T,HROUGH A GLASS DARKLY: KNOWLEDGE OF THE SELF IN DREAMS

IN IBN KHALDUNS MUQA DDIMA

1. Introduction

In his Haskell Lectures of 1906 the Christian Islamicist Duncan Black Macdonald described what he regarded as a remarkably modern concept of subliminal selves, found in the Muqaddima (Sixth Prefatory Essay) of the great Muslim historian Ibn Khaldkn. Said Macdonald, Ibn Khaldiin came

to a queer semi-evolutionary doctrine which he borrowed from the Aristotelian philosophers, and, on the other hand, to a doctrine of the human mind which seems halfway between phrenology and the more modern and fashionable hypothesis of subliminal selves.* If we make allowances for the psychological inheritance of Ibn Khaldkn from Aristotle, through the Muslim scholastics, we shall be compelled to admit the close agreement of his theories with the modern doctrine of the working of the different ~e lves .~

Those who read these words in light of modern psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic theories will think of Freud and Jung. Macdonalds interests, however, were directed to what he thought of as the reality of the supernatural and the latent capacities of mankind to perceive that reality. He was sympathetic, for example, to claims for telepathy and telekinesis, and was very interested in the work of the Society for Psychical Research: He thought that future investigation of nervous diseases through the use of hypnotism would very likely shed light on the nature of Muhammads trance^.^ Indeed, Macdonald held that belief in the reality of the unseen was the essential core of the Muslim tradition6

Macdonalds sense that Ibn Khaldhs psychology contained modern elements in its notion of different selves suggests an intriguing line of inquiry. Let us ask whether there are any elements of what we now call a psychoanalytic theory in Ibn Khaldkns notion of the structure and capacity of the soul to know

Duncan Black Macdonald, The Religious Attitude and Life in Islam (Chicago, 1909; New York: AMS Press, 1970).

Ibid., p. 42. Ibid., p. 67.

Ibid., pp. 86ff. Ibid., pp. 4 6 4 7 .

For a further discussion of Macdonalds view of Islam, cf. Gordon E. Pruett, Duncan Black Macdonald: Christian Islamist, in Orientalism, Islamists andldam, ed. Asaf Hussein, Robert Olson, and Jarnil Qureshi (Brattleboro, VT: Amana Books, 1985).

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the truth as revealed in dreams. Such an hypothesis is neither frivolous nor simply anachronistic. Both Ibn KhaldGn and Freud conceive of dreams as expressions, even revelations of a distinction between ordinary consciousness and another much larger activity of the self. For both, further, knowledge of and exercise of that distinction is the royal road to truth.

11. Ibn Khaldirns Notion of the Unconscious

A . The soul in the scheme of things

For Ibn Khaldiin, the soul occupies its appropriate place in a hierarchy of being. Drawing upon Muslim and Aristotelean models he conceives of creation as an ascending order of being, beginning with the Iowest ranks of minerals and progressing in an ingenious and gradual manner to plants and animals.s Each rank has an end point that is connected with the first stage of the next rank. He means that it is fully prepared to become the first stage of the next rank, which is in turn implied in the previous stage. Whether this progression can rightly be called evolutionary in the modern sense of the term is unclear. Certainly Ibn Khaldim thinks that the present ranks of this order constitute all such levels that ever existed, so that there is no analogy to Darwins natural selection in his thought. Yet the notion of LLconnection suggests a kind of dynamic development that is distinguishable from a fixed hierarchy of levels that have no interdependence among them.

Creation, then, is represented as an unbroken chain of being that progressed, in its upper levels, through the stage of monkeys, where sagacity and perception are found, but which has not reached the stage of actual reflection and thinking.* At this point physical perception achieves all that is possible for it, and we must now look to another and higher mode of perception and, indeed, of being. Ibn Khaldim observes that in the world of sensual perception, on the one hand, and of creation, on the other, certain influences may be seen. In the world of sensual perception the influences of the motions of the spheres and the elements are evident, and in the world of creation the influences of growth and perception may be seen. The spheres are in layers which are interconnected, in a shape which the senses are able to perceive only through the existence of motions; and below the spheres are the four elements, arranged gradually and continually in an ascending order, viz. earth to water, water to air, and air to fire.O

The influences of the elements and spheres in the world of sensual perception and the influences of growth and perception in creation suggest the existence of

Cf. Philip Wheelwright, Aristotle (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1951), pp. 117-54. Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History. 3 vols., tr. Franz Rosenthal (New

York: Pantheon Books, 1958), I , 195; throughout the following discussion use is made of the relevant section in this translation, I, 194-216.

