One such dream is cited as follows...

One such dream is cited as follows: a man went to Ibn Sīrīn, the famous interpreter of dreams, and said, “I dreamed that I held a seal with which I sealed the mouths and privates of the people.” Ibn Sīrīn said, “You will become a caller of adhān [mu’adhdhin], the people will fast by your adhān, abstaining from eating and marital relations.” Clear and unclear dreams In accordance to what has been said, dreams are of either two types: clear dreams which have not been altered by the dreaming soul and do not require interpretation, and unclear dreams in which the soul alters what it perceives and therefore require interpretation and restoration of the mental form to its true and primary status, such as interpreting light as knowledge and darkness as ignorance and bewilderment.

Non-vivid dreams are also divided into two categories: dreams with a coherent story and transitions and can easily be interpreted, such as the previous example, and dreams wherein the soul has made complex and vague alterations. Understanding the original observation of the soul in the latter case is difficult or even impossible for dream interpreters. Such dreams are termed muddled dreams [adghāth ahlām] and considered nonsensical and uninterpretable.

﴾ “Allah takes the souls when they die and also those that have not died He takes in their sleep; He keeps those whose deaths have been decreed and sends back the rest…” [^2] The surface meaning of these verses is that the soul is taken from the body when sleeping losing its attachment to the five senses, and it returns to the Lord—a return similar to death. There are also indications of the three types of dreams.

For instance, the dreams of Prophet Abraham (‘a) and the Holy Prophet (S) are of the first type, the dreams of Joseph’s (S) fellow prisoners are of the second type, and it also speaks of complex and vague dreams where the Egyptian dream interpreters of considered the dream of the pharaoh as a muddled dream [adghāth ahlām].[^3]  [^1]: Sūrat al-An‘ām 6:60.