So the vision also has to be while asleep?
It frequently does occur the first time when someone was asleep, but it's not always the case. Everyone has the ability to see and hear spiritually. As a rule, it's turned off when we're awake. We call it dreaming and think it's not real. Things in dreams are not real in the same way things in the physical world are; but we are seeing something. The person who hallucinates is seeing something even if he is projecting the images himself and then mistaking them as independent. They are "real" to him, but not "real" to other people. One definition of reality could be "agreement." Have you ever had any telepathic experiences? The telepathic communication is "real" to the two people who experienced it but "not real" to other people. Spiritual communications are telepathic, not physical. Heaven can make that initial contact when the person is awake -- the say the angel appeared to Hagar -- but my guess is it's done in emergency cases. It's preferable to make that initial contact when the person is asleep and not shocked by seeing things which aren't there physically.
It takes some mental control to be able to be in two realms at the same time. I was in a church once and saw a demon in the air. Of course, no one else saw it. I knew what other people could see -- I could see those things too, but I was also seeing this demon and knew they weren't seeing it. If that had been my first vision, I think I could have freaked out. I might have tried to talk to other people. I might have been put in a mental hospital. I think I can call myself "sane" as long as I know how other people are seeing things and can relate to them on that level. What I see on a spiritual level is something else -- I don't expect people to see them and I don't often mention them.
Do we really see with our physical eyes? Or do we train ourselves to see with them? We apparently train ourselves. Think about it. Light interacts with the rods and cones in our retinas, triggering activity in neurons. Somehow all those signals get organized by the brain. We are picking up the signals from the brain as it's organized the data from the eyes. That's how it's done in the world we're in.
This has to do with why things are the way they are in the physical world -- why we are in bodies, why we think what they experience is real and why we think our ideas are not as real, why most humans can't communicate telepathically. The short answer is that when people weren't in bodies and could use all their spiritual abilities, they wanted to abuse them. Our consciences said, "What you're doing isn't very good. It might be better if you couldn't read minds or send thoughts to others." We chose to limit our abilities; and here we are in a universe that is like a game board with "rules" of its own -- rules, by the way, we should want to obey. Life in this universe can be thought of as a game on a board with a set of rules. One rule is that the "piece" you can move on the board is your body. If you want to close the curtains, the rules of the game say you use your body to do it. You have to get your body up, go over to the curtains and use your hand to do it. Doing it by an act of will alone without using your "piece on the board" is breaking the rules. Some would call it a miracle of God, others an act of magic. I may shock you now -- I know many Christians would find it shocking -- but what we call miracles are violations of the rules of the universe we're in. They are cheating.
People who crave miracles like the idea of cheating.
Matthew 12:39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
Mark 13:22 For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect.
This goes back to why we're in bodies. People want to use their abilities to their own advantage. Their good side, their consciences, deny them access to the abilities they want to abuse; but a dark side wants to break through and get those abilities. You see this craving for the "supernatural" in most religions. You see it in people who go into the occult. I don't approve.
Mind now, even when Jesus was performing miracles, it was a form of breaking the rules -- call it cheating if you want. There is a penalty that has to be paid. It is safe to "cheat" only if (1) you are willing to pay the price and can afford it, and (2) if your breaking the rules is not to benefit yourself. When Jesus talked about "virtue" passing out of him, he was talking about the price he paid for miracles. This seems very odd to many people, I know; but remember the Bible says dominion over the earth was given to man. If men and women want a world where each player in the game uses their bodies as the only pieces they can move legally by the rules, using other methods is opposing their free will. There were times when it looks to me as if Jesus wanted to avoid opposing the free will of too many people. He took one man aside to heal him for example. Then it's also said he did no miracles in one place because of the unbelief of the people. He "could not" do them. If he had, it could be called black magic.
So it is preferable, I think, for the first vision to occur when the person is asleep. There is less of a shock to the psyche and less of a chance for mental confusion. When it does happen that way, some extra steps may be needed to reassure the prophet he's seeing and hearing correctly. (The first chapter of Jeremiah is an example.)
There is an amusing story about Jesus healing a blind mind. Things went wrong on the first go. The man could see something -- he said it was if he could see men like trees walking. It makes me chuckle since what he was seeing was valid but not in the physical world. Jesus meant to get him to seeing using the signals from his physical eyes -- and the man misunderstood and started seeing with spiritual eyes so Jesus had to do it again.
There is something else that needs to be noted. Jesus more than once asked permission from people before healing them. I think in some cases, he knew they wanted to be; but in other cases, some of them had two minds about it, part wanted to be sick and part wanted to be healed. In order not to violate the law of free will, he got them to agree that they wanted to be healed.
I don't know the Wiccan personally; but a friend of mine met him. He was a trucker and he discovered he could heal people. So he went on a spree more or less, healing several people he met. Then one day he healed a woman with a severe case of diabetes. He wound up getting diabetes himself and could never do a thing about it. My best guess is she didn't want to be healed. He had "stolen" her diabetes from her; and the penalty he imposed on himself was keeping it and suffering from it himself. I've known a few Wiccans. One could do things and did for a while too. Eventually however she overstepped the limits by interfering with the free will of other people. She was interested in magic for the wrong reasons. She used it to gain an advantage over others.
Wiccans say, "Do what thou wilt is all of the law, but harm ye none." Do they understand that? They often do not. Some are like Christians, believing they have the right to determine for everyone else what is good and what is bad. I read where some Wiccans said they were going to curse President Trump. What a misguided thing to do. I can almost guarantee that will not end well. While I do not particularly like Trump, I don't have the right to determine what ought to happen for all Americans. Americans voted him into office. For me to oppose that, trying to use prayer or magic, would be opposing their free will. If someone has magical abilities, that's the way to lose them.
I think that's a good trait to have. With me it's always a fine line when I hear stories like yours. On one hand I immediately go to skepticism due to what I think are obvious issues with the stories, but on the other I figure if it's meaningful for you and helped you through life, it'd be terribly inconsiderate of me to try and take that away. Live and let live, and all that.
I think the best kind of "miracles" are those which look completely ordinary.
From the Tao Te Ching:
Therefore, the sage acts without taking credit.
He accomplishes without dwelling on it.
Why do I think that? People are already craving the miraculous too much. If they had evidence of it, they'd crave it even more and for the wrong reasons. It is better as a rule then to get things done with everything looking like business as usual. It also does not create opposition.