Johnny said: “Do future events appear like vivid imagery in your mind?”
I can describe a recent experience of mine to give an idea of probably what Donna (inflib) sees. May be Donna can describe the difference in what she “sees” and what I describe below.
I was meditating with my eyes closed. All of a sudden, I started “seeing” a whirlpool. It was not a static picture. It was as if I was seeing a rotating whirlpool, with the water spinning. Then the scene evolved into a flowing mass of water. It was crystal clear, even though I had my eyes closed. That was at the end of last December. Since then I have seen the same thing twice. I don’t know what that is about (and why I keep seeing the same thing).
With that experience, now I can relate to Waharaka Thero’s experiences and Donna’s. You actually “see” things with your eyes closed. It is much more vivid and much more “real” compared to dreaming. It was as if I was looking at a real whirlpool, and then seeing a flowing mass of water (I did not see anything else other than water). Waharaka Thero, for example, had the capability to just focus on someone’s house (far away), and “see” the house as it is, for example.
This must be how gandhabbas also “see” things. Many people who have described their Out of Body Experiences (OBE) must have “seen” their own bodies from the above this way; usually that happens in heart operations when the gandhabba is “forced out” due to stress. Remember that most of these people are not even Buddhists.