Visiones

Visiones is the Spanish term for visions. In general use, it refers to experiences of seeing something that may be real, imagined, or revealed in some meaningful way. Visiones can denote everyday perceptual experiences, dreams or daydreams, and claims of insight or prophecy. The term is used across religious, cultural, and scientific discourse to describe a range of phenomena centered on visual or symbolic imagery.

Religious and mystical contexts often treat visions as messages or revelations from a divine or spiritual source. Such experiences may guide personal conduct, influence doctrine, or inspire art and devotion. Interpretations of visions are culturally and historically conditioned, and what counts as legitimate vision in one tradition may be understood differently in another.

In psychology and neuroscience, visions are studied as perceptual experiences that can arise from various states or conditions. They may occur during sleep (such as vivid dreams or hypnagogic imagery), in altered states of consciousness, or as symptoms of medical or psychiatric conditions. Substances, migraines, sensory deprivation, or intense emotions can also produce visual experiences. Researchers examine how the brain constructs perception and meaning from imagery, and how individuals distinguish between imagined content and external reality.

Culturally, visions appear in literature, art, and film as motifs for transformation, warning, or utopian possibility. They are used to explore the boundary between reality and imagination and to convey symbolic or prophetic meanings.

See also: Vision, dream, prophecy, hallucination, mysticism.