Ed Hypnagogic or Hypnopompic Hallucinations

I've had a couple of cases where I woke up and things weren't quite right. In one case, I felt as though the blankets were stretched down tight against me, pinning me to the bed. It subsided after a bit and I found the blankets were fine.
 
edd said:
Just to really freak you out - I know a guy who woke up and saw a tarantula right in front of his face on the pillow next to him.

Turned out there was a tarantula right in front of his face on the pillow next to him.
Click to expand...

I woke up once thinking there was a centipede crawling in my hair. As I became fully awake I realized I wasn't dreaming. A more interesting sleep associated centipede encounter was when I awoke grabing my jeans leg right below my crotch. I had been up late fishing and got home laid down on the bed with my jeans still on and fell asleep. Since it seemed there was a reason I was grabbing my jeans and I knew it was likely another centipede, I woke my wife up and said "Honey, quick, take off my pants." She said "Now?" LOL anyway she helped me remove my pants without letting go of the centipede I had trapped in my pants leg right next to my crotch. Once it was safely removed from the critical area I let it go and killed it. So sometimes your dreams are just a version of reality.
 
These used to terrify me as a kid. There was a period when I was 5 or 6 where I would feel the bed lifting up and spinning around as I feel asleep almost every night. I remember struggling to open my eyes to check whether it was really spinning.
I'd also find the "speed" of speech in my thoughts sloooowiiing way down, or speeding up, seemingly beyond my control. Hated it.
 
edd said:
OK, I thought hypnopompic and hypnagogic hallucinations were distinguished just by whether you had them waking up or falling asleep, but it seems it's a little bit more complicated than that (so sayeth Wikipedia).

What's the deal there?
Click to expand...

That's what I've always thought as well. Here's a link that explains hypnopompic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnopompic

If I'm understanding correctly (in my regurgitated interpretation), hypnagogia is a more "rational" cognizant state. Even though hallucinations occur, our perception is adequate enough to process it, and think more clearly. Where a hypnopompic state would be where we are just flat-out confused; talking jibberish, etc. Which then makes me think that when people are said to wake out of sleep and supposedly "speak ancient tongues" - it would be a hypnopompic state; they aren't speaking ancient tongues, they're just confused beyond belief.

So maybe that's why hypnagogia is associated with going into sleep - because we haven't made it to a deep sleep yet and haven't completely lost the "awareness". Once in a deep sleep, our brains are off and away to nowhere zone, and therefore harder to think "rationally".

How's that for a pure scientific definition :D

That's how I'm making sense of the difference. Please, correct me if I'm misunderstanding.
 
While still in my teens I would often experience floating up a few decimeters from my bed and hang in mid air for a while a little while after laying down. I wasn't scared and when I woke up I always found it kind of cool. As I recall it, this was more likely to happen if I took a nap, or relaxed during daytime than when I went to bed to have a full night of sleep. No medication, never touched drugs.

Plenty of sleep paralysis too. That on the other hand is decidedly unpleasant. I seem to have grown completely out of floating, and the last time I experienced sleep paralysis I was on heavy duty migraine medication, so that was likely the cause.

Funny aside: I used to dream about losing teeth so often that it actually triggered lucid dreaming. Whenever my teeth started to feel loose, I knew I was dreaming and consciousness kickstarted.
 
Arg9 said:
That's what I've always thought as well. Here's a link that explains hypnopompic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnopompic

If I'm understanding correctly (in my regurgitated interpretation), hypnagogia is a more "rational" cognizant state. Even though hallucinations occur, our perception is adequate enough to process it, and think more clearly. Where a hypnopompic state would be where we are just flat-out confused; talking jibberish, etc. Which then makes me think that when people are said to wake out of sleep and supposedly "speak ancient tongues" - it would be a hypnopompic state; they aren't speaking ancient tongues, they're just confused beyond belief.

So maybe that's why hypnagogia is associated with going into sleep - because we haven't made it to a deep sleep yet and haven't completely lost the "awareness". Once in a deep sleep, our brains are off and away to nowhere zone, and therefore harder to think "rationally".

How's that for a pure scientific definition :D

That's how I'm making sense of the difference. Please, correct me if I'm misunderstanding.
Click to expand...

In that case I only get hypnagogia when I'm waking up, and I've been known to talk gibberish or get confused as I've been falling asleep...
 
whatthebutlersaw said:
While still in my teens I would often experience floating up a few decimeters from my bed and hang in mid air for a while a little while after laying down. I wasn't scared and when I woke up I always found it kind of cool. As I recall it, this was more likely to happen if I took a nap, or relaxed during daytime than when I went to bed to have a full night of sleep. No medication, never touched drugs.

Plenty of sleep paralysis too. That on the other hand is decidedly unpleasant. I seem to have grown completely out of floating, and the last time I experienced sleep paralysis I was on heavy duty migraine medication, so that was likely the cause.

Funny aside: I used to dream about losing teeth so often that it actually triggered lucid dreaming. Whenever my teeth started to feel loose, I knew I was dreaming and consciousness kickstarted.
Click to expand...

the floating would be cool to experience this way. I've only had the floating/flying in just regular dreams.

