Does Allah show visions to us in the awakening state? For example, if you see something appear on let's say a wall that isn't actually there in reality, is this definatley a hallucination of the nafs or could it have been a vision from Allah?

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

In principle, dreams are seen while sleeping, and they are of three types: A dream from the Most Merciful (Allaah), a dream from the devil, and a dream from one’s own desires as we clarified in Fatwa 88262.

As regards what you called seeing visions while awake (daydreaming), then these are not real dreams; rather, this is a term widely used by psychologists and there is no objection to definitions if they give the same meaning. They use this term to mean the desires and hopes that one has while awake, by which a person wants to achieve his desires and urges that he is not able to achieve in reality. Therefore, if a person is afflicted by this, he should supplicate Allaah and perform Ruqyah; for more benefit, please refer to Fataawa 88705 and 82918.

However, it might also happen that Allaah shows some of His Slaves few things (of the unseen) while they are awake, as in the story of ‘Umar with Saariyah . Al-Bayhaqi, Al-Laalika’ai and Ibn Al-‘Araabi reported that Ibn ‘Umar narrated that ‘Umar sent an army and appointed a leader of the army whose name was Saariyah, and while ‘Umar was delivering a Khutbah, he shouted "Get to the mountain, O Saariyah", and he repeated this three times. Later the messenger of the army came (to Madeenah) and ‘Umar asked him about the army, so the man said: "O Leader of the Believers, we were defeated and, while we were as such, we heard a voice calling "Get to the mountain, O Saariyah" three times, then we put the mountain to our rear and then Allaah defeated them.” He said: “It was said to ‘Umar you were crying out with these words.” Ibn Hajar said: “The chain of narrators of this narration is authentic." However, the narration reported by Ibn Mardooyah reads: “It came into my mind that the polytheists defeated our brothers”. Furthermore, the narration by At-Tabari reads: "I swear by Allaah, I did not say except something that came into my mouth.”, whereas the narration by Abu Nu’aym reads: “I saw them fighting near a mountain and the enemy came to them from the front and from behind, and I did not find anything to say except ‘‘Get to the mountain, O Saariyah’’ so that they would get to the mountain.”

However, some scholars classified this narration as weak.

In any case, it seems that the story is authentic and a group of scholars, like Ibn Al-Qayyim and others provided it as evidence that Allaah may show some unseen matters to some pious people. Although it is only Allaah who knows the unseen, Allaah may show whomever He wills some of the matters of the unseen to honour him (as a sign of His love to him).

Allaah Knows best.