5115. 'And it was as though budding' means an influx that allows rebirth to be effected. This is clear from the meaning of 'budding' - that is, bringing forth leaves, and also blossom later on - as the first stage of rebirth. The reason an influx is meant is that when a person is being born again spiritual life flows into him, even as a tree, when it starts to bud, is receiving its life through heat from the sun. The birth of a human being is compared in various places in the Word to members of the vegetable kingdom, especially trees. The reason for this comparison is that the entire vegetable kingdom, like the animal kingdom also, represents the kind of things that exist with the human being, and consequently the kind of things that exist in the Lord's kingdom. For the human being is heaven in its least form, as may be seen from what has been shown at the ends of chapters regarding correspondence of the human being with the Grand Man, which is heaven. This also explains why the ancients referred to man as the microcosm; and if more had been known about the heavenly state they would have called him a miniature heaven too. For the whole natural system is a theatre representative of the Lord's kingdom, see 2758, 3483, 4939.

[2] But in particular it is a person who is being born anew, that is, being regenerated by the Lord, who is called heaven; for during that time Divine good and truth from the Lord, and consequently heaven, are implanted in him. Indeed, like a tree, a person who is being born again begins from a seed, which is why in the Word 'seed' means truth obtained from good. Also, like a tree, he brings forth leaves, then blossom, and finally fruit; for he brings forth the kind of things that belong to intelligence, which again in the Word are meant by 'leaves', then the kind of things that belong to wisdom, which are meant by 'blossoms', and finally the kind of things that are matters of life, namely forms of the good of love and charity expressed in action, which in the Word are meant by 'fruits'. Such is the representative likeness that exists between a fruitful tree and a person who is being regenerated, a likeness so great that one may learn from a tree about regeneration, provided that something is known first of all about spiritual good and truth. From this one may see that 'the vine' in the cupbearer's dream serves to describe fully in a representative fashion the process by which a person is born again so far as the sensory power subject to the understanding part is concerned. That process is described first by the three shoots, then by the buds that were formed, after that by the blossom, followed by the ripening of the clusters into grapes, and finally by his pressing them into Pharaoh's cup and his giving this to him.

[3] Furthermore the dreams which come from the Lord by way of heaven are never anything else than scenes based on representatives. Anyone therefore who does not know what this or that in the natural world represents, more so one who is totally unaware of anything at all being representative there, inevitably supposes that those representatives are merely comparisons such as anybody may use in ordinary conversation. They are indeed comparisons; but they are the kind which are also correspondences and which therefore present themselves as visible objects in the world of spirits while the angels positioned more internally in heaven are talking about spiritual or celestial things belonging to the Lord's kingdom. Regarding dreams, see 1122, 1975, 1977, 1979-1981.