I had missed this very interesting post by William James Tychonievich - Visions as irruptions of dreaming consciousness into waking life - when it came-out some six months ago.
I agree with his remark that dreaming goes on all the time, but only sometimes emerges into awareness; and some of these times may include visions.
Such considerations open-up a very important theme, about which I have often been confused.
The thing about visions is that they can be very compelling, in an overall sense. They may feel very important: which probably means they do have genuine significance. Yet at the same time the content of visions is non-objective.
I conclude this not only from my personal experiences - in which the objective content of some very compelling, highly convincing, dreams and visions has turned-out to be untrue - factually false, informationally wrong - wrong in various ways and degrees.
But also, I have noticed this factual/ informational falseness/ wrongness in others.... From having read and pondered large numbers of accounts of visions from all sorts of people... From some famous founders of religions and denominations and societies. And in more recent reading in the works of 20th century people who were Christian mystics, in the Western tradition of ritual/ ceremonial magic, and from "New Age" and Western practitioners of Eastern religions.
Of course, among all these reports are plenty of people who I judge to be dishonest (pretending to experiences in order to manipulate other people), and others who seem self-deluded and dominated by wishful-thinking.
Most self-styled visionaries are indeed of these kinds, and are spiritually interesting only in a pathological sense.
However; there are also plenty of visionary experiences described by people whose honesty I believe, and whose competence I respect.
There is, therefore, truth of some sort in their visions.
And yet: the objective content of their images I usually believe to be wrong.
Furthermore, there are stark contradictions between information reported by the various trustworthy people, even among those who I most respect.
They cannot all be correct - at least not correct in the kind of straightforward and literal ways in which so many of the individuals themselves seemed to accept the content of their visions.
This is not at all surprising if, as WmJas says, visions are (mostly) waking dreams - because dreams are, notoriously, often incoherent; and "factually impossible" dream material is frequent.
It would seem like an obviously futile project to try and build some kind of objective "system" of spiritual knowledge from the material of dreams... Yet, exactly this has been (and still is being) often attempted.
My conclusion is that we should not be trying to use visions (or, indeed, other "paranormal" kinds of experience) as a method for gaining factual understanding.
Although this is exactly how visions often have been used; the actual results are idiosyncratic to individuals (and potentially unstable, in that future visions may contradict those of the past).
In the case of formal religions (or systems such as Steiner's Anthroposophy); such intrinsic idiosyncrasy is controlled, and a quasi-objectivity is externally imposed, by privileging particular visions by particular persons. Usually the founder's visions are regarded as factually true, eternally objective; such that they cannot be refuted by anyone else's visions.
To this end; there is a frequent practice of either forbidding, or ignoring, contradictory visions by other and later persons (as when Steiner's legacy Anthroposophical Society expelled the occultist-mystic Valentine Tomberg, for doing what Steiner had done). Or (as with the CJCLDS Mormons) doctrinally limiting the significance of later visions and personal revelations to minor and individual matters.
Or, within mainstream Christianity, when there have been times and places when it was insisted that revelation ended with Jesus, or the Apostles, or the Bible, or particular Ecumenical Councils - and later claims of revelation were assumed necessarily to be subordinate, or false.
But this seems, pretty obviously, merely an expedient exercise of top-down power, designed to maintain an institution or system.
If a religion or other institution is founded-upon and derives-from visions (and other supernatural experiences); then there is something very dubious about later generations suppressing or limiting the significance and scope of visionary experiences.
But such negative and sceptical evaluation of visionary experiences is not the whole truth of the matter - because it would seem to point to the rejection of this kind of experience as intrinsically false, or impossible to evaluate.
(And if visions really are impossible to evaluate, then most religions have cut away their own foundations.)
Even though having the quality of waking dreams; visionary experiences are (I believe) potentially very important, and rightly regarded as (in some way) significant.
Because our dreams themselves are potentially important - and this was a fact recognized in nearly all times and places except the modern West.
My own attitude is to try and get away from the idea of visions (and dreams) as a source of factual, objective, information or knowledge - and instead to seek the significance at another level.
In line with my general attitude, with respect to theology and Christianity; I think it probable that the true and important facts of our mortal life are few and simple; graspable-by and innate-to young children.
In essence, visions ought not to be used such as to increase the volume, complexity and difficulty of information; and should instead be understood as leading us towards clarity and simplicity.
What we might reasonably expect from dreams may be of this kind: simple affirmations or refutations of simple and basic understandings; pointers towards or away-from broad aspects of our mortal lives.
I would add that it has usually been recognized that most dreams, and probably most waking visions, are essentially trivial. And only some, maybe few, and maybe rare - dreams impress themselves upon us as significant: those numinous dreams and visions, ones having a mystical feel and a sense of personal importance.
It is these numinous/ mythic/ significant-feeling dreams to which I refer.
For instance; when I awake from a dream of a particular place having a magical quality, and this dream lingers; such a dream is not likely to be indicative or confirmation of specific information about a specific place. Perhaps, instead, it may be a very general affirmation of the potentially magical reality underlying my mortal existence - and the specifics of the dream are just a means to that end.
I have had an occasional lucid and realistic dream of Jesus Christ in his mortal life, and in one such dream he gave some specific information, which I later became sure was wrong information. Yet even when all the details are false or dubious; the dream had a lasting inner significance as a subjective confirmation of the simple reality of Jesus, as a personage.
Broadly; that is now how I try to "interpret" my dreams, visions, or any other supernatural-type experiences that happen from tie to time.
I try not to become focused upon specific detail and facts; and instead to reflect upon my own simple responses as a guide to what was "really" being communicated.
Another way of thinking about it, is that visions (like dreams) are not about telling us something new; but are about the simple discernments involved in sorting-out our already-existing and most basic assumptions concerning our lives, and how they relate to reality.
Visions are therefore about discernment, not knowledge.
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