Dream: I am at a train station on a night journey—it seems a bit like San Francisco's BART and a bit like an old-time roller coaster. Parts of it are underground, parts are elevated, parts seem old. The place itself is more a tangle of tracks than a station per se. It is chaotic. I have just stepped off of one train and need to transfer to another, but I am confused about which train to take.
I would ask someone for help, but I don’t know exactly where I am going. I have a vague sense that I am returning from a session with my spiritual director, and am either on my way to ChI, or to a banking meeting (my former profession). It’s worth noting that my practicum may involve micro-banking.
At first I follow the people getting off my train to see where they are going, but they start breaking up into different directions. Eventually I find myself outside, walking on a dirt path next to another set of tracks. The outdoor portion of the station feels like my home town, Detroit.
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I searched the Internet for information on Islamic dream interpretation, and found that dream interpretation has a rich history in Islam. Dreams tend to be divided into three categories: Ru’yaa, good dreams that come from Allah, and which require extensive knowledge of the Qu’ran to interpret; Hulum, bad dreams that come from Shaitan ('Satan' in Christianity) and should be forgotten as they are purposefully misleading; and a third category, ramblings of the mind that are akin to talking to oneself and can be safely ignored, since they are not divinely inspired.
It was not immediately obvious to me which type of dream I had. It certainly didn’t feel like a bad dream that should be forgotten.
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I will let the dream’s meaning (or lack thereof) speak for itself. One message comes in the form of the chaos of the train station, with Allah reminding me that I am the train station—I am the place where ‘connections’ get made, where all of the tracks come together. Of course, this is a great metaphor for interfaith ministry, particularly when some of tracks are leading to ChI, my spiritual director, and my practicum. All of this appears to affirm the spiritual direction that I am taking.
Finally, the journey leads me to Detroit—in fact, the station apparently is in Detroit. I arrive there by following a ‘path less traveled,’ i.e., I arrive there only after I stop following other people.
Detroit is my hometown, my roots. One of the leading ‘melting pot’ cities in the United States, Detroit is very interfaith. Metaphorically, it is my Jerusalem. Like Jerusalem, it has a substantial Arabic-Muslim population, as well as Christians, Jews and other religions.
As we say in projective dreamwork: "If this were my dream" (which it is) ... it is my own night journey—one where I ride BART rather than the winged steed Buraq. It is a night journey that calls me to interfaith ministry. It reminds me to stay connected with my roots. It is telling me that "I am on the right track."
