Contributed By: Dr. Equbal Wajid (ahmedsi03@marafiq.com.sa)
Dr. Syed Hasan had adequate knowledge about the interpretations of dreams. I also learned from him the interpretations of dreams. He use to say that the symptoms of dreams in many patients have significant meaning. In his style of treatment he also ask patients about their dreams. When the patients hide to tell or tell more about their dreams he believed that dreams have more significance in the psycho-analytical method of treatment. He said that the dreams are one of the main object of a psycho-analytic research. Although in his opinion the dreams are not the best preparation of that the neuroses, but a dream is itself a neurotic symptom. So it is one of the important means to gather knowledge about a patient . He said that there is yet another factor involved in the dreams which sets ,in itself, all the requirements of exact investigations, provided that the descriptions given by patients could prove correct. Even a certain element of exaggeration in the description of dreams could mislead the therapist.
Dr. Syed Hasan said that the exact psychology of the present day has repeatedly concerned itself with the dreams. The single valuable contribution to our knowledge about dreams to which we are indebted to exact psychology relates to the influence upon the dream-content of physical stimuli operations during sleep. The first common characteristic of all dreams would be that we are asleep at that time. Obviously, the dream is the life of mind during sleep. He said that the dreams are divided into time and many combination of images. The primary duty of a therapist is to understand that to which period of time this dream belongs to. Sometimes the dreams symbolize some stimuli in our life to which we are not directly involved in our daily life. Dr. Syed Hasan realized that we need of a new way approach, if we make any advance in our researches into dreams. He continued with his assumption that the dreams are a mental phenomenon. At many occasions he introduced his personal assumptions which later came true. In the interpretations of dreams, firstly, he tried to know whether the dreams are related to the past, present or future. He sometimes said that we are not to trouble about the surface meaning of the dream. Whether it be reasonable or absurd, clear or confused. He believed that in no case it does constitute the unconscious thoughts.
He often told us not to be confined on the substitute ideas for the elements of dreams rather than wait until the hidden unconscious thoughts could appear on its own accord. He told that the dream as remembered, is not the real thing at all, but a distorted substitute which, by calling up other substitute ides, provides us with a means of approaching the thought properly bringing into consciousness. He said that we can interpret our own dreams as well those of others. Instead of being annoyed at the patient’s disobedience, he always turned his experiences to good account as a means of learning something new. Dr. Syed Hasan realized that the resistance invariably confronts us when we try to penetrate to the hidden unconscious thought from the substitute offered by the dream-element.
When I purposely chosen to read the interpretations and clarifications of dreams in “TABEER UR ROOYA” [The interpretations of dreams] the book of Allama Ibne Seereen the great Islamic Scholar, who had been a respectful upholder of the Islamic interpretations of dreams, I came to know that there are long chains of associations in the Freudian theories of dreams and those of the Islamic interpretations, but off course, there are some points of difference where the psychological assumptions has failed to guide our conscious.
As regards the Islamic interpretations of dreams, it is not only confined to the psycho-analytic approach rather than it talks about the conscious association of the mind beyond the physical appearances. That is reserved and said to be plunged in the conscious to guide, greet or warn mankind against the good or bad happenings to which he is casual. It is said that the dreams are the 46th part of divine guidance. In the Islamic interpretation the ‘meaning’[message] appears directly up on the conscious but due to the earthly confined experience it cannot be understand at all, so it automatically dresses itself into a symbolic language. The symbols are sometimes close to our experiences and many times it variably defer form our knowledge.
Once, Dr. Syed Hasan told me, one of his dreams that he dreamt continuingly for years. He said that many times he saw himself mixing the human waste [feces] form his both hands and making like balls of it. He dreamt this dream once or twice in a year, after the inception of Insan School. He said that in the beginning, the symbolism of this dream was not obviously meaningful to him, but getting a serious thought on this remarkable, un-identical and ambiguous sort of symbol he recognized that it is rather than a warning for him to reassure his activities of service to the Nation. In other words the dream was peculiarly rich in content as its impression of strangeness is associated to the future or the present or as a whole the complete frame work of Insan School, which also includes the sincerity of the people as well as the purity of Dr. Syed Hasan’s intention. The act of dreaming with the performance of an unwanted dirty work as distinct as an actual experience is consistent to his own real experiences of performing an act of service to the Nation.
He said that after this dream he changed himself with more determination and strength of mind and as a result he succeeded to excess his unconscious and controlled the dream which was appearing regularly on the screen of his conscious. Once he send the message to his unconscious, with his strong determination that he will not give-up his work at any cost, the dream subsided somewhere in the fragment of his unconscious.
In 1981 December, the annual vacation in Insan School was about to start and I was preparing to go home for the first time after my marriage, Mr. Saleha Abid Hussain, an storywriter in Urdu and wife of the renowned educationist and the Ex Vice Chancellor Jamia Millia Islamia, Prof. Mohammad Mujeeb who had been of the teacher’s of Dr. Syed Hasan came in my dream. She looked too young, with a big widen face. She spoke nothing nor I happen to say anything. Just, what I felt was that a feeling of pleasure-full happiness that I got a chance to meet such a notable short story writer of Urdu. She looked sober. The dream ended. According to our habit I drew a direct attention of Dr. Syed Hasan to the certain peculiarity of this dream as this dream merely reproduced the stimulus of my mental life. He told nothing as sometime it was his habit. He knobbed his head in a meaningful way and said:
“ J…EE…..HAN…… HAI….JI…JI….” [ Ye…ss……. It is ….yeh …yeh…]
Thus, I realized that Dr. Syed Hasan had a new way of approach of analyzing the dynamic conception of dreams. He use to understand quickly the relation between a symbol and the idea symbolized in a dream. Symbols sometimes made it possible for him in certain circumstances to interpret a dream without questioning the dreamer, who in any case could tell him nothing about the symbols.
In my above dream the symbol which appeared was common. It also includes the circumstances in which the dreamer is living. So this dream reflected my direct allusion with Urdu fiction, my new wife, Insan School, and Dr. Syed Hasan. The interpretation of this dream will outline an squire in which I like to live long. It was like my worldly paradise from which I was forced to rack out in 1994. The association with Urdu fiction and my wife continued. It made me the writer of two published books in Urdu and the father of eight children, but the association with Insan School and Syed Hasan was lost forever…(to be continued)
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