Ibid. Ibid., I, 194-95.

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something that is different from the bodily substances, and itself exercises influence. This is something spiritual. It is connected with created things, because the various worlds must be connected in their existence. This spiritual thing is, in fact, the soul; it possesses its own perceptive ability and causes motion.12

B. Analysis of the soullself

The souls nature, in accordance with Ibn Khaldbns view of the connectedness of all being, must be understood to be a consequence of its connection with the next higher rank of being, that of angelicality. For the soul possesses pure perception and absolute intellection, which it receives from the higher sphere of angels. For Ibn Khaldiin this means that the soul must be prepared to exchange humanity for angelicality. In sum, then, the soul is linked downward to the body and its substances, and upward to the realm of angels. The body is, therefore, the organ of the SOU^.'^

Ibn Khaldbns view of the person may be described in the following way. There are two levels of senses. The first, and lower-given the downward link to the body-consists of the operation of the five senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell, which can be explained wholly in terms of organic or biological processes. Second, and higher-leading to the realm of ange1icality-is a complex of the inward sense. This is actually five senses peculiar to the supra-biological functions of the person, and may be arranged in an ascending order that reflects the idea of the connections already described.

First in ascending order beyond the biological processes is the common sense, or integrated perception of all the biological senses, a concept virtually identical to the koine aesthesis of Aristotle, and distinguished from the lower sensory operations in that the latter are thought to work independently of each other. The common sense conveys its integrated perception to the imagination, the next in order of the stages of the inward senses. Imagination pictures an object of sensual perception in the soul, as it is, abstracted from all external matter.I5

Ibn Kha ldh offers a useful graphic representation of the inward senses. He conceives of the inward senses connection with the external senses in something like the following design: the brain has three cavities, first, back and middle. The first and back cavities are each divided into a front and a rear area. Ibn Khaldtm assigns the common senses and imagination to the first cavity, the common sense to the front part, the imagination to the rear. The five external senses flow, or move, into the front part of the first cavity (the location of the

I Ibid., I, 195. l 2 See above note 7. Muqaddimah, I, 195. l 4 Ibid., 1, 196. I s Ibid., I, 197.

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common sense). Moving downward, the five external senses are connected with the animal spirit, which proceeds from the left cavity of the heart. With this model in mind let us continue.

Imagination is connected with what Ibn Khaldiin calls estimative power which [perceives] (abstract) ideas that refer to individualities.I6 Here the soul conceives of the hostility of Zayd, the friendship of Amr, the compassion of the father, or the savagery of the ~ o l f . ~ This estimative power is directed to and located in the rear part of the back cavity of the brain, and is connected in turn with memory. Ibn Khaldfin believes that memory includes all objects of perception, whether objects in the so-called real world or in the imagination. This is important for the next connection. Memory is said to be located in the front part of the back cavity of the brain; and it is connected to the middle cavity, which is occupied solely by the sense of thinking. Thinking, in other words, draws upon all the contents of memory, whether they are derived from real or imaginative experiences.

The next step in the hierarchy beyond thinking is the angelic realm; therefore thinking is both the highest of the human inward senses and the definitive link with the angelic realm, where, as we shall see, truth is revealed. Ibn Khaldh believes that the soul has a constitutional desire to think, and to be free of the lower person. This means that the soul is naturally attracted to the angelic realm, where there is knowledge of spiritual things, free of the limitations of bodily organs. This disposition of the soul to think and thus to strive for angelic knowledge is the work of God.*

Nevertheless, not all souls, however disposed, succeed in attaining the knowledge of the angelic realm. Ibn Khaldiin distinguishes among three types of souls. First, there are those by nature too weak to attain the spiritual sphere, and are thus content to move downward from the operation of thinking- rather than upward to angelicality-to the realm of perception and imagination, using their memory and estimative power. As a rule, this is the extent of human corporal perception, and is epitomized in the goals of the scholar^.^^

Second, there are souls who, through thinking, move upward to a type of intellection that does not require the bodily senses, that is, intuition. This soul can progress because of its innate preparedness for [this intellection].20 These are the souls of saints, of those with mystical learning, and those possessed of divine knowledge. This second type has not yet attained the full knowledge of angelicality, however. That is the status of prophethood. The prophets exchange humanity, both corporal and spiritual, for angelicality in the moments of their hearing of the Word.21 God has granted the prophets immunity from sin and

l 6 Ibid. Ibid. * Ibid. lq Ibid., I, 198. 2o Ibid. 21 Ibid., I, 199.