The teeth issue is...a nasty one. I occassionally realize I'm grinding my teeth while dreaming and every grind, crunch is amplified in my head. it feels like I'm just grinding them out of my gums.
 
edd said:
In that case I only get hypnagogia when I'm waking up, and I've been known to talk gibberish or get confused as I've been falling asleep...
Click to expand...

You got me. I'm still uncertain of the differences. It just happened last night I had just dozed off and my mom called. I picked up the phone in my half-in-half-out state and couldn't understand anything she was saying and I was having trouble talking. Took me a few minutes to gather myself.
 
Arg9 said:
the floating would be cool to experience this way. I've only had the floating/flying in just regular dreams.

The teeth issue is...a nasty one. I occassionally realize I'm grinding my teeth while dreaming and every grind, crunch is amplified in my head. it feels like I'm just grinding them out of my gums.
Click to expand...

I had plenty of regular flying dreams as well, and they were very different in regards to setting, physical sensation, narrative etc. The levitation-dream was very illusory in a more mundane way than the full on traditional dreams. When I wake up from a regular flying dream I can not recall the physical sensation of flying, while the other kind comes with a sleep paralysisy sense of being awake, and it makes a very vivid memory.

My sleep paralysis experiences almost always come with me trying to call out for help and discovering my voice isn't working, and noone is hearing me.

Probably, because I read this discussion yesterday, or because we just changed sleeping arrangements for the winter, (Coolest room in summer, warmest room in winter) I actually had one this morning. It wasn't too bad - a four on a scale of ten in scariness, perhaps.
 
I need to have the radio on and a nightlight when I go to sleep or else my imagination will go crazy.

Last week I wasn't feeling well so I decided to go to bed and have a nap in the afternoon. I woke up about an hour later not breathing well, turned over and saw the Grim Reaper standing beside my bed. I swear the actual Grim Reaper with the black hood and everything! It scared me so badly that I laid in bed for another hour just trying to calm myself down.
 
I hate teeth dreams, I have them too. Especially ones where I feel like my mouth is crooked or out of sorts in some manner.. my teeth don't line up right, and I'm unable to straighten it out.. the teeth rubbing against either other oddly, out of line. I don't know how to describe, or exactly what is really going on when it's happening. Probably laying with my face buried in the pillow and mouth is crooked and I'm trying to interpret that as the normal position in my dream.
 
I thought I had some symptom of future problems, I asked everyone I knew an no one knew what I was experiencing. Then I spotted an article on sleep paralysis in Swift and I was so relieved!
I never had the feeling of any hag or spirits, but it is very unpleasant. A few weeks ago I thought my partner had lain on top of me pressing in a kiss, and I couldnt breathe or move to stop him. Then the pressure lifted and I realised it was sleep paralysis, the forst presence, but my partner not a ghost! Very scary.
I had a couple of levitating dreams as a child, and one flying dream, they were enjoyable, would swap them for the paralysis anytime!
 
Last edited:
I may have to try that, I have teeth loss dreams far more often than I'd like.
 
I almost always get hypnagogic visual hallucinations when going to sleep. The walls and ceiling become patterned with rapidly moving geometric shapes - first noticed it about 5 years ago - I am awake and have asked my wife if she can see the same - needless to say, she cannot! Varies from what I would describe as an Aztec type design to Paisley at times! The wall and ceiling become almost liquid in appearance - monochromatic on the whole and turning the light on gets rid of them. No longer bother me and I actually find them quite fascinating and enjoy watching them. No drugs or alcohol! I originally thought it was something to do with my eyes as I have epithelial basement membrane corneal dystrophy.
 
Here is a quote from an article I found helpful when I was researching this a few years ago. Link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19225731.300-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel.html?full=true

REM intrusion is a common feature of narcolepsy - a neurological disorder characterised by uncontrollable bouts of sleep that can cause elaborate hallucinations and, sometimes, out-of-body experiences. But REM intrusion can affect anyone, and frequently does. Recent estimates suggest that up to 40 per cent of people have experienced "sleep paralysis", a form of REM intrusion in which you awaken with part of your brain still in REM sleep and your body paralysed. Often the result is a terrifying feeling of being unable to move, accompanied by visual or auditory hallucinations and pressure on the chest. Sleep paralysis has been offered as a rational explanation for many apparently supernatural phenomena, including witch attacks, visitations by the dead, and more recently alien abductions.
Click to expand...

I had these kinds of experiences frequently for several years, meaning up to several times a week, which is definitely not normal. Mine were mostly scary and made my life miserable for a long time. They stopped when I went on seizure medication last October. My doctor attributed this to "brain static" that was also controlled by the meds.

