Sufi mystics mapped a dimension that Western philosophy has no name for: the 'ālam al-mithāl, the World of Images, a space between physical matter and pure spirit where dreams, visions, and prophetic encounters take place. It is not fantasy. It is not physical reality. It is something else entirely, and 800 years later, Jung described the same thing.
In Sufism, dreams take place in the 'ālam al-mithāl, the World of Images, a real dimension between physical matter and pure spirit. Certain dreams count as communication from the divine, and the tradition sorts them into ru'yā (true dreams from God), ḥulm (disturbing dreams from the devil), and ḥadīth al-nafs (dreams from the self).
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This page describes how dreams are understood within Sufism, the mystical tradition inside Islam, drawing on figures such as Ibn Arabi, Rumi, and al-Hallaj and on the scholar Henry Corbin. It presents belief and practice, like the istikhāra prayer, with respect rather than judging religious truth, and interpretation varies across Sufi orders and teachers.
Ibn Arabi (1165-1240), the greatest Sufi metaphysician, described the 'ālam al-mithāl (mundus imaginalis, the "World of Images"), a dimension that is neither the physical world of the senses nor the purely spiritual world of abstract truth. It is an intermediate world where spiritual realities take on visible form and material things reveal their spiritual essence.
Dreams occur in this world. So do prophetic visions, mystical encounters, and the appearances of angels. The 'ālam al-mithāl is not "imaginary" in the dismissive Western sense, it is imaginal: a real ontological level with its own laws, its own geography, and its own inhabitants. When you dream, according to Ibn Arabi, you are literally visiting this world.
Henry Corbin (1903-1978), the French scholar who introduced Ibn Arabi to the West, argued that the mundus imaginalis and Jung's collective unconscious describe the same reality from different angles. Both are worlds where symbols live, where archetypes take form, and where the individual soul connects to something universal.
Corbin, "Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi" (1958)In Islamic practice, istikhāra (استخارة, "seeking what is good") is a specific prayer performed when facing a difficult decision. After two rak'at (units of prayer) and a prescribed supplication, the practitioner sleeps, and waits for a dream that will reveal the right path.
This is dream incubation in its most direct form, the same practice found in Egyptian temples and Greek Asclepieia, but alive and practiced daily by millions of Muslims worldwide in the 21st century. The Sufi tradition treats the resulting dream with the utmost seriousness: it is a communication from the divine, mediated through the 'ālam al-mithāl.
The Islamic dream framework distinguishes three types: ru'yā (true dreams from God), ḥulm (disturbing dreams from the devil), and ḥadīth al-nafs (dreams from the self). Sufis developed sophisticated criteria for distinguishing between them, criteria that, strikingly, parallel Jung's distinction between archetypal dreams (from the collective unconscious) and personal dreams (from the individual unconscious).
Mapped the 'ālam al-mithāl, wrote over 350 works, and described the dream world as an ontologically real dimension. His Fusus al-Hikam (Bezels of Wisdom) was reportedly dictated to him in a dream by the Prophet Muhammad.
Metaphysics · Dream ontologyThe Masnavi is saturated with dream imagery and references to the sleep-waking threshold as a doorway to truth. Rumi treated the boundary between dream and reality as permeable, poetic, and sacred.
Poetry · Mystical experienceExecuted for declaring "Ana al-Haqq" ("I am the Truth/God"), a statement he reportedly made after emerging from a visionary dream state. His mystical experience blurred all boundaries between self and divine, sleep and waking.
Martyrdom · Mystical unionThe parallels between Sufi dream theory and Jungian psychology are striking, and not coincidental. Henry Corbin, who translated and interpreted Ibn Arabi for Western audiences, was deeply familiar with Jung's work. He argued that both thinkers had independently mapped the same territory: a dimension of reality where symbols are alive, where personal experience connects to universal truth, and where the human soul undergoes transformation.
Key convergences: the Sufi qalb (heart as organ of spiritual perception) parallels Jung's Self as the center of the total psyche. The Sufi fanā' (annihilation of the ego in divine unity) parallels the Jungian dissolution of the ego during deep individuation work. And the 'ālam al-mithāl itself, a world of living images that is neither fantasy nor physical, is essentially what Jung called the psychoid level: the border zone where psyche and matter, inner and outer, subject and object meet.
Did you know Sufism describes a "third world" between matter and spirit, accessible through dreams? Ibn Arabi's 'ālam al-mithāl (World of Images) is not imaginary, it is a real dimension where spiritual truths take visible form. Jung described the same thing 700 years later.
Did you know millions of Muslims practice dream incubation daily? Istikhāra, a prayer for guidance through dreams, is performed worldwide when facing difficult decisions. The same practice found in ancient Egyptian temples, alive in the 21st century.
Did you know Rumi's greatest work may have been inspired by dreams? The Masnavi treats the boundary between dream and reality as permeable and sacred, a poetic doorway to truth.
The Sufi 'imaginal world' (barzakh), an intermediate world between visible and invisible.
View in Sources ↗Founder of archetypal psychology. Dreams belong to the underworld, interpret images on their own terms.
View in Sources ↗Sacred space, initiation rituals, and cyclical time, the religious dimension of dreams.
View in Sources ↗Sufi tradition teaches that dreams are visits to a real dimension. Discover what your visit revealed.
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