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error ci+ma) and straightforwardness, without which they could not attain this state. Moreover, prophets do not require aids or crafts, for they are innately prepared for the exchange of humanity for angelicality, sloughing off humanity at will.zz

Among the angels, the prophets learn all there is to be learned there. They then bring what is to be learned back to the level of understanding appropriate for transmission to human perception. All of this takes place out of time, in a flash. (Ibn Khaldim points out that the Arabic word for revelation, wahy, is derived from the root to hasten, whjY3

C. A concept of the unconscious as revealed in dreams

In the experience of revelation the prophets learn the truth of God as revealed in the angelic realms and bring it back in a form that is comprehensible to human intellection. Muhammads experiences of revelation illustrate the supra- temporal transformation of human nature into angelicality; and his reciting of the Qurgn demonstrates the rendering of that truth in human form. Thanks to the Prophet, we can know the truth.

Ibn Kha ldh is not content, however, to leave the matter there, and inquires further into the means and methods of acquiring the truth. Among the means he explores-along with sand-writing, geomancy, necromancy, stonecasting, numerolcgy and the reading of entrails, among others-is dreaming. We can, I think, see something of what Macdonald unwittingly uncovered in his reference to multiple or subliminal selves in Ibn Khaldihs treatment of dreaming and dreams; for in this state of consciousness that is neither ordinary nor bound to the bodily senses the self may learn something of the truth.

In sleep, observes Ibn Khaldun, the soul glimpses knowledge of future events that it desires, and regains perceptions that properly belong to it. This is so because it is free of bodily matters and the limitations of corporal perception. Dreams, then, allow a type of perception and concomitant knowledge that are not possible under the circumstances of ordinary wakefulness. Moreover, the knowledge gained in dreaming sleep is said to be of future events-events said to be desired by the soul, not just any future events. If dreams provide knowledge of the future, it is a future about which the soul ~ a r e s . 2 ~

But if dreams convey knowledge of a future of great personal significance, they do not always do so obviously and literally. Frequently, the soul uses allegory and imaginary pictures, in order to gain (the desired kn~wledge.)~~ It draws from the storehouse of forms and images, employing objects derived from physical perception and imagination that repose in memory. Through a process of synthesis and analysis, (these forms) are shaped into imaginary pictures.z6

22 Ibid. 23 Ibid., 1, 200. 24 Ibid., I, 207. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid., I , 21 1.

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The allegory and images constitute the form of the dream remembered by the dreamer; the knowledge has been conveyed, but interpretation is required through which, nevertheless, the knowledge may be comprehended and acquired. I shall return to this dream work shortly.

This activity is enabled by what Ibn Khaldh calls dream vision, the faculty of seeing spiritually in dreams. It is a universal characteristic, or preparedness, of human beings; it is possessed by the soul, and is a means of striving toward the pure spirituality that is the natural disposition of the soul. Yet dream vision lives in the body, and is peculiar to human beings. Angels, by contrast, need no dream vision because they do not require bodily perception and thus do not need to return from one state of consciousness or perception to another? As for a prophet, his perceptual powers include pure angelic perception through his exchange of humanity for angelicality; in that moment, what he perceives is clearly similar to what happens in sleep, even though sleep is much inferior to (revelation).**

The Prophet, then, shares the general human preparedness; he also shares the necessity for moving from one form of consciousness to another in order to know the truth. Conversely, then, human preparedness, or dream vision, is in essence like the Prophets angelic perception of revelation. They differ in degrees of clarity and completeness; for there are hindrances to translating the common, non-prophetic, preparedness for spirituality into actuality. Since it is necessary to sleep in order to dream, it is clear that the hindrance in question is the external sensory experience of the world through the five lower senses. God, Ibn Khaldfm says, therefore created man so that in sleep the veil of the senses could be lifted. When that veil is lifted, the soul is ready to learn the things it desires to know in the world of Truth ( h ~ q q ) . ~ ~

Ibn Khaldtin is concerned, then, with the relationship between the unconscious and the conscious self, or between the self as perceiving entity and the dreaming self as not perceiving in the usual sense of the term but still knowing. He observes that perceptions of the rational soul are the work of the corporeal animal spirit, referred to earlier, which occupies a lower but prerequisite place in Ibn Khaldtins concept of the self. It is, in his description, a fine vapor which is concentrated in the left cavity of the heart, following the Roman physician Galens anatomical teaching^.^' It spreads with the blood into the veins and arteries, making sensual motion and all other corporal action possible, like a form of energy that provides the driving thrust of physical activity.

