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If you ask the typical Christian how the Lord/God speaks to us, they will tell you that it is by His Word/The Bible. Pressing them further will probably get you an array of answers including, through Jesus, Nature, other believers and the list goes on and probably mostly all have some validity. I believe that a Christian with any level of Spiritual maturity (having received the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking with other tongues for example) can be led by God (The Holy Spirit) through dreams, visions and direct spiritual communication (the revelation gifts of the Spirit) to fulfill his/her Kingdom purpose while here on the earth.
Visions, though, are much as the name connotes; “you see something” as if in reality that which pertains to the message that God is trying to convey (please, if you are not a Christian you simply will not get the full benefit of dreams and visions). Visions come in three basic forms, spiritual, likely while you are a sleep or in a very quiet state; open, similar to a real life experience; or while in a trance, the physical senses of one are likely suspended during this kind of vision. While the message of the vision are likely very clear, the conscience state of seer is cataleptic, or hypnotic.
An excellent example of visions can be found in the story of the gentile Cornelius’s salvation (and that of those in his household) in Acts chapter 10. Act 10:1