That was me above
Visions are actually contagious ,especially among women, for the reason you explained. Women encounter other women who claim to be having visions. So they feel inferior, and so they suddenly start "seeing" them also. Women in general have more vivid imaginations, and a bit of suggestion can help kick off the process.
I've known of some (including one in our metro area) who were total frauds. She had "stigmata" but it was discovered that these were self-inflicted.
At other times, it's diabolical, but I would wager that 90% of them are either psychological / physiological issues or outright fraud.
As for dreams, who knows? Lots of people have vivid dreams, and the content often depends on various subjects that they might be emotionally pre-occupied with during their waking hours. Again, more common with women because these types of subjects affect them emotionally, making them more prone to dreaming about them later. That's especially the case where they begin to fancy themselves as mystics, and so they fill their minds deliberately with this stuff, setting themselves up for dreams and visions later, practically willing them into existence.
When St. Theresa of Avila was told that nuns are her convent were having "visions," she ordered that the visionaries be given extra meat in their diet.