Its [the vapors] finest part goes up to the brain. There, it is tempered by the coldness of (the brain), and it effects the actions of the powers located in the cavities of the brain.3 By means of this spirit, operating in the powers of

27 Ibid., I , 208. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid., I, 209. j0 Ibid., I , 210. 3 1 Ibid.

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common sense, imagination, the estimative power, memory and thinking, the rational soul drives toward knowledge of the truth.

In effect, the rational soul perceives in the two different ways, external and internal. Ibn Khaldiin notes that the external powers of perception are subject to weakness and lassitude as the result of exertion and fatigue, and to spiritual exhaustion through too much activity. Therefore, God gave them the desire to rest, so that perfect perception might be renewed afterwards. This rest is achieved when the animal spirit retires from the external senses and is concentrated in the inward cerebral powers. Ibn Khaldiin speculates that the cold of night drives the natural heat of the body inward, rendering the external perceptions temporarily inactive. That is why we sleep at night.32

Asleep, the persons spirit rests with the inward powers: [tlhe preoccupations and hindrances of sensual perception lessen their hold over the soul, and it now returns to the forms that exist in the power of memory.33 Freed of the concerns arising from external perception, the soul occupies itself with its storehouse of remembered forms, and draws both from previous external perception and imagination. Then, through a process of synthesis and analysis, (these forms) are shaped in imaginary pictures. These pictures are the content of dreams. Most dreams, Ibn Khaldiin thinks, are traces of recent sensual perception; and these the soul transmits to the inner power of common sense, which combines all the five external senses, to be perceived in the manner of (those) five senses.34 These traces of the days experience are not integrated into dream vision, but are merely reflections or remnants of external perception.

More interesting are two other categories of activity in dreams. Ibn Khaldun writes:

Frequently, however, the soul turns to its spiritual essence in concert with the inward powers. It then accomplishes the spiritual kind of perception for which it is fitted by nature. It takes up some of the forms of things that have become inherent in its essence a t that time. Imagination seizes those perceived forms and pictures them in the customary molds either realistically or allegorically. Pictured allegorically, they require interpre- tation. The synthetic and analytic activity which (the soul) applies to the forms in the power of memory, before it perceives its share of glimpses (of the supernatural), is (what is called in the Quriin) confused dreams.35

Ibn Khaldiin describes the allegorizing of the content of dreams as a work of the soul, a process of bringing together (synthesis) and taking apart (analysis) in what can be called the construction of a dream. Moreover, the parts of which the dream is constructed are already extant, and are drawn from the stock of images

32 Ibid., I , 210-1 I . 3 3 Ibid.

Ibid., I , 21 1. 35 Ibid.; cf. S. 12:44 and 21:5, the dreams of Joseph and the Baker.

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and forms available in the souls memory. This work is accomplished by imagination, using images drawn from both external perception and imagination. This dream work requires an apposite interpretative effort, for apparent distortion is a quality of allegorical dreams.

That this is so is borne out in Ibn Khaldbs explication of the three types of dream visions. First, dreams that are clear and unmistakeable in their meaning and content are from God. These may be analogous to the visions of the Prophet. Second, dreams whose content is given by angels are received in the form of allegory, and require interpretation. Third, confused dreams are said to be from Satan, for they are futile, and Satan is the source of futility. The second and third categories represent two levels of distortion. The satanic dreams cause mere confusion, so that no interpretation of them would yield knowledge of the truth. However, the angelic dreams both require interpretation and are revelatory. (So, too, knowledge vouchsafed to the Prophet comes in the exchange of the human for the angelic world.)36

Since dreams occur when our conscious activity is in abeyance, Ibn Khaldim wonders whether there is any way in which they may be actively sought. We have seen that he conceives of dream vision as a preparedness, that is, a natural faculty. It is, he notes,

a particular quality of the.human soul common to all mankind. Nobody is free of it. Every human being has, more than once, seen something in his sleep that turned out to be true when he awakened. He knows for certain that the soul must necessarily have supernatural perception in sleep.37

But this quality is independent of conscious will:

Most of the (afore-mentioned supernatural perception by means of dream vision) occurs to human beings unintentionally without their having power over it. The soul occupies itself with a thing. As a result, it obtains that glimpse (of the supernatural) while it is asleep, and it sees that thing. It does not plan it that way.38

In short, dream vision requires suppression of consciousness for its operation. Two themes in this description of the dream vision and its role as conduit for

knowing the truth are particularly significant. First, Ibn Kha ldb asserts that dream vision is common to all mankind, but is not to be found in a conscious state. He asserts, in effect, that in addition to the conscious life there is an unconscious one, characterized as a faculty, a preparedness. This unconscious faculty is known to us in the state of the suspension of the conscious activity, i.e., in dreaming sleep. As noted, this unconscious state is not always dependent upon traces of conscious activity, perception and sensation for its contents; for in dream vision we also know things other than those conveyed to us through

36 Ibid., I, 211-12. ) Ibid., I, 212.

Ibid.: italics added.

