So vivid may these structures sometimes be for them that--to revert again to our original simile--the self turns from the window and the realistic world without, and becomes for the time wholly concentrated on the symbolic drama or picture within the room; which abolishes all awareness of the everyday world.

When this happens in a small way, we have what might be called a religious day-dream of more or less beauty and intensity; such as most devout people who tend to visualization have probably known.

When the break with the external world is complete, we get those ecstatic visions in which mystics of a certain type actualize their spiritual intuitions.
The Bible is full of examples of this.

Good historic instances are the visions of Mechthild of Magdeburg or Angela of Foligno.

The first contain all the elements of drama, the last cover a wide symbolic and emotional field.