Avision is something seen in adream,trance, orreligious ecstasy, especially asupernatural appearance that usually conveys arevelation.[1] Visions generally have more clarity thandreams, but traditionally fewer psychological connotations. Visions are known to emerge from spiritual traditions and could provide a lens into human nature and reality.[2]Prophecy is often associated with 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.[4]
Imaginary – InTeresa of Avila'sThe 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.[5] 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.[6]
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.[7] Underhill refers to this vision type as "little else than an uncontrolled externalization of inward memories, thoughts, or intuitions"[3]
Nat Turner's vision of 12 February 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.[23]