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sensation and perception, such as the knowledge revealed from God and angels, and the confused knowledge fabricated by Satan. Further, the differences among the types of dreams are not a function of the dream vision or the preparedness but of the source from which a dream arises. Thus the existence of the unconscious faculty is not in dispute, despite the differences in types of dreams.

Second, the soul occupies itself with a thing, and the result is that in dreaming it achieves a glimpse of that thing. That thing, according to Rosenthals translation, is supernatural. We should not be too hasty here; at the least, supernatural means that which we could not know by conscious thought or perception and sensation. Such knowledge includes a spectrum of considerable breadth, and only occasionally suggests what is rather dramatically implied by the English term supernatural. The point here is that the object with which the soul occupies itself is of great importance to it, but it is known only when the operation of the conscious is suspended in sleep. Ibn Khaldb means to say that the supernatural object cannot really be grasped, however vigorously it is sought, until the unconscious dream vision, or preparedness, is freed of the concerns of the bodily functions. This conclusion suggests that the thing with which the soul is so concerned is more important to it than what it can learn through ordinary natural conscious perception and other related functions, and that only the unconscious mode of perception can reveal it.

This view is consistent with Ibn Khaldiins general concept of the soul-his psychology. The soul, he asserts, is the only being in creation that exists potentially; in association with the body it also gains the existence of actuality. It has matter and form, following Aristotelean concepts. The form of the soul is perception and intellection, through which its material existence is achieved and manife~ted.~ The operation of the bodily senses gives the soul an actual existence, i.e., in time and space. Conversely, the soul extracts universal ideas from the sensation of the body; and by repeated intellection and perception it acquires its material existence, which is to be distinguished from the material existence of the body?O

This movement from potentiality to actuality implies a developmental view of the relationship between soul and body. Thus the child, whose perceptive and intellective faculties are not fully developed, cannot yet obtain the benefits of the souls mature activity. The child

is unable to achieve the perception which comes to the soul from its essence, either in his sleep or through removal (of the veil of sense perception) or anything else. For the form of the soul, which is its very essence, namely perception and intellection, has not yet materialized (in the child). Nor has the power of the soul to abstract the universals materialized

39 Ibid., I , 214. Ibid., I , 215. Ibid.

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In this immature state the tension between the bodily activities and the full power of the souls ability to know the truth that lies beyond mere sensation is beginning to emerge. Dream vision and any other state in which this supernatural knowledge may be attained are neither exploited nor developed.

With maturity, the soul realizes its two categories of perception, through bodily organs and through its own essence, without any intermediary. The soul is prevented from (the latter kind of perception) by its immersion in the body and the senses, and the preoccupation of (body and sense^).'"^ The soul, then, lives with a tension between its bodily actuality, operating through the senses which are by nature oriented toward the external reality, and its own essence, i.e., its direct knowledge of reality unhindered by the limitations of sensorial experience and the external world. Dream vision is an operation of this latter kind, and can function only in the absence of interference from the conscious experience of the world. There is a dynamic relationship between the two functions of the soul.

Ibn Khaldun concludes by observing that while the soul is influenced in its working toward knowledge of reality by the bodily functions, it is not always limited by them. He writes,

Frequently, however, the soul plunges from the external into the internal. Then, the veil of the boQy is lifted for a moment, either by means of a quality that belongs to every human being, such as sleep, or by means of a quality that is found only in certain human beings, such as soothsaying or casting (of pebbles, etc.), or by means of exercises such as those practiced by (certain) Sufis who practice the removal (of the veil of sense perception). At such moments, the soul turns to the essences of the highest group (the angels), which are higher than itself. . . . They are pure perception and intellects in action. They contain the forms and realities of the existentia, as was oust) mentioned. Something of those forms is then disclosed in (the soul). It derives some knowledge from them. Frequently, it transmits the perceived forms to the imagination which, in turn, puts them into the customary molds. (The soul,) then, has recourse to sensual perception to explain the things it has perceived, either in their abstract form or in the molds into which (they were put by the imagination). In this way it gives information about them. This is how the preparedness of the soul for supernatural perception must be e~plained.4~

The knowledge revealed to the soul when free of the veil of the body is transmitted to and integrated into its entire nature, that is, conveyed to and through sensual perception and its conscious work. This supernatural knowledge may be known after it is formed in the customary molds of the conscious perceptibn.

