I have actually had such a vision of a past life episode that qued me into where i had been in the past with a woman i was then seeing. I was standing in a laundromat talking on the phone with her when suddenly before my open eyes i saw a large old nite club with wooden seats, wooden circular tables and the place was closed and i was walking thru it to see her. By observation of the furniture I was able to decipher that I was looking into the distant past. I could see the golden light of the sun shining through the windows and the rays were shining across the room. All this I saw before my open eyes standing in a laundromat. Her parents owned the place that I saw in the vision.
In this way you may consider what Paramahansa Yogananda was speaking about when he spoke of a vision of either the past or future being dropped and projected into awareness as ‘semi-conscious dreams or visions with either open or closed eyes in daylight or at night.’
Wow Steve that is an amazing experience! I think I've experienced something similar but not as potent with the visuals. My friend who introduced me to Gurunath was standing over my shoulder once talking to me. I was crouched down arranging some items on a shelf. When he spoke his voice sounded completely different for a brief moment and I had this feeling like we were friends from a long, long time ago. I 'knew' this other voice from somewhere else. The 'feeling'(or vision) aside from the temporary auditory 'hallucination' was- I was crouched(as I was positioned in that waking moment) but I was up against a house and though I couldn't see the house I felt it was a old village structure maybe clay-like material and bright dirt under our feet. I was outside(although in real life I was inside) and there was a feeling like we were very playful and brotherly towards one another. In that moment, the feeling was we cared for each other. I wonder, in your vision, if there was any feelings you could recall or what might have triggered that memory.
