אמתטריקס

The Dream 6. However, the supernal Wisdom saw fit to divide time into two parts: one for the activity of the 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 may have rest from their toil. During 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 is asleep, his faculties rest, his senses are quiet, and his intellect too rests and is still. Only the imagination acts by itself: it goes on imagining and depicting matters, according to whatever remains to it of what was impressed upon it in the waking state, and according to what reaches it from the vapors and fumes that rise to the brain, whether from the natural moisture or from foods. 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 should be partly detached at that time from its bodily bonds, and parts of it – that is, up to the ruach (spirit) – rise and detach from the body, and only one part, the nefesh, remains with the lower soul. Now the detached parts roam wherever they are permitted, and they have dealings and contact with spiritual beings – with the appointed overseers of nature, or with angels of destruction, or with demons – according to what happens to them for one cause or another. And sometimes what [the soul] has grasped is transmitted, through a chain of descent, down to the lower soul, and the imagination is aroused by this and depicts images according to its ways. And it is possible that what [the soul] grasped is true or false, according to the intermediary through which it grasped it. And that very matter is drawn down to the imagination and is depicted according to its ways – sometimes with great confusion and much admixture of the corrupt images that come from the vapors, and sometimes with greater clarity. And at times a person may receive, through this means, a notification and an "opening 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 (soul) through one of the servants [of the spiritual realm], of whatever kind it may be, and the matter is drawn down to the nefesh and is depicted in the imagination, obscurely or clearly, according to what the supernal Wisdom decrees. And about this it is said: "In a dream, a vision of the night… then He opens the ears of men" (Job 33). It turns out that dreams in general are images of the imagination – either of itself, or according to what the neshamah arouses in it in accordance with what it has grasped. However, the agent in all 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 have written. If that force is one of the servants of holiness, the matter will be true; and if it is from the opposing forces, the matter will be false. And this is what [the Sages] said: "Here it is through an angel, here through 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 yet other dreams, and these are the dreams of prophecy; we will explain this subject on its own, with the help of Heaven. (Derech Hashem) Translated from the Hebrew sources page "מקורות-פרק ט’" by Roni Ayalon-Hirsch.

Sources – Chapter I