Narrative: The “large and spacious field,” which contrasts with the “dark and dreary waste,” is a response to Lehi’s faith-filled prayer. The scene shift signals a new development in the action.
Symbolism: The shift from waste to field is one from wild to civilized. The dream begins in a symbolic state of disorder and moves to an ordered state. The ordered state is seen as more desirable and therefore as “higher” and more important. Lehi has left the world and moved to a higher plane. Zosimus is more explicit in this change of conceptual level (see commentary accompanying the next verse), but the imagery is similar.