Types of Visions

God communicates to us by using images (Ezekiel and Revelation, for example) as well as words. His picture language transcends cultural and language barriers.

Visions can either be a stationary picture, or moving pictures, like a scene from a movie. Both can be puzzling or simple and easy to understand.

Some visions can be without sound or voice, like a photograph or a silent movie.

Other visions can be accompanied by sound. For example, in Revelation 9:9, John saw something like locusts and heard their wings. During one of Daniel’s visions (Daniel 8), an angel spoke to him.

There are three basic categories of visions:  

A Trance
The mind and body are nearly totally arrested. This is a very over-powering method that God can use to communicate with us.  

Open vision
An open vision is seeing directly into the spirit realm. What you are seeing actually blocks out what you would otherwise see in the physical world.  

Inner Vision
This is a seeing of the vision with the eyes of your spirit. Your physical eyes are not involved and could be open or closed. You are still vividly aware of the physical world.  

Let’s look at each of these types of visions:  

An inner vision seems to be the most frequently experienced type of vision. When prophets are ministering, they will often say, “I see…” then they will continue by describing something they see in their spirit that the Lord wants to communicate to the person being ministered to. For example, during a meeting while the prophet was ministering, he saw musical notes dancing around the head of a young lady. The message was one of encouragement and edification in that the young lady was not sure of the direction she should take for her future and was unclear about her gift. The Lord’s message was that He gifted her with a powerful musical talent and that He would glorify Himself through that talent.

An inner vision can be as simple as a quick flash of an image. For example, you are in your house and an image flashes in your spirit of your young child falling off the side of the sliding board that’s in your backyard. In response, you rush outside to your child who is at the top step of the sliding board and notice that her shoelaces are untied and tangled around her feet—and just seconds away from falling.  

An open vision is the most common type of vision of all that are recorded in the Bible. During some an open visions, part of the physical world and part of the spiritual world can be seen. For example, Araunah saw the angel of the Lord while he was threshing wheat (1 Chronicles 21:20). During other open visions, all of the physical world can be replaced by the spiritual world. The Apostle John not only the exclusively saw the spiritual realm, but was taken to God’s throne (Revelation 4).  

A trance is mentioned twice in the New Testament. Peter fell into a trance while he was praying (Acts 10:10). What God showed and told him during the trance, He repeated three times. God used (had to use!) a trance and repeated His message three times to break through Peter’s mind-set that the Gentiles are unclean—a life-long, deeply entrenched belief—so that he would be willing to spread the Good News to anyone, Jew or Gentile. Paul also fell into a trance, while he was praying, and the Lord told him to leave Jerusalem immediately because the people would not accept his testimony about Jesus.  

All of these types of visions involve seeing into or a seeing of something in the spiritual realm. There is another type of seeing spiritual things and persons—this is when that which is spiritual becomes manifested in the physical. A vision is seeing into the spiritual, whereas when the spiritual breaks into the physical, it is called a “manifested” appearance. For instance, Moses and seventy-three other men saw God standing on something like a pavement made of clear sapphire (Exodus 24). Another instance of a manifested appearance is when the Israelites saw the presence of the Lord as a consuming fire on top of Mount Sinai (Exodus 24).  

It can be noted here, that God can and has revealed things in visions that the person having the vision is commanded not to repeat. Yes, there are times that God will give information to one person that is never, ever to be shared with anyone else. This kind of information can be beyond what God wants us to know in His written Word.

Paul and John were both given information during a vision that was beyond what is “lawful” for the rest of us to know. In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul refers to himself being caught up to the third heaven and that he “…heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.” During one of John’s visions, he heard words that he was told not to repeat (Revelation 10:4, And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write; but I heard a voice from heaven say, "Seal up what the seven thunders have said and do not write it down.")

(This topic is discussed further in the Ears-2-Hear Teachings.)