tracing a dream image back through its likenesses to what the soul first witnessed
General Technical Meaning
Dream interpretation traces a dream-image back through analogical representation to the content witnessed by the soul.
In ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī’s Works
Risālat al-Manāmāt wa-l-Nubuwwāt
dream interpretation — definition and use
Dream interpretation is defined as moving from one suitable likeness to another until the originally witnessed source is reached.
Limits of this account
It does not apply to dreams without representational transformation or to irretrievably proliferating dream-images.
al-Mīzān fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾān
interpretation as return to what was first witnessed
The discussion explains what interpretation does when a dream has been reworked by imagination: it returns the represented form toward the original content first witnessed by the soul. Explicit dreams do not require this return; represented dreams do.
Limits of this account
This does not provide a general technique for interpreting dreams, and the threefold account in which it occurs is presented there as a report from earlier scholars of the soul before Ṭabāṭabāʾī argues for Qurʾānic support.
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