Besides the dream and the fast sleep, there are the visions. These are seen when in sleep the soul is active in the higher spheres. What it sees there the mind interprets in allegorical pictures. The soul sees plainly the actual thing, and the mind takes from the impressions, whatever is rather like that which the soul sees. Therefore the thing is seen as a picture, an allegory, a parable which the wise can interpret, because he knows the language of those spheres. If he sees himself walking up a mountain, he knows what it means, if he sees himself in rags, or very richly dressed, or in a ship, or in the desert, he knows what it means. The ignorant does not know. He thinks it is merely a dream, nothing. A person sees in a vision either what concerns himself, or what concerns others in whom he is interested; if he is interested in his nation, or in the whole humanity, he will see what has to do with the nation or with the whole humanity.