Seeing Through Closed Eyelids

[Andy X]

An odd thing happened to me last night on trying to get off to sleep which I then remembered having occurred a few times before, but have never got around to discussing in the wider world.

We all know it's impossible to recall the exact point at which 'wakefulness' gives way to sleep, but I've noted that in my case, before succumbing to the nothingness before dreaming, I often have very 'trippy' and abstract thoughts about multi-dimensional forms, shapes that are sounds, colours that are multiplying numbers and vice-versa...and deep (but sometimes unrelated to my 'real life') emotions as I drift off. Nothing unusual about all that, I suspect.

What doesn't usually happen though (except on the odd occasions that are the subject of this thread) is that before everything goes a bit psychedelic, as described above, I find I can 'see' through my closed eyelids: that is, I can still see (only if I've conked out before turning out my bedside light) the room around me perfectly well, but as if viewed through a thin membrane. The nearest thing I can liken it to is closing one's eye's in blazing sunlight on a summer's day and still being able to see a vague impression of the sky and the orb of the sun - except that this is a detailed image of the room, not a blurry impressionistic scene; the titles of books on the shelf are perfectly legible, for example. My feeling at the time is that I'm 'seeing through my eyelids', that this is the 'real way to see', and that it's totally normal. If the lamp on the other side of the room has been left on it will appear to be on. And so on.

Presumably this is due to a recent visual memory that gets 'pasted in' as the conscious mind is still struggling for dominance. Whatever the explanation, it's strangely relaxing yet quite thrilling when it happens, and no doubt it is commonly experienced, (though I've never heard anyone else describe it). I can't remember with certainty if it's ever possible to move my eyes or head to take in more of the scene, but my murky old recollections suggest that I'm probably comfortably paralysed at the time.

Has anyone else enjoyed this interesting hypnagogic glitch?

 

[Ulalume]

Hi Andy,

This may not necessarily be a hypnagogic effect, as it's happened to me (and others) fairly often during meditation. Literature on Zen Buddhism identifies it as common, but something (along with ESP and other effects) that should be disregarded as it could interfere with one's spiritual path. I'm not so good at that part of it though, because I'm always startled and amazed when it happens.

Hypnagogic hallucinations and sleep paralysis (which can give the illusion of seeing through closed eyes) are common for me too, but it's much, much nicer when it happens in a controlled situation such as meditation!

 

[Andy X]

Hi Andy,

This may not necessarily be a hypnagogic effect, as it's happened to me (and others) fairly often during meditation. Literature on Zen Buddhism identifies it as common, but something (along with ESP and other effects) that should be disregarded as it could interfere with one's spiritual path. I'm not so good at that part of it though, because I'm always startled and amazed when it happens.

Hypnagogic hallucinations and sleep paralysis (which can give the illusion of seeing through closed eyes) are common for me too, but it's much, much nicer when it happens in a controlled situation such as meditation!

That's very interesting - thank you. I don't know why it's taken me so long to ask around on here but I was sure someone must know what I'm talking about.

Time to do a bit more research, I think.

 

[OneWingedBird]

I used to get what you're describing quite regularly, never the seeing through closed eyelids part but the swirling geometric patterns thing, and sometimes when you see faces that can seem to be coming towards you.

Hasn't happened in years and I can't say that I miss it.

 

[Andy X]

Thanks OWB. Pleased to hear you're not troubled by the old mind-kaleidescope these days. I've had the faces too - they can be entertaining, but also scary sometimes as you're obviously aware.

The thing about the shapes and forms is that they're sometimes more than four-dimensional, but I don't think I know how to go about explaining this. It's tied up with impressions of gigantic, terrifying numbers blossoming exponentially towards infinity which, as I'm not a natural mathematician, is a feat of visualisation that would normally elude me.

 

[gattino]

This is so odd. I have noticed - and it ought to be a topic in its own right - that any new or peculiar experience will be reported by someone else (and equally new to them) within days.

Well yesterday morning when trying to record my dreams into the dictaphone through the night a couple of strange things happened.

The first was - not once, not twice, but on three separate occassions - I found myself recallign my preceding dream, dictating it,eyes closed, into the tape and,...waking to realise I wasn't recording it at all. Basically 3 separate instances in the one night of false awakening, and in each case I appear to have dreamt the action of remembering and recording my own..er..dreams.

What has this to do with you question? Well only that I have a very strong visual of the last such incident i the night/morning..when I could "see" the dictaphone, screen and all, trhough my closed eyes in front of me. I was aware my eyes were closed yet could nonetheless see it as if through my eyelids. I've no recollection of ever noticing such an experience before.

 

[Andy X]

... I could "see" the dictaphone, screen and all, trhough my closed eyes in front of me. I was aware my eyes were closed yet could nonetheless see it as if through my eyelids. I've no recollection of ever noticing such an experience before.

That's it exactly - just the experience I'm struggling to describe!