42 Ibid., I, 215. 43 Ibid., I, 215-16.

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In sum, not only does Ibn Khaldiin hold that 1) the soul has an unconscious, 2) that the unconscious is a conduit of knowledge not disclosed to the conscious-and in this is superior to bodily sensation and perception-but 3) also the nature of the soul is such that integration of that knowledge into its whole structure is essential, and that this integration is accomplished in such a way that we may say that the unconscious becomes conscious.

111. A Freudian Commentary

According to Ibn Khaldim, dreams both reveal and obscure truth that is normally hidden from our consciousness. This is also Sigmund Freuds view. Freuds discovery of the unconscious as it was disclosed in dreams led him away from mere neurology and toward an integrated understanding of the nature of human personality. The unconscious is Freuds central concept; it was also the foundation of his notion of cure. In famous words, he wrote,

What we must make use of must no doubt be the replacing of what is unconscious by what is conscious, the translating of what is unconscious into what is conscious. Yes, that is it. By carrying what is unconscious on into what is conscious, we lift the repressions, we remove the preconditions for the formation of symptoms, we transform the pathogenic conflict into a normal one for which it must be possible somehow to find a s0lution.4~

As Ibn Khaldiin realized, to comprehend what is present in the unconscious and then to make it an integral part of the self is to move from ignorance to knowledge and thus to maturity.

It will be obvious that there are differences in the world views of Ibn Khaldim and Sigmund Freud. Freuds inheritance of the theory of evolution over against Ibn Khaldims use of Aristotelean categories is an important example, as is the fact that Freud approaches the subject matter of the unconscious from the perspective of a doctor confronted with a suffering patient, while Ibn Khaldim is obviously engaged in what might be regarded as a metaphysical investigation. These differences could be the subject of another essay. The concern of this study, however, is that they share the discovery of an unconscious self, or an unconscious aspect of the self, whose existence is revealed in dreams, and that they believe that knowledge of the material of dreams, through interpretation, leads to knowing the truth. Ibn Khaldiin shares with Freud the realization that knowledge of the truth is the consequence of bringing the unconscious into the conscious. Further, for both this is a universal human situation and capacity. These common insights are more important than their differing world views and motives.

Freud came to realize that the content of dreams was not directly admissible to the conscious. That discovery was the essential clue to the structure, and

Sigmund Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, tr. James Strachey, in Standard Edition, XVI (London: Hogarth, 1963), 435.

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conflict, of the self. While the technique of hypnosis suggested that the mind could hold latent ideas, the study of dreams showed that these ideas had their own content, logic and structure in the unconscious setting. Freud characterized this material as egoistic, narcissistic, and even psychotic in nature. But that is simply to say that dream material is concerned wholly with the satisfaction of desires without regard to the consequences of that satisfaction for the self in the external world. Those consequences were precisely the central concerns of the conscious self. In sleep these concerns went into abeyance, and in dreams material that perforce was repressed dominated the mind of the sleeper.4*

The content of dreams, then, is ordinarily unavailable to the conscious mind- except in a modified form, as I shall explain-because it consists of ideas that are unacceptable to the waking consciousness. Ibn Khaldfm, too, seems to appreciate this point when he suggests that dream vision occurs unintentionally. The soul occupies itself with a thing. As a result, it obtains that glimpse (of the supernatural) while it is asleep and it sees that thing. It does not plan it that way.*6 We are obliged, says Freud, to infer from dreams and related phenomena (such as symptoms) the existence of a psychical process of which we know nothing. In that case, we have the same relation to it as we have to a psychical process in another person, execept that it is in fact one of our own.*

Ibn Khaldiin suggests that the content of dreams appears in the time of sleep, when the external perceptions are at rest. In this state, Freud points out, the essential narcissism of the self is allowed full play, but without risking danger to the person, who is protected by the state of sleep. Indeed, the conflict between our natural desires and the effort of restraining them by the ego brings about a kind of exhaustion that requires sleep. Ibn Khaldiin also recognizes the fatigue that besets the external senses. God, he says, therefore created the soul with the capacity for sleep so that the external perceptions could rest. Again, the implication is that the unconscious requires a temporary cessation of conscious activities in order to make its contents manifest.

But this manifestation is almost never exact or literal. Ibn Khaldiin recognizes three types of dreams, distinguishable with respect to the degree to which they require interpretation. Dreams from God do not require interpretation; dreams from the angelic realm-that same realm where the Prophet is told the truth- require interpretation of their images that leads to knowledge of the truth; and dreams from Satan employ images that are merely confusing. Freuds work in the interpretation of dreams led him to the conclusion that the dream has two forms, manifest and latent. The difference between them was the result of a work of distortion. But it was possible to undo the distortion through interpretation, and through that to discover the truth-in Freuds view, the truth of the conflict of the persons emotional history, which he had repressed. Where Ibn Khaldim

4s Cf. Introducrory Lecrures. Standard Ed., XVI, 143, 224, and Sigmund Freud, On Narcissism: An Introduction, tr. James Strachey, in Standard Edition, XIV (London: Hogarth, 1957).

