In this feuilleton, we are going to describe a remarkable and thoughtful narrative regarding the relationship between the world and the afterlife and sleep
Imam Sajjad, the fourth successor of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) said:
اَلدُّنیا سِنَةٌ وَ الآخِرةٌ یَقظَةٌ وَ نَحنُ بَینَهُما اَضغاثُ اَحلامٍ؛
The world is sleep and the hereafter is awakening, and we are between these two, in disturbed dreams (1)
Since sleep is a state of unconsciousness, immobility, and closure of perception, consciousness, and decision, in our literature, the word sleep is used to show human negligence and ignorance and because most people in their lifetime are oblivious to the purpose of creation and the end and the future (afterlife), they are interpreted as those infected with sleep.
In the narrations, the same description can be seen for the worldly people and they have thought of all the people as sleepy people who wake up when they die.
Just as when a person wakes up, his eyes open and s/he sees what s/he does not see in the waking state, comparably death familiarizes a person with the promised realities and the end of the worldly life and the beginning of the period of Purgatory and the worlds after death, doomsday. Therefore, with death, humans reach the awakening and truth of the promise of God, the Prophets, the Ahlul-Bayt, and the Hereafter.
As the Quran says
وَيَقُولُونَ مَتَىٰ هَٰذَا الْوَعْدُ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ صَادِقِينَ ﴿٤٨﴾
They say, ‘When will this promise be fulfilled, should you be truthful?’
مَا يَنْظُرُونَ إِلَّا صَيْحَةً وَاحِدَةً تَأْخُذُهُمْ وَهُمْ يَخِصِّمُونَ ﴿٤٩﴾
They do not await except one blast which will seize them while they are disputing.
فَلَا يَسْتَطِيعُونَ تَوْصِيَةً وَلَا إِلَىٰ أَهْلِهِمْ يَرْجِعُونَ ﴿٥٠﴾
[A cry that will be shouted at them] Then they will not be able to make any will, nor will they return to their folks [If they are outside the house].
وَنُفِخَ فِي الصُّورِ فَإِذَا هُمْ مِنَ الْأَجْدَاثِ إِلَىٰ رَبِّهِمْ يَنْسِلُونَ ﴿٥١﴾
And when the Trumpet is blown, behold, there they will be, scrambling towards their Lord from their graves!
They will say, ‘Woe to us! Who raised us from our place of sleep?’ ‘This is what the All-beneficent had promised, and the apostles had spoken the truth!’
In fact, with the death of a person, awakening occurs and a person realizes that in the world he was like a person who was sleeping and woke up with death.
Another point is the relationship between the quality and the realness of sleep and waking. Since the relationship between sleep and the world is like a mirage and is not real and high quality and has a weak existential intensity, the same thing happens in the afterlife, so that upon death and seeing the afterlife, we will have the perception that the world is like a mirage and unreal dream and the afterlife is real and with high existential intensity.
For example, if in a dream the quality of scenes or objects is 30-50% real, in waking up these scenes and objects reach 100% real quality. At the time of death, by watching the scenes of the afterlife, we realize that the scenes and objects in the world are 30-50% real and the world is like a dream or a mirage, and the scenes and things in the afterlife are available of a higher quality and reality, for example, 100%. (In near-death experiences, even the reality of the afterlife reaches thousands or millions of times.)
In this way, if the reality of scenes and objects is 25% in a dream, it reaches 50% in waking life and 100% or more in the afterlife. Since the ratio of time spent in a dream is less than the time spent in the world, in the same way, the ratio of life in this world is insignificant compared to life in the eternal hereafter.
But the pipe dreams used in this narration means chaotic and confused dreams. Like those who have confused and inexplicable dreams, humans are often caught up in this world with illusions, fantasies, illusory thoughts and empty dreams (that is, confused dreams).
These disturbing dreams or fantasies and illusions that are accompanied by illusions such as denying the existence of God or prophets or the Ahlul-Bayt or the afterlife always bring people to great losses and lead them to hell.
1) Tanbīh al-khawāṭir wa nuzhat al-nawāẓir (تَنبیهُ الخَواطِر و نُزهَةُ النَّواظِر) or Warram Collection, volume 2, p. 24
2)Surah Ya-Sin. Verses 48-52.
Dar al-Hadith Scientific and Cultural Institute
