Vision (spirituality)

This page is about visions in a spiritual context. For other meanings, see vision (disambiguation).

Belshazzar's Feast depicts a vision described in the biblical Book of Daniel.

In spirituality, a vision is something seen in a dream, trance, or ecstasy, especially a supernatural appearance that conveys a revelation.

Visions generally have more clarity than dreams, but traditionally fewer psychological connotations. The psychological mechanism to engender visionary perception and trance phenomena is focused intention and attention.

Entheogens (such as peyote) have traditionally assisted in the generation of visions among diverse cultures, as well as in modern western culture.

Examples of visions

Visions are listed in approximately chronological order whenever possible, although some dates may be in dispute

• Vision of God in the Book of Ezekiel chapter 1. (6th century BC)
• Vision of a heavenly figure "like a son of man" in Daniel 7:13 (6th century / 2nd century BC)
• Jesus' vision of the dove when baptized in the Book of Mark 1:10 (1st century AD)
• Paul's vision of Christ (Acts of the Apostles 9:5) (1st century AD)
• The Apocalypse in Revelation (1st-2nd century AD)
• 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)
• The theoria (Vision of God) by which a Christian mystic may discern a deep aspect of God (in the Eastern Orthodox tradition) (3rd-6th cent. AD)
• Constantine's vision of Christ's sign (312 AD)
• Jakob Böhme's vision of 1600, revealed when he observed the beauty of a beam of sunlight in a pewter dish
• René Descartes' series of dreams on the night of November 11, 1619, which set the course of his life in science
• Blaise Pascal's vision of November 23, 1654, which reinvigorated his spiritual commitment
• Emanuel Swedenborg's visions, which formed the basis of a newly revealed doctrine (beginning in 1740s)
• Joseph Smith's First Vision (1820)
• Nat Turner's vision of February 12, 1831, in which he saw an actual eclipse of the sun that day as a black man's hand covering the solar orb, interpreting it as a sign to launch his slave rebellion
• Ramakrishna Paramahamsa describes of several visions including Kali, Sita, Krishna, Jesus, Mohammed. (mid/late 19th cent.)
• Angels of Mons (1914)

See also

• Altered state of consciousness
• Apparitional experience
• Mysticism
• Hallucination
• Kashf
• Neurotheology
• Shamanism
• Temporal lobe epilepsy
• Theophany
• Vision quest