what is seen in sleep, sorted by whether what was witnessed can still be traced back
General Technical Meaning
Ruʾyā denotes what is seen in sleep. Technical discussions distinguish true or interpretable dream visions from confused dreams and classify their relation to representation and interpretation.
In ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī’s Works
Risālat al-Manāmāt wa-l-Nubuwwāt
dream vision — explanation
The treatise uses ruʾyā for dream experience and analyzes how perceptual forms may be represented during sleep. It is distinct from ruʾya, ordinary vision or seeing, with which it shares an unpointed spelling.
Limits of this account
It does not establish that every dream is veridical, prophetic, or directly caused by a separate intellect.
al-Mīzān fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾān
true dreams and their three classes
In the discussion on Yūsuf 12:93–102, the author presents the same broad dream psychology that helps situate this treatise: true dreams include those needing no interpretation, those the soul has reworked through likenesses and which therefore admit interpretation, and confused dreams from which the original content can no longer be recovered.
Limits of this account
Ṭabāṭabāʾī presents this threefold division there as a summary of earlier scholars of the soul and then says that the Qurʾān supports it. Al-Manāmāt’s own classification is fourfold; the two accounts illuminate one another but are not identical classifications.
al-Mīzān fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾān
the dream as a cognitive matter
Speaking in his own voice, the author states that dream-vision is undeniably a cognitive matter and that imagination has a part in it. The dream is therefore treated as an act of apprehension rather than as a merely bodily event.
Limits of this account
This places the dream among cognitive acts. It does not settle what any particular dream discloses, and it is not a definition of apprehension.
Read in context
Open a passage in the edition where this term is linked.