dreams in which movement among likenesses and contraries has gone so far that the original content cannot be recovered
General Technical Meaning
Aḍghāth al-aḥlām are confused dream-images arising through imagination from psychic or demonic promptings; in this technical taxonomy they are not interpreted.
In ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī’s Works
Risālat al-Manāmāt wa-l-Nubuwwāt
confused dreams — definition and use
Confused dreams are the category in which serial shifts through associations make recovery of the witnessed origin impossible, so the dream is not interpreted.
Limits of this account
It does not make every complicated or disturbing dream an instance of the category.
al-Mīzān fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾān
confused dreams — where interpretation fails
Al-Mīzān describes confused dreams as cases in which the soul’s representational movement has proceeded so far from one likeness or opposite to another that the original witnessed content can no longer be recovered. Their resistance to interpretation therefore belongs to the structure of the dream itself, not merely to an interpreter’s failure.
Limits of this account
The passage does not provide a case-by-case test for distinguishing every confused dream from an interpretable one. The surrounding classification is reported from earlier scholars of the soul before its Qurʾānic support is discussed.
al-Mīzān fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾān
the Qurʾānic instance
The author points to Yūsuf 12:44 — “confused dreams” — as the Qurʾānic instance of this class.
Limits of this account
This identifies an example; it does not add another definition of what makes a dream confused.
Read in context
Open a passage in the edition where this term is linked.