A mountain in a dream: a calm reading

A mountain in a dream: a calm reading

Introduction

A mountain in waking life is a fixed thing seen from far before it is climbed: shade, a summit, rock, sometimes plants and water, sometimes barrenness. In a dream the fixed thing moves. People wake after climbing a mountain of stacked office chairs, or seeing a mountain grow in the house courtyard until it hid the well, or watching a mountain walk beside a bus like a companion of the road, and they ask: is it elevation? a heavy care? is falling a setback and arriving a post? Yusuf Dreams magazine does not appoint from a summit, does not dismiss from a descent, and does not cut a term of life for whoever remained midway on the mountain. It asks what the mountain did and what you did: did you climb, descend, lean into its shade, or carry it until it grew heavy? was there plant and water on it, or bare rock? was it standing or split? and what remained in the chest: awe, tightness of breath, the safety of leaning, joy of the summit, fear of falling? In the Qur'an mountains are mentioned as pegs, and in proverbs a person is said to be as firm as a mountain. That weight reaches sleep, and the mountain becomes, in one phrase, an impregnable man; in another, a care; or the utmost of a person's ambition; or a journey; or a covenant. Calm reading does not choose one phrase for every dreamer. A traveller's state is not the state of one who keeps to his house, and not the state of one who lives on a slope by day and sees his mountains every morning. The symbol is a mirror of a stage: an ascent of hardship toward a quest, a pillar to take shelter in, or a weight carried until it tires. Form is half the language: a green mountain is not a bare black one; a summit with bread that does not diminish is not a summit of wind only. We do not rule that your father is “a mountain” in the sense of harshness because you saw him as a peak. The dream may borrow height for a quality: a scholar to be leaned on, a king in the old language meaning a person of command, a large merchant, or — in some transmission — a difficult woman if the mountain is round and spread, a rare lamp mentioned with humility, not a law upon women. We separate the source of the picture — a trip, a screen image, a verse recited — from the deed of the symbol. We walk with heritage in humility, then with the context of spouses, family, and travel, then with examples that belong to the mountain — not the kitchen buffalo, not the passport spy. The mountain is also a test of humility, not of pride. Whoever reached the summit in a dream and then became unjust by day toward those below him has forgotten that some phrases tie praise upon the peak to justice, and tyranny upon it to wrong. Whoever fell in the dream is not issued a fatwa of dismissal from his post in the morning. God knows the mountains and who sets them firm. We read the ascent, the shade, and the cleft.

What heritage sources say

Attributed to Ibn Sirin, seeing a mountain points to the dreamer's state or a stage he is passing through, and it is also transmitted that a mountain is a man of great standing or a heavy care, and that climbing it is the attaining of a quest with hardship. Greatness and care are not only opposites; the man leaned upon may himself be a heavy provision. We transmit with humility. Not every summit is a post, and not every hardship is failure. With Al-Nabulsi the interpretation of a mountain differs between travel, staying put, and dwelling. A traveller may see the mountain as a pass or as an anchorage. One who keeps to his house may see it as a care growing in the courtyard. One who lives on a slope may see his daytime habit entering sleep. The mountain is brought near a man of high standing, impregnable, managing his affair; or a child; or a merchant; or the utmost of ambition; or a covenant. If there is plant and water on it, it is brought near a person of religion from whom people benefit. If it is bare, it is brought near a height in which there is no benefit. The standing mountain is better than the fallen in some transmission; the fallen that has become rocks is read as a collapse after height. Ease of climbing is ease of a quest; difficulty is toil in it. Descent after height is brought near the passing of a rank, or near relief if the ascent was a care — and context distinguishes. We read lamps; we do not appoint and we do not dismiss. A contemporary phrasing says a mountain is often tied to a feeling of safety or of change. Safety: shade, leaning, anchorage. Change: a cleft that opens, a mountain that walks, a courtyard that is hidden. In the perfume of dream-meanings the mountain is brought near whatever suits the dreamer's state: ease or a warning. Ease: elevation after hardship, water on the slope, bread on the summit. Warning: a weight carried, a midway where there is neither ascent nor descent, a pillar splitting. From Ibn Shahin it is transmitted that taking shelter in a mountain is resort to a strong one to be held to, and that its splitting is the weakness of a pillar relied upon. That sentence is practical: ask who your pillar is, not who your imagined enemy is. When the sources are silent about office chairs or about a childhood desk inside a cleft, we say they are silent. We do not fill the gap with a prophecy of death from a fall, nor with a post from a call to prayer on a summit that did not appear in the scene.

