9739. As thou wast made to see in the mountain, so shall they make it. That this signifies from the correspondence of Divine things in heaven, is evident from the signification of “the altar seen in the mountain,” as being a form that corresponds to Divine things in heaven; for “Mount Sinai” denotes heaven (see n. 8805, 9420); and the forms which appear in the heavens correspond exactly to the Divine celestial and Divine spiritual things themselves which belong to good and truth. That these things are thus rendered visible before the internal sight of angels and spirits, can be seen from all those things which have been already stated and shown about the representation of heavenly things in natural forms (n. 1619, 1971, 1980, 1981, 2987-3003, 3213-3227, 3475, 3485, 6319, 9457, 9481, 9574, 9576, 9577). The Divine things to which the altar corresponded are those which have been thus far described.

1980. It is worthy of mention that when after waking I related what I had seen in a dream, and this in a long series, certain angelic spirits (not of those spoken of above) then said that what I related wholly coincided, and was identical, with the subjects they had been conversing about, and that there was absolutely no difference; but still that they were not the very things they had discoursed about, but were representatives of the same things, into which their ideas were thus turned and changed in the world of spirits; for in the world of spirits the ideas of the angels are turned into representatives; and therefore each and all things they had conversed about were so represented in the dream. They said, further, that the same discourse could be turned into other representatives, nay, into both similar and dissimilar ones, with unlimited variety. The reason they were turned into such as have been described, was that it took place in accordance with the state of the spirits around me, and thus in accordance with my own state at the time. In a word, very many dissimilar dreams might come down and be presented from the same discourse, and thus from one origin; because, as has been said, the things that are in a man’s memory and affection are recipient vessels, in which ideas are varied and received representatively in accordance with their variations of form and changes of state.