Time is an aspect of the physical world, but it is not an aspect of the spiritual world. The same is true of space: There is no space in heaven. This is hard for us to grasp or even visualize, because we live in physical bodies with physical senses that are filled with physical elements existing in time and space. Our minds are schooled and patterned in terms of time and space, and have no reference point to imagine a reality without them. Consider how you think for a second. In your mind you can immediately be in your past or in some speculative future; in your mind you can circle the globe seeing other lands and faraway friends, or even zoom instantly to the most distant stars. Such imaginings are insubstantial, of course, but if we could make them real we would be getting close to what spiritual reality is like. Indeed, the mind is like a spiritual organ, which may be why physicians and philosophers have had such a hard time juxtaposing its functions to those of the brain. What this means in the Bible is that descriptions of time -- hours, days, weeks, months, years and even simply the word "time" itself -- represent spiritual states, and the passing of time represents the change of spiritual states. Again, we can see this a little bit within our minds. If we imagine talking to one friend then talking to another, it feels like going from one place to another, even though we're not moving. The same is true if we picture a moment from childhood and then imagine something in the future; it feels like a movement through time even though it's instantaneous. Changing our state of mind feels like a physical change in space and time. The Bible simply reverses that, with marking points in space and time representing particular states of mind.

1977. To make me fully aware of the way that dreams flow in I was put to sleep and dreamt of a boat approaching that was laden with delicacies and savories of every kind. These were stowed away in the boat, out of sight. On deck stood two armed guards, as well as a third man who was the captain. The boat was passing by into a kind of arched dock; and with this I woke up and thought about the dream. At that point the angelic spirits in front and above me over to the right addressed me. They declared that they were the source of this dream. So that I would know for sure that they were the source of it I was brought into a state where I was so to speak both asleep and awake at one and the same time. In a similar way they introduced different things that were pleasing and delightful, for example, an unknown tiny creature which was transformed into an object with blackish and shining rays which shot into my left eye at a fantastic speed. They also presented human beings, and also small children variously adorned, and other things besides whose delightfulness was indescribable. I spoke to those angelic spirits about these things also. This took place not just once but on a number of occasions, and each time they taught me by word of mouth.

[2] Those in whom such dreams originate are angelic spirits at the entrance to the paradise gardens. They are commissioned also to keep watch over certain people who are asleep, to prevent them being molested during that time by evil spirits. They perform their task with very great delight, so much so that they vie with one another to be there, and they love to fill man with joys and delights such as they see within his affection and disposition. Those who have become angelic spirits are drawn from those who during their lifetime took delight in and loved in every way to make other people's lives delightful. When a person's hearing has been opened far enough he hears as from afar a sweet rhythmic sound like singing coming from these spirits. They declared that they did not know from where such things as these, and representatives so beautiful and delightful, came to them all in a moment; but they were told that they came from heaven. They belong to the province of the cerebellum, for the cerebellum, as I have learned, remains awake even during periods of sleep when the cerebrum is sleeping. This was the source of the dreams, together with the perception of what these meant, which members of the Most Ancient Church had. And from those people were derived most of the representatives and meaningful signs of the Ancients, beneath which things deeply hidden were manifested, 1122.