Dalinar's visions

Dalinar's visions were short episodes Dalinar experienced during highstorms.

Highstorms and visions

After he began listen to readings from The Way of Kings Dalinar experienced strange episodes during each highstorm. He felt the visions as real. During these visions Dalinar had to be tied to the chair because he waved and trashed about. Watching him was unnerving and Renarin told him that he spoke gibberish during the visions. Though Dalinar thought that the visions might have been sent from the Almighty he wavered and felt uncertain about them. Talking to the ardents didn't bring any solution. Dalinar had to make a decision and he did so when he decided to abdicate his position as Highprince in favor of Adolin. In an argument about this topic Renarin suggested to try to prove whether the visions were fabrications or bore any real references, and they decided to ask Navani to write the visions down. This lead to the discovery by Navani that Dalinar didn't speak gibberish during his visions, but he spoke the Dawnchant. They considered that it was proven that the visions were real as the Dawnchant is a real, ancient but extinct language on Roshar, which Dalinar would have had no prior knowledge of to fabricate it. As a side effect Navani was sure that this could help to translate an old book called Analectics.

The visions predicate

All these visions shared the challenge given by an unknown voice.

“You must unite them, the strange, booming words had told him. You must prepare. Build of your people a fortress of strength and peace, a wall to resist the winds. Cease squabbling and unite. The Everstorm comes.”

—Dalinar's memory from one of the visions

From the visions and this shared statement Dalinar drew the conclusion that he had to unite Alethkar's highprinces because only then would mankind have a chance to withstand the coming events.

Mentioned and recorded visions

One vision was mentioned and four of them were described in The Way of Kings.

Starfalls

During this vision Dalinar found himself as the embodiment of a man, Heb, who lived with his wife and daughter presumably during the advent of a Desolation. Heb and his daughter were attacked by Midnight Essences but managed to reach Heb's house, unharmed. Two other of these beasts followed and after Heb(Dalinar) fought them off, he took his wife and daughter and fled out of the house, only to run into other Midnight Essences. When he and his family thought they were lost, two Knights Radiant came. One immediately began to fight the beasts while the second used "Regrowth" for healing on Heb and his family. Feeling good again Heb joined the fight and the three of them fought off the Midnight Essences. The Knight Radiant,Harkaylain, asked Heb about his strange stances and invited him to come to Urithiru, where the Knights Radiant are centered, because everybody who could fight was needed.

Dalinar mentioned that this was his twelfth vision.

A Highway to the Sun

Dalinar was a soldier at Feverstone Keep and there witnessed when the Orders of the Windrunners and the Stonewards abandoned their Shardplates and Shardblades and left the people. Though Dalinar tried to get an answer from the leaving former Knights Radiant, he got none. The voice told him that "this event will go down in history" and Dalinar assumed he saw the Day of Recreance.

That Which We Cannot Have

In this vision Dalinar was shown the aftermath of a Desolation. His embodiment was Karm, who was the advisor of a king, probably Nohadon himself. This king wavered over what to do with the Surgebinders and how they could be forced to act more honorable. Though this king was younger than Dalinar imagined Nohadon and he refused the idea of writing a book as absurd, Dalinar was sure that he was right about him. Eventually this man decided to unite the people for a better standing against future Desolations.

In the Top Room

This is the last vision recorded in The Way of Kings. Dalinar found himself in a place that he recognized as the place of his very first vision. A man stood beside him, showing him what might happen and telling him that Cultivation was better in seeing the future than he. Then, finally, Dalinar realized that this voice, this man, never heard him and so never answered his questions. This man then told Dalinar that he was God, the Almighty and that Odium had killed him.

Oddities during the visions

Though Dalinar felt the visions as real, he always remembered who he really was. His actions and thoughts were Dalinar's though he could interact with his environment.

Dalinar could not summon his Shardblade in a vision.