Context shifts

Between spouses the mountain stands in a house or in a tie. A wife who sees a mountain grow in the courtyard of her in-laws' house until it covered the mouth of the well, while people still filled empty buckets: the courtyard is a symbolic shared property. The well is a source. Growth is hiding. Empty buckets are a habit without water. The reading: a great pillar — a father-in-law, a custom, the dignity of a house — grew until it blocked the source. We do not say the father-in-law is harsh as a ruling. We say the dream placed height over water. The question: which fixed thing in your house has hidden drinking? A husband who sees himself carrying a small mountain on his back in the bedroom, and it lightens when his wife touches the edge of the rock: carrying is, in transmitted phrases, the provision of a large man. Lightness at the partner's touch is sharing in the weight. We do not date a miracle. We ask: which small mountain in the bed lightens if it is shared? With a father and a mother the tone leans toward the pillar and dignity. A father who sees his son sitting on a summit eating a loaf that does not diminish, the wind strong and the boy unafraid: sitting on a summit in some transmission is brought near a large child or a settling after ascent. Bread that does not diminish is enoughness in a place of fear. The reading: a son in a place of height is given a reassurance whose wind the father does not share. We do not date the father's passing. We ask: do you fear he will do without your pillar, or do you take gladness in his enoughness? A mother who sees the mountain walking with the school-trip bus like a silent companion, then stopping at the house: a walking mountain is a change in what is fixed. The meaning is a pillar that accompanies, then keeps the limit of the house. Pity, not a warning of collapse. Work suits the stacked chairs. An employee who sees himself climbing a mountain made of his office chairs and his colleagues' chairs, each chair spinning like a manager's chair when touched: ascent is the hardship of a quest. Chairs are ranks. Spinning when touched is the brittleness of a rank that is turned, not fixed. The reading: elevation sought from tools of sitting, not from ground. The ease or difficulty of each step is a question about the toil of a symbolic post. We do not date a promotion. We ask: which chair are you climbing while it turns? Travel is explicit in the books of expression. A traveller who sees a mountain walking parallel to the road as if guarding the bus: walking with you is the safety of a pillar in exile, or a care that does not leave. The tone is from the chest: warmth or tightness. A traveller who sees himself descend from a mountain to a plain with water after an exhausting climb: if the ascent was a care, descent is relief in some distinctions. If the ascent was a symbolic post, descent is a question about coming down. We do not cut. We read tiredness and water. Pure fear: a mountain leaning over the house, no climbing. We lower interpretation. Fear of collapse is material: where does the dreamer lean on what may split? Sometimes checking the daytime pillar is enough: a debt, work, a father. Repetition is a sign that the pillar has not been spoken to.