Peter@Beoworld said:
I almost always get hypnagogic visual hallucinations when going to sleep. The walls and ceiling become patterned with rapidly moving geometric shapes - first noticed it about 5 years ago - I am awake and have asked my wife if she can see the same - needless to say, she cannot! Varies from what I would describe as an Aztec type design to Paisley at times! The wall and ceiling become almost liquid in appearance - monochromatic on the whole and turning the light on gets rid of them. No longer bother me and I actually find them quite fascinating and enjoy watching them. No drugs or alcohol! I originally thought it was something to do with my eyes as I have epithelial basement membrane corneal dystrophy.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Susan Blackmore had a theory that the tunnel seen in the NDE, which often has kaleidoscope elements to it, or designs such as those you describe, could be a phenomenon related to the eyes. Not sure how that might apply to your condition (I'm not an MD), but still it's interesting that you report this along with issues with your eyes. Here's all I could find on it:

Psychologist Susan Blackmore has proposed a more believable scenario: That lack of oxygen to the brain prior to death causes interference with the neural firing in the visual cortex, producing a sort of receding stripe or spiral pattern that the brain may interpret as a tunnel. In various lab tests, subjects who took hallucinogens reported seeing similar patterns and tunnel-like images.
Click to expand...
From http://psychology.suite101.com/article.cfm/explaining_the_near_death_experience

At any rate, there might be more on her web site if you happen to be interested. She does discuss it in her book on near-death experiences. I also have experienced strange kaleidoscope tunnels with intricate geometrical patterns while "out of body" during the years I was suffering from the frequent weird nighttime experiences. Who knows, maybe it's all related and we will understand how it's all linked up in the brain one day.
 
Roma said:
I need to have the radio on and a nightlight when I go to sleep or else my imagination will go crazy.

Last week I wasn't feeling well so I decided to go to bed and have a nap in the afternoon. I woke up about an hour later not breathing well, turned over and saw the Grim Reaper standing beside my bed. I swear the actual Grim Reaper with the black hood and everything! It scared me so badly that I laid in bed for another hour just trying to calm myself down.
Click to expand...

Wow! I remember one like that, and it was awful. I 'awakened' to find a hooded, robed figure standing next to my bed. But while it seemed to be solid and opaque, I could also quite clearly see the outlines of my closet door through it...it reached out a skeletal hand, bony fingers stretched out like a grotesque catcher's mask, and started to lay it on my face!

I woke up screaming bloody murder, and shook for minutes afterwards; stayed awake, reading very mundane stuff, talking to my (then) husband for about 2 hours. Scared to go back to sleep, and too adrenaline-pumped to do so for at least an hour anyway.

Yech. I don't have them too often, but I truly truly can vouch for their apparent reality at the moment you're trapped in them. It is easy to understand how people from a more ignorant time / culture could readily believe in demons or evil spirits.

Regards, Miss_Kitt


ETA: One comment on the 'tunnels' or patterns in movement, I am a migrainer and I get 'fortification' patterns in my field of vision as part of the prodrome (pre-headache event). I also have a history of passing out / nearly passing out due, we eventually learned, to spasms of the colon. I experience 'tunnel vision' only when I'm going to pass out, but the texture/movement thing can happen both overlaid on normal vision in the prodrome, and almost anytime I have either a lowlight or extremely overbright lighting condition and a nonfeatured visual field: fog, a distant unlit ceiling, a bright summer sky. I think both higher neural and eye-related physiology is involved.
 
Last edited:
There have been several threads on this subject here in the past.
I'm personally convinced these phenomena are the single source of the majority of ghost stories.
I've had the full-blown "Evil presence" & paralysis thing a few times now. Very scary- but less so when you know what's going on. Very common. I think most folk have the experience once or twice, others far more often.

The hallucinations for me are always auditory. Sounds of doors closing, footsteps, whispers. This tells me it happens when I'm awake- in the sense that when awake, I have no ability to visualise, but I dream visually when asleep. Whatever brain module processes pictures internally appears to be involved with something else- possibly verbal - when I'm awake.
 
whatthebutlersaw said:
While still in my teens I would often experience floating up a few decimeters from my bed and hang in mid air for a while a little while after laying down. I wasn't scared and when I woke up I always found it kind of cool.
Click to expand...
I used to experience this too when I was a child and into my teens. I would be floating, and when I woke up I would "fall" and "hit" the bed. Not scary at all. I actually used to believe I had telekinetic powers. Like you, I seem to have grown out of it.

I get the "monsters in the room" thing, sometimes bad enough I have to turn on a light and/or play music to be able to go back to sleep.

I also get hypnic jerks. I'll be almost asleep when suddenly my whole body convulses and wakes me up.

Occasionally, I'll hear someone speak my name.

I also experience exploding head syndrome. That one used to really freak me out. I would "hear" a loud noise that would jerk me out of sleep with my heart pounding. I would be so freaked out that I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep for hours. I always attributed it to hearing an actual noise that scared the carp out of me since I was so sound asleep. Then, someone mentioned it on a forum, and upon looking it up, I realized what had been happening. Now when it happens, I just think "Oh, it's just the exploding head thingie" and go right back to sleep. :)

Thanks for this thread, btw. Now when these things happen to me, hopefully I can just think "Oh, it's just the hypnagogic hallucination thingie" and go right back to sleep. :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom