Three Extraordinary Dream Interpretations
Savaşkan Cem BahadırSleep and dreams are two inseparable concepts. The issue of dreams and their interpretations dates back to 5000 B.C. When looked at chronologically, dream interpretations are seen to be found in Assyrian, Sumerian, and Egyptian civilizations. Dreams are mentioned in the chapters of the Qur’an and provide information about the future, and this has increased the importance given to dreams and dream interpretation. Books on dream interpretation in libraries consist of copyrighted and translated works. When dealing with translations, the Arabic work Tabir al Ro’oya [Interpretation of Dreams] written by Ibn Sirin is understood to be one of the most translated works. When looking at the dream interpretation works that are the subject of study, they are seen to be unlike the very voluminous ordinary interpretation books that classify dreams according to subject or that explain dreams based on the items, objects, and entities seen in the dream. When examining these works in terms of their contents, they are seen to have been written in a very simple language and to involve concepts from daily life. This creates the feeling that the authors had prepared the descriptions so that people could always relate to them. This study will provide some information about the terminology in the literature and then attempt to convey to the reader the text of three extraordinary idioms and information about these.
Sıra Dışı Üç Rüya Tabirnâmesi
Savaşkan Cem BahadırUyku ve rüya birbirinden ayrılması mümkün olmayan iki kavramdır. Bu iki kavrama bir de insan faktörü eklendiğinde karşımıza, uyku sırasında görülen rüyalar ve onların insan üzerindeki etkileri çıkmaktadır. Rüya ve tabiri meselesi M.Ö. 5000’li yıllara kadar uzanmaktadır. Kronolojik olarak bakıldığında Asur, Sümer ve Mısır medeniyetlerinden günümüze ulaşmış rüya tabirnamelerinin olduğu görülmektedir. Kutsal kitabımızda rüyanın çeşitli surelerde geçmesi, gelecek hakkında bilgiler verdiğinin anlatılması rüya ve onun tabirine verilen önemin artmasına neden olmuştur. Edebiyatımızda rüya tabirnamelerinin ortaya çıkışı 14. yüzyıla dayanır. Kütüphanelerdeki tabirnameler telif ve tercüme eserlerden oluşmaktadır. Tercüme denildiğinde, İbni Sîrîn’in yazdığı Kitâbü’t-Tabirü’r-Rüya adlı Arapça eserin en çok tercüme edilen eserlerden birisi olduğu anlaşılmaktadır. Çalışmaya konu olan rüya tabirnamelerine bakıldığında alışılagelen çok hacimli, konulara göre tasnif edilmiş ya da rüyada görülen cisim, nesne ve varlıklardan hareket ederek rüyaları açıklayan tabirnameler gibi olmadıkları görülmektedir. Bu eserlerin içerikleri yönüyle incelendiğinde çok sade bir dille yazıldığı ve bünyelerinde barındırdıkları kavramların gündelik hayattaki kavramlardan oluştuğu görülmektedir. Tabirnamelerin müellifleri tarafından her zaman insanların yanında bulanabilsin diye hazırlandığı hissini yaratmaktadır. Hazırlanan çalışmada tabirname literatürü hakkında kısa bilgi verilerek ardından üç sıra dışı tabirnamenin metni ve bu tabirnameler hakkında bilgi okuyucuya aktarılmaya çalışılmıştır.
Sleep and its surprise gift, the dream, have been subjects of greatest curiosity for millennia, starting with the first human being. Various works are known to have been written about sleep and dreams even thousands of years before modern psychology. The first of such known works was written during the old Assyrian period. Almost all cultures have given importance to dreams and their interpretation. Unsurprisingly, dreams that are based on religiously sound foundations have formed a unique genre in itself. Ottoman libraries have many manuscripts on this topic, and when looking at the works on dream interpretations registered in these libraries, they are seen to be mostly attributed to Ibn Sirin or Ja’far al-Sadiq. Some of these have been studied in master’s theses and doctoral dissertation and published as books.
The reason why almost all the works on dream interpretations that are in Ottoman libraries, in homes in Türkiye, or that have been transferred to the Internet these days have similar content regarding how to interpret dreams is that these have been prepared based on the same sources. When examining the studies mentioned above, dream interpretation works are seen to have been arranged using a certain method. Works on dream interpretations are organized in the form of a brief introduction, information about who the work belongs to, classification sections that explain the concepts that are seen in dreams, and stories that are told about these explained subjects or concepts. These works that have come from the same source but differ in terms of the number of interpretations they contain can be said to have attained a standard structure.
The dream interpretations that are the subject of the study differ greatly from the normal interpretation structure in terms of style, content, and number of pages. The first of these dream interpretations interprets dreams based on the first letters of the concepts seen in the dream, the second interprets a concept in a dream based on the day the dream was seen, and the third interprets dreams with regard to the Qur’anic suras the dreamer saw themselves reading within the dream. The first interpretation involves four pages, the second involves 13 pages, and the third also involves 13 pages.
The manuscript this article subjects to study is registered in the National Library of Türkiye as 06 Mil Yz A 2366. The manuscript contains four texts on interpretations. The dream interpretation found in the introduction to page 127b has been prepared as a master’s thesis (Otugüzel, 2018). The current study will attempt to present to the world of science information about the three short texts on dream interpretations that appear in the pages following those studied in the master’s thesis, and these are observed to be beyond the understanding of the conventional nomenclature. The first of these dream interpretations is found on pages 127b–129a of the manuscript, the second on pages 129a–135b, and the third on pages 135b–141b. The current study will provide the texts from these dream interpretations will be given separately, with information about each interpretation occurring just before each text.
Each of these dream interpretations differs from the others in terms of content. While Turkish libraries contain thousands of copies of works on dream interpretations, the books containing hundreds of thousands of items and glossaries of the objects seen in dreams generally come to mind when discussing works on dream interpretations, and the readily available examples lead one to think this way. However, the interpretations this study has presented show that sometimes dream interpretations had been prepared to serve a daily purpose other than what is expected.