Muqaddimah, I . 212; see above at note 38. 47 Sigmund Freud, New Introducrory Lectures. tr. James Strachey, in Standard Edition, XX

(London: Hogarth, 1964). 70.

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writes of images and allegorical presentation of the content of the dream drawn from the inner senses of imagination and memory, Freud writes of dream work. A reported dream bears all the signs of distortion: disjointed structure, sudden shifting of persons, times, places and climaxes, so that one can hardly follow the plot of the dream at all. Freud concluded that there must be differences between the reported or manifest dream and the hidden or latent dream. He attributed the distortion to dream work (Traurnarbeitung); and he called the agency of dream work the censor, whose task was to protect the psychic apparatus from the exigencies of external reality. Dream work could transform the latent dream by suppressing the dream entirely, or it could fragment or fuse elements of it. It could displace the focus of the dream away from its threatening elements to a more remote point. Further, dream work distorted the latent dream by transforming the thought or idea of the dream into visual images and by imposing upon the latent dream the structure of what became the manifest or reported dream. Finally, contrary relationships could be rendered in the form of identities, and opposites could be made to imply each other:*

Dream work implies the hiding of a truth. It uses images, patterns, symbols, and allegory to express itself safely. But what is expressed is, when properly interpreted, the truth of the persons emotional history. For Freud dreams are not mere confusion but important clues to the selfs nature. This link between dream work, intepretation, and what the self wants, and is, is suggested also by Ibn KhaldOn. What is discovered in the content of dreams is knowledge of the souls future, that is the future about which the soul cares, not just any future.

For both Ibn Khaldun and Freud dreams disclose the larger structure of the self, or the soul. Let us recall Ibn Khaldiins concept of the connection between the ranks and stages of all creation, leading to the soul with its external and internal senses, and through thinking to the realm of angelicality. While Freuds worldview in this respect is clearly influenced by evolutionary he too conceives of the emergence of the self as a direct consequence of the development of earlier and less complex forms (perhaps the place of monkeys in Ibn Khaldtins scheme as embodying the full extent of sagacity and perception, though lacking reflection and thinking, suggests more sophistication in this matter than might at first appear to be the case). It is illuminating in :his regard to compare Ibn Khaldiins description of the role of the animal spirit and Freuds concept of instincts. For in each case their influence is discoverable in the higher forms of knowledge that the investigation of the unconscious reveals.

Ibn Khaldun traced the path of the animal spirit through the external to the internal senses, where it is chilled by the coldness of the brain and where it effects the actions of the powers located in the cavities of the brain. By this

48 Cf. Sigmund Freud, Dreams and Telepathy, tr. James Strachey, in Standard Edition, XVIII (London: Hogarth, 1955), 197, 200; Sigmund Freud, The Ego and The Id, ed. Ernest Jones, tr. Joan Riviere, in The International Psycho-Analytical Library, XI1 (London: Hogarth, 1927), 16; Introductory Lectures, Standard Ed., XVI, 143, 171-89.

49 Cf. Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, tr. James Strachey, introduction and notes by Gregory Zilboorg (New York: Liveright, 1928; reprint ed. New York: Bantam, 1959), pp. 45ff.

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activity of the animal spirit the rational soul reaches the body, and moves toward knowledge of the truth.

This unbroken motion from corporeal animal spirit to knowledge of the truth of the angelical realm links the biological and spiritual activities of the soul. If we take spiritual to mean supra-biological activity, this concept is found also in Freud, especially in connection with the notion of the instincts. For example, civilization is the tool by which the instincts are controlled; but it is the product of those instincts. Hence, as Freud pointed out at length, its discontents are no surprise. The deepest essence of human nature consists of instinctual impulses which are of an elementary nature, which are similar in all men and which aim at the satisfaction of certain primal needs.50 It is not until these instinctual vicissitudes have been surmounted that what we call a persons character is formed. . . .5 These instincts are, in themselves, neither bad nor good, except as civilization calls them so. Rather,

We believe that civilization has been created under the pressure of the exigencies of life at the cost of the satisfaction of the instincts; and we believe that civilization is to a large extent being constantly created anew, since each individual who makes a fresh entry into human society repeats this sacrifice of instinctual satisfaction for the benefit of the whole community. Among the instinctual forces which are put to use the sexual impulses play an important part; in this process they are sublimated-that is to say, they are diverted from their sexual aims and directed to others that are socially higher and no longer sexual.52

