This is all representative of the imaging faculty, which Joseph typifies. The history of Joseph is the history of man's imagination developed under the divine law. For a time the way of Joseph was thorny, but through his obedience to Spirit he reached the highest place in the king's domain. This shows that man begins the development of the imagination in the darkness of materiality and in the depths of ignorance, represented by Joseph's being cast into the pit and sold into Egypt. Instead of treating the visions of the night as Page 103 idle dreams, we should inquire into them, seeking to know the cause and the meaning of every mental picture.
Every dream has origin in thought, and every thought makes a mind picture.
The study of dreams and visions is an important one, because it is through these mental pictures that the Lord communicates with man in a certain stage of his unfoldment. Solomon was instructed in dreams. Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a vision of the night. Joseph, the husband of Mary, was told in a dream to take the young child Jesus and go down into Egypt. God has instructed all the great and wise in every age in dreams and visions.