Common dream examples

An accounts clerk dreamed himself climbing, before dawn, a mountain of blue swivel chairs, each bearing his name on the back in someone else's handwriting; whenever he neared the summit the chair turned and sent him to the slope, then he found in his shirt pocket a small key for one chair that did not turn. Dawn is the first of time. A name in another's hand is a rank people write for you. Turning is brittleness. A key is a tool for fixing one chair. The reading: a quest for height in work whose chairs are turned, and firmness in one, not in all. We do not order him to leave the job. We ask: which chair in your days deserves the key, and which collective climb turns you back to the slope? Praise, if he praises God for the firmness of the one, is more just than tyranny on a summit that spins. A woman living in the family house dreamed a grey mountain growing in the courtyard like dough, a metre each night, until it covered the old well and kept light from her mother's room, and birds built on the slope nests of water bills. Night growth is a matter without leave. Hiding the well is hiding a source. Nests of bills are a life built from the account of drinking. The reading: a family fixed thing grows until it blocks water and light, and yet a life of accounts is built upon it. We do not date the demolition of the house. We ask: which pillar “grows” in the courtyard until it darkens the mother's room? Trimming the daytime habit is kinder than cursing the mountain. A man on a bus between two cities dreamed the mountain he knows from the waking window walking to the right of the bus at the same speed; whenever the bus stopped, it stopped; whenever he looked at it, the mountain lowered its head as one who hears. A walking mountain is a change in the nature of a peg. Lowering the head is the manners of strength. The reading: a pillar accompanying travel and listening. If the traveller is going to a contract, the meaning is nearer to a dignity that goes with him. If he is fleeing a debt, the meaning is nearer to a care not left at the station. The chest distinguishes. We do not appoint him to a post from the nodding of rock. A father dreamed his adolescent son sitting on a green summit with a spring, eating a loaf that became whole whenever he broke it, the father trying to climb and remaining on the slope because his shoes were office shoes. A green summit with water: in transmission, nearness to a height in which there is benefit. A loaf that does not diminish is enoughness. Office shoes are a tool of work that prevent the father's climb to the son's summit. The reading: the boy has a place of enoughness the father cannot reach with the tool of his job. We do not date a cutting of ties. We ask the father: which shoe do you take off if you wish to sit with him, not to climb above him? The son in the dream did not fell the father; the slope is another place. A woman after her grandfather's death dreamed the mountain near his village splitting without an earthquake, and in the cleft a small room with her childhood wooden desk and an oil lamp still burning. A cleft is the weakness of a pillar or a door opening in what is fixed. The room is keeping. A childhood desk is a place of old learning. A lamp that has not gone out is a memory still lit. The reading: the family's pillar — the grandfather as a mountain in feeling — opened onto a room of childhood work, not onto an abyss. Shelter was in him; the split showed a desk, not a grave. We do not cut a term of life for anyone from a cleft. We ask: which childhood work asks for light after the pillar's absence? Sitting at the desk by day — writing, accounts, a prayer — is truer than waiting for the mountain to close.

Mistakes people make

The first mistake is making every ascent a post and every descent a dismissal. Transmission itself distinguishes: the descent of a care's ascent may be relief. The second is reading a bare mountain as unbelief in a person of command in your neighbour's right. The old approximation about plant and water is a lamp of religion and benefit, not a court of creed upon the people of the quarter. The third is a prophecy of death from remaining midway on the mountain. That phrase is told in some long books; the magazine's manners are not to cut a term of life. The fourth is insulting a partner with “mountain” in the sense of dullness. Firmness may be safety. The fifth mistake is ignoring form: green with water is not bare black is not blue chairs. The sixth is diagnosing breathlessness from a climb. If there is illness by day, a physician. The seventh is measuring a child's vision on a summit by the scale of a manager's ambition. A child's fear of a leaning mountain is soothed first.

Practical takeaway

If you saw a mountain, write the deed: ascent, descent, leaning, carrying, growth in a courtyard, walking with you, a cleft. Write the form: plant and water, or barrenness; standing or split. And what remained in the chest: safety, care, joy, tightness. Then ask: which stage am I in? which pillar do I take shelter in that may split? which quest do I climb with chairs that turn? If the symbol was in the house, look at what hid the well. If it was at work, look for the chair that has a key. If the mountain split onto an old desk, sit at it by day. Take from heritage: the dreamer's state or his stage; the difference between travel, staying, and dwelling; great standing or a heavy care; ascent with hardship; safety or change; plant and water as benefit; shelter in a strong one, and splitting as the weakness of a pillar. Let interpretation be humility: praise if you rose, shade if you took shelter, sharing if you carried. Do not issue a fatwa of a post, a dismissal, or a term of life. Return the symbol to its size: a height, a shade, and a stage — not a decree upon a mountain, nor upon whoever lives on its slope. God knows best.