A vision is something seen in a dream, trance, or religious ecstasy, especially a supernatural appearance that usually conveys a revelation. Visions generally have more clarity than dreams, but traditionally fewer psychological connotations. Visions are known to emerge from spiritual traditions and could provide a lens into human nature and reality. Prophecy is often associated with visions.
Contents
Categories
Evelyn Underhill distinguishes and categorizes three types of visions:
Intellectual Visions – The Catholic dictionary defines these as supernatural knowledge in which the mind receives an extraordinary grasp of some revealed truth without the aid of sensible impressions, and mystics describe them as intuitions that leave a deep impression.
Imaginary – In Teresa of Avila's The Interior Castle, an imaginary vision is defined as one where nothing is seen or heard by the senses of seeing or hearing, but where the same impression is received that would be produced upon the imagination by the senses if some real object were perceived by them. Niels Christian Hvidt refers to them as visions recognized through mechanisms of the human psyche that are made up of things a soul has acquired through contact with reality.
Corporeal – A supernatural manifestation of an object to the eyes of the body. It may take place in two ways: either a figure really present strikes the retina and there determines the physical phenomenon of the vision, or an agent superior to man directly modifies the visual organ and produces in the composite a sensation equivalent to that which an external object would produce. Underhill refers to this vision type as "little else than an uncontrolled externalization of inward memories, thoughts, or intuitions"
Examples
Visions are listed in approximately chronological order whenever possible, although some dates may be in dispute.
The visions of Jeremiah in the first chapter of the Book of Jeremiah, where he sees a branch of an almond tree, and then "a boiling pot from the north".
Vision of Isaiah in the first chapter of the Book of Isaiah, predicting the siege of Jerusalem and destruction of the first temple.
Vision of God in the first chapter of the Book of Ezekiel (6th century BC)
Vision of a heavenly figure "like a son of man" in Daniel 7:13 (6th century / 2nd century BC)
Post-resurrection appearances of Jesus
Paul the Apostle's vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus (1st century)
Marian apparitions (visions or visitations of Mary, mother of Jesus) (1st century AD – present)
Visions of the afterlife in the martyr accounts of Perpetua and Felicity (2nd century AD)
Constantine's vision of Christ's sign (312 AD)
Saint Fursey’s visions of angelic figures taking him through heaven and hell (7th century AD)
Jakob Böhme's vision (1600 AD), in which he observed the beauty of a beam of sunlight in a pewter dish
René Descartes' series of dreams on the night of 11 November 1619, which set the course of his life in science