A person who went to sleep with an unresolved matter dreams it out in some shape, and this is one of the shapes. If the dream unsettled you, the taught response applies: seek refuge in Allah, turn onto your other side, and do not tell it to anyone.