But society by itself could not hope to restrain instinctual desires if the individual did not participate in some effective way in the task of repression. Thus Freud suggests that there is in fact an inner, personal conflict between the mindless demands of the sexual instincts and the demands of the instincts he calls self-preservative, or ego-instincts. At times, he observed, these two sides look very much alike; and so they are, since each is an instinctive activity. Yet the difference is that one threatens the ego, while the other protects it.53

This conflict and its maintenance is just what constitutes the supra-biological life of the self. Thus Freud and Ibn Khaldirn propose a developmental interpretation of the conflict. The delimination of the bodily senses and of the operation of the soul in the inner senses by which it attains spiritual knowledge is a mark of the mature self, and is thus incomplete in the child. The blurred distinction is replaced by the complementary relationship already described, by virtue of the strengthening of both bodily and spiritual perceptions (see above).

For Freud the conflict does not attain this level of clarity until the resolution of the Oedipus complex. Prior to this point the experience of the world is so

Sigmund Freud, Thoughts on War and Death: I . The Disillusionment of the War, tr. James Strachey, in Standard Edition, XIV (London: Hogarth, 1957), 281f.

5 Ibid. 52 Introduciory Lectures, Standard Ed., XVI, 22-23. 5 3 Ibid., XVI, 350; cf. 413.

THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY 43

suffused with the desixes of the self that the child is unable to distinguish between his wishes and reality. With the successful resolution of the Oedipal conflict the child acquires a conscious or internal control of his desires and is able to distinguish more or less clearly between what is desired and what is possible in the He acquires, Freud says, worldly wisdom. For in the Oedipal crisis he realizes that he must discipline his instincts; and by the act he inaugurates the dictatorship of reason. As with Ibn Khaldun, this is an account of the development of the corporeal life that culminates in the hegemony of the soul, or reason.

But it makes all the difference in the world whether one is or is not aware of the conflict; the healthy person is aware, the neurotic is not. The conflict remains, and constitutes the foundation of all the highest activities of human culture. Yet that activity is not instinctive, however much it may depend upon the instinctual inheritance. Here is a psychoanalytic rendition of Ibn Khaldfins continuous motion from biological heritage to knowledge of the truth.

But also, here is the point of both dream interpretation-and psychoanalysis- and the fruit of dreaming and its analogous prophetic vision, according to Ibn Khaldun: the truth is brought to and integrated into the whole self. The unconscious is made conscious; that is another way of saying the same thing. Freud believes that it must be possible to bring the contents of the unconscious under the dictatorship of reason, and thus to restore the essential unity of the mental life.55 Through dream vision, or the work of the soul in dreams, and through the manifestation of the truth that dream vision receives in the molds and forms of sensual perception, truth is integrated into the soul. As with the Prophet, the truth is received as transmitted. A wholeness of knowiedge and understanding is achieved, which is superior to the prior state of division and even antagonism between the internal and external senses and between waking and dreaming-or, with Freud, between the unconscious and the conscious. Freud speaks of this state as the restoration of a mental unity; nevertheless, like Ibn Khaldim he means a completeness that was not there before. For Ibn Khaldim the dream may lead to knowledge of God, just as the Prophets vision is the occasion of knowing the will of God. But for both Freud and Ibn Khaldun the completeness is achieved only when that knowledge, whether of the nature and content of the unconscious or the angelic knowledge, is brought fully into the understanding of the self, that is, made conscious.

Macdonald offers Ibn Khaldijns psychology as a particularly compelling example of the Muslim attraction for the Unseen Reality.56 Yet Ibn Khaldijn rejects all supra-natural technique^.^' But prophecy and dreams are ways to the

54 Cf. Sigmund Freud, Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex, tr. James Strachey, in Standard

5 5 Sigmund Freud, Lines of Advance in Psycho-analytic Therapy, tr. James Strachey, in

56 Cf. Life, pp. 76ff. 5 Cf. Muqaddimah. I, 233, 244.

Edition, XIX (London: Hogarth, 1961). 173-77.

Standard Edition, XVII (London: Hogarth, 1955). 161-66.

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truth. In the context of this essay, this means that he believes that the capacity for knowing truth lies in the nature of self, through what amounts to self- understanding, rather than through occult techniques. Ibn Khaldihs conclusion is thus more than simply modern-it is liberating.

Northeastern University Boston, Massachusetts

GORDON E. PRUETT