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Dreams and Visions are most accurately defined as a communication from God. They and their interpretations are His domain. The mention of the terms, dream, dreams, dreamed, dreamer, vision or visions occur in the bible more that 200 times. God uses dreams and visions to give assignments to His servants. Warnings and other information necessary for the advancing of the Kingdom of Heaven are many times disseminated to the people of God by way of dreams and visions.
All dreams and visions broadcasted by God are directly or indirectly for Kingdom purposes. Aside from the dreams and visions from God, there are dreams that are sourced from the demonic realm and those that derive from the souls or flesh of men.
There is, however, a similar phenomenon used by God and similarly counterfeited by the devil. It is the Trance.
The word trance, found in Strong’s Concordance, comes from the Greek word ekstasisa. A partial meaning of the word is “throwing of the mind out of its normal state, alienation of mind, whether such as makes a lunatic or that of a man who by some sudden emotion is transported as it were out of himself, so that in this rapt condition, although he is awake, his mind is drawn off from all surrounding objects and wholly fixed on things divine that he sees nothing but the forms and images lying within, and thinks that he perceives with his bodily eyes and ears realities shown him by God.”
There are four instances of the trance found in the Bible. Two occasions by Balaam the prophet in the book of Numbers and once each by Peter and Paul in the book of Acts.