Sources – Chapter C/3 – Opening the Eyes – the Exodus from Egypt

Dream

The Dream

6. However, the supernal Wisdom saw fit to divide time into two parts: one for the activity of creatures, and one for their rest. That is, day and night — for the day is the time of action, and the night the time of rest.

And He placed in the nature of living creatures that they sleep, so that they and their spirits would have rest from their toil. And at that time their being renews its strength, in all its bodily and psychic parts, and they return "new every morning" to their work as before.

Now when a person sleeps, his faculties rest, his senses are quiet, and his intellect too rests and is quiet. Only the imagination alone is active: it goes on imagining and depicting matters, according to what happens to come to it from the remnant of what was impressed upon it while awake, and from what reaches it from the vapors and fumes that rise to the brain, whether from the natural moisture or from foods. And this is the matter of the dreams that all human beings have.

However, the Creator, blessed be He, further ordained that the higher soul we mentioned be somewhat detached at that time from its bodily bonds, and parts of it — namely, up to the ruach (spirit) — rise up and detach from the body; and only the one part, which is the nefesh, remains with the lower soul.

And the detached parts roam within what has been allotted to them, and they have dealings and contact with spiritual beings — with the appointed officers of nature, or with some of the angels of destruction, or with demons — according to what happens to befall them for one reason or another. And sometimes what it [the soul] has apprehended is drawn down, by stages, as far as the lower soul, and the imagination is aroused by it and depicts images in its own ways.

And it is possible that the matter it apprehended be true or false, according to the intermediary through which it apprehended it. And this very matter is drawn down to the imagination and is depicted in its ways — sometimes with great confusion and much admixture of the corrupt images drawn from the vapors, and sometimes with greater clarity.

And a person may indeed receive, through this means, a notification and an "uncovering of the ear" about what is to come upon him. This happens by His decree, blessed be He: the matter is made known to the neshamah through one of the servants, of whatever kind it may be, and the matter is drawn down to the nefesh and is depicted in the imagination, obscurely or clearly, as the supernal Wisdom decrees.

And about this it is said, "In a dream, a vision of the night… then He uncovers the ears of men" (Job 33).

It emerges that the general nature of dreams is images of the imagination — whether from itself, or from what the neshamah arouses in it according to what it apprehends. However, what acts in all of these is none other than one of the spiritual forces that informs the neshamah, and the neshamah draws it down to the imagination, as we wrote. If that force is one of the servants of holiness, the matter will be true; and if from the opposing forces, the matter will be false. This is what they said: "Here by means of an angel, there by means of a demon" (Berachot 55). And in all of them there is an admixture of the corrupt images of the imagination itself, and this is what they said: "It is impossible to dream without idle matters" (ibid.). But there are still other dreams, and they are dreams of prophecy; we will explain their matter on its own, with the help of Heaven.

(Derech Hashem)

Translated from the Hebrew sources page "מקורות- פרק ג’/3- פקיחת עיניים- יציאת מצרים" by Roni Ayalon-Hirsch.