Are there any meanings to dreams?

A few years ago, when PMS was pregnant with our first child, I remember not having any feelings towards the baby until just a few weeks before the baby was born. It was when I had a dream of the baby. I dreamt of a small baby girl, wrapped in a white cotton cloth. Although most babies are born bald, the baby girl had lots of hair on her tiny head. She was also surrounded by my friends, and the baby was always smiling to them, winning their hearts. Since that dream, I developed a deep feeling of love for the baby and when baby Sarah was finally born, I was surprised to find out that one of her physical characteristics was she has lots of hair. I felt as if I’ve known (and loved) Sarah even before she was born, from the dream.

Puan Mama Sarah also had a similar dream. In her dream, a friend of PMS offered the name “Ulfah” for our baby.

Puan Mama Sarah is not an Arabic language scholar and so she was searching for the meaning of Ulfah. The dictionaries describe Ulfah as a female name, meaning “familiar”. PMS also asked about the meaning of Ulfah to her friend, the same person she saw in her dream. The person, an Arab, explained that the name means “The feeling of loving someone, even before you’ve met the person.”

Another example is a dream I had before I was to move to the city I am currently staying in. The numbers 444 was shown prominently in a dream I had. I had been trying to find the meaning of those numbers and it wasn’t till a few months later, when we moved cities that I found out the fact that to go to our new house one has to follow the signs to the A444. Where I am staying now, there are numerous road signs leading to the A444 and following those signs would lead you to this house.

Some dreams I’ve had have been much more sinister:

One week before I was about to get married to PMS I dreamt of the presence of a tall, black creature in the room I was sleeping in, and I woke up with a start, in cold sweat. Shocked, I went to the bathroom and while washing my face, I was thinking of the vivid, scary dream. In the end I came to the conclusion that the dream must have been from Shaitan trying to scare me. As I was having the thought, the glass panel infront of me came down with a huge crash! I’ve stayed in the house for 2 years before that and the glass panel have always been sturdy, and the event needless to say, scared the bej***s out of me.

Since then, and especially after I got married, I started to get strange, scary nightmares. These nightmares have a recurring theme: always of snakes, they were scary and vivid, and always woke me up at around 3-4 in the morning. They were so vivid and scary that for one whole year until the nightmares stopped, I did not get even one night of good, proper sleep and I would be tired after I woke up.

I remember each of the 6 nightmares clearly, even to this day (I suffered from the nightmares 7 years ago). The first of the series started like this:

I was in a moderately crowded shop, when a tall man (like a magician, with a tall hat) approached me. He had a huge, blue snake hanging over his shoulder – the snake looked like one of those man-eating, 10 foot, African pythons or constrictor boas. The magician/man gave me a white mouse and asked me to feed the snake. I took the white mouse, and offered it to the snake, when the snake suddenly hissed, opened its mouth and devoured the mouse, with it my whole right arm up to my elbow. The snake slowly released my arm, but in doing so cut my elbow with its sharp teeth leaving bleeding gashes. Scared, I ran away from the magician/man outside of the shop and … outside, there were snakes EVERYWHERE. The trees were full of snakes hissing, hanging and some were falling to the ground. The ground was also full of hissing and writhing snakes. Then I woke up with a start, sweating. The clock showed 4am.

The series ended like this:

I was in my room, the exact room I was sleeping in at that time. Okay, in fact, it felt less like a dream and more like it actually happened: Over my sleeping body there was a tall man/magician with a huge black, hissing snake and he was feeding that snake into my mouth. With all my might I tried to keep my mouth closed to let the snake inside. And both the snake and myself was fighting and struggling – the snake millimetres away from my closed mouth. Again I woke up with a start, and according to PMS I uttered a few things that scared her that night.

I tell you guys, the last nightmare felt to me less like a dream and more like it really happened. That was the end of my 6-part nightmare, I’ll spare you guys from the other 4 dreams, but they were all about various different coloured snakes.

Guess when the dream ended? Yup, right before Ramadhan of that year. I remember, the first night of Ramadhan of that year was the first night in a loooong while when I had a completely restful sleep.

A month later was a special Eid, the Eid when my whole family met in the UK and celebrated Eid together. When we were staying in London, I don’t know why but I began telling my sister Nurul about the nightmares of snakes. Hearing “snakes” she gasped, and looked frightened.

It turned out that for the past one year before that Ramadhan both my sister and my father were also haunted by nightmares of snakes. Before that, I’ve never told any of my family members about the nightmares I had, and it was shocking to hear that all of us had had similar dreams.

My sister said that the events also ended with a dream: An aunt on my mother’s side was sleeping in our house in Malaysia, when she dreamt of 2 snakes. She killed one of the snakes, but the other one got away down the stairs into a cupboard and hid there in the shape of a piece of wood.

She told my father about the dream and father searched the cupboard she saw in the dream and found the piece of wood, and burnt it. Right before Ramadhan. Exactly the time when all our nightmares ended. Our family agreed that the events were probably due to witchcraft or something...

To be honest guys, I’m writing this because I’m puzzled with some of the recent dreams I’ve been having and I know some of my readers on this blog have “knowledge”. These past few years, especially lately, I have been having these vivid dreams (not nightmares). The dreams would seem so real, and I would always wake up with a start. When I wake up, sometimes I’d be staring straight to my bedside clock and the clock would show weird times like: 2:22 or 3:33 or 4:44 am. On the dot, seriously.

What has made me write about my dreams is my latest one 2 days ago: I dreamt about KKL and O-K, and woke up at exactly 4:44 am. I have never, ever dreamt of KKL ever before in my life and I was looking for the meaning of that dream. It wasn’t until I read O-K’s announcement of KKL’s birthday that I understood.

The dream with O-K and KKL had been a good dream, but actually, I have dreamt of other people in not so good situations as well. Sometimes, I feel like contacting them and give warnings but I’ve always held back, in case they think I’ve gone crazy.

I’ve just rang my sister again just now and she had two stories to share, regarding warning people about dreams.

Once she dreamt that one of her friends would be in danger, and she told the person about the dream as warning. The person didn’t believe her. Two days later, in chemistry class ther person had an accident involving getting acid to his face and was hospitalised.

She also had another dream of a terrible road accident involving a friend and she told that friend to not travel anywhere or drive over the weekend. The friend followed her advice and Alhamdulillah, nothing happened.

Dreams are indeed strange, and to me and my sister, they may carry special meanings. Dreams that I find meaningful have the following characteristics:
1. They are very vivid.
2. You are able to remember those dreams even many years after you’ve had them.
3. They occur early in the morning, around 4am.

So, any readers with stories to share or would like to offer any explanations or suggestions?