FWP:
For background see S. R. Faruqi's choices.
Here's another verse based on wordplay, but how much richer and livelier than the previous one, {81,7x}! The conflation of domains is similar, but here it's energized by the piquancy of comparing the lofty, admirably mystical trance state of self-transcendance [az-;xvud-raftagii] with something as humble and despised, something as grittily and tenaciously physical, as a weed.
An additional source of energy in the verse is its sense of action: to go outside oneself is to make a major journey (a 'trip'?), and even the lowly weeds are endowed with enough active potential to have a dream of their own, or at least to play a role in the speaker's dream.
As Gyan Chand notes, the idea of the weeds' sleep or dream is idiomatically established, because sabzah-e ;xvaabiidah , literally 'sleeping/dreaming greenery', refers to crushed or trampled-down grass or greenery: since it lies flat on the ground, it seems to be asleep.
The perfect placing of the i.zaafat makes it possible for the dream in question to be the speaker's dream about weeds; or the weeds' own dream (whatever its content might be); or a dream that concerns weeds in some other, unspecified way. Thus the readings of the verse can be anything from the radically compassionate (the speaker can sympathize with the unexpressed sufferings of the humble weed) to the radically alienated (the speaker in his trance state has dreams in his mind that are like weeds in a garden), with stops at all sorts of points in between.
As so often in Ghalib's verses, the cleverly arranged pairs of opposites are in constant oscillation and mutual recombination in our minds. The juxtapositions include: inside (one's inner self, one's thought, one's dream) versus outside (going outside oneself, the garden, the weeds); familiarity (with a regular 'practice', with dream interpretation) versus alienness (the weeds, the speaker's isolation in his trance state); human contrivance (the careful 'practice', the garden, the interpretation) versus intractable wildness (the weeds, their 'alienness', the radical uncontrollableness of the trance state).
Note for grammar fans: how exactly should we read the grammar of aashnaa ? Normally we would have either kaa for the noun use (as in {42,1}, with its kis kaa aashnaa ), or se for the adjectival use (as Platts notes in the definition above). In this verse we have a se , but it's bonded to the mashq , and is thus required to be instrumental. Tentatively, I was reading aashnaa-ta((biir as a reversed form of ta((biir-aashnaa , 'familiar with interpretation', which did the job. S. R. Faruqi however has told me (Aug. 2008) that this construction should officially be considered a faq-e i.zaafat , or 'removal/loss of the i.zaafat ', and that it should be treated as a recognized figure of speech.
Gyan Chand:
sabzah-e begaanah is that [undesirable] greenery that would be worthy of being dug up. In the garden of thoughts, we practiced losing ourself and going from ourself. In this way we've become acquainted with the interpretation of a dream of 'alien greenery'. The 'sleep of greenery' [;xvaab-e sabzah] is well-known. The cause of our going from ourself can be that no one pays attention to the pain of our heart. This mood is that of 'alien greenery'-- that no one is its friend/familiar. (253)