It only seems to happen if I'm very tired* (and so do one or two other things which I'll get around to), but so infrequently it's never seemed a very big deal, despite being intruiging.

*on second thoughts, I'm not at all sure that's true. If it happens again I'll try to make a note of my circumstances / disposition.

Edit: while I think of it: do you recall if anything was moving in the dictaphone scene (such as spools rotating or a timecode display changing)?

 

[gattino]

No, it was only a couple of seconds at most. I simply saw the screen lit up. 36 hours later I can't recall if I literally had the dictaphone in my hand at the time or this was another false awakening thing where I merely dreamt I had it, but I think it was the former.

 

[drbastard]

I get this quite often, I can see the room's objects even though my eyes are closed and the room pitch black. Not in detail or anything-a bit like the shadowy shape of things. I find it quite troubling sometimes because I worry that I might see entities floating around! I don't know how it works, I find it more a nuisance than anything.

 

[Andy X]

Thanks, drB...I'm sure I need the light on for this to work, but will try to pay more attention next time (if there is a next time). Your experience sounds broadly similar anyway. I agree it can be distracting when you just want to sleep!

 

[escargot]

A friend of mine had this during Reiki. She reckoned that she had her eyes closed but suddenly found that she could see everything in the room, through some kind of vertical eye-shaped aperture. This was, it was explained to her, the Third Eye which everyone has but few use.

She hadn't known about the Third Eye before and found it all very enjoyable.

 

[OneWingedBird]

Only 'scarg can say Third Eye like the thread is morphing into Weird Sex at a rate of knots!

 

[escargot]

Heh, ALL threads meet up with Weird Sex eventually. Give it time.

 

[marion]

I've known someone who has reported being able to see the room when their eyes are closed after taking ecstasy.

I recently had an episode of sleep paralysis where I was sure I could see my bedroom yet had a small amount of feeling and movement in my hand which was over my face and touching my closed eyelids, which was weird. I wasn't actually seeing my room as my door was open in my sleep state but when I managed to wake up and open my eyes the door was closed.

 

[escargot]

I've had an opposite experience - in a caravan in deepest rural Wales I once woke up in the early hours and it was so dark that I had to feel my eyes to check that they were open!

 

[Andy X]

A friend of mine had this during Reiki. She reckoned that she had her eyes closed but suddenly found that she could see everything in the room, through some kind of vertical eye-shaped aperture. This was, it was explained to her, the Third Eye which everyone has but few use.

She hadn't known about the Third Eye before and found it all very enjoyable.

As it happens, that kind of thing had crossed my mind in respect of these experiences...but I've never been sure how the old pineal gland would be capable of vision as such.

Still, I can remember when I was very young I seemed to have discovered that if I shut my eyes and moved an outstretched finger anywhere along the centreline of my forehead I could 'feel' the finger approaching as a kind of tingling pressure. I think it worked just as well with a pencil or ballpoint pen too. Of course that might've been due to autosuggestion, but I was convinced at the time that I could use the same technique to avoid bumping into obstacles such as walls in darkened rooms, having done some half-arsed experiments in rooms I was familiar with by turning round to create disorientation then trying to navigate the blackness (with reasonable success).

If anyone's at a loose end now why not try the pencil thing? I'll be giving it a go.

 

[Andy X]

Fucking hell, ouch. Bah!

 

[Andy X]

I've had an opposite experience - in a caravan in deepest rural Wales I once woke up in the early hours and it was so dark that I had to feel my eyes to check that they were open!

Same here on many holidays! Complete darkness is a rare thing these days.

 

[Andy X]

I've known someone who has reported being able to see the room when their eyes are closed after taking ecstasy.

I recently had an episode of sleep paralysis where I was sure I could see my bedroom yet had a small amount of feeling and movement in my hand which was over my face and touching my closed eyelids, which was weird. I wasn't actually seeing my room as my door was open in my sleep state but when I managed to wake up and open my eyes the door was closed.

You've also hit the nail on the head there, Marion: that conjures up exactly the kind of feeling I'm trying to put across. I suspect it's a kind of framestore effect where reality gets swapped out for a recent memory as the mind as a whole doesn't know what to prioritise as 'real'. Perhaps the Ecstasy factor points to an unusual over-stimulation somewhere?

Your post has done me a favour actually, as it's encouraged me to brave the FTMB search facility to check if I'd posted a similar type of lucid dream on here many years ago (via my account that got obliterated in The Great Database Disaster). Turns out I had already posted and was thinking there might be a relationship between the events: I'll just paste it in here:

Here's a very freaky dream I once had. I'd be interested to hear of any similar experiences.

It began with the usual 'evil presence in the bedroom' feeling. I was terrified and paralysed. After a brief struggle I woke up bolt upright, shouting and waving my arms around.

After calming down a bit and making sure I was definitely wide awake I went to make a coffee and returned to my bed. However things still weren't quite right, a few bits of furniture seemed to have moved around by themselves. The feeling of panic began to return and once again I woke up again. This time I was sure I was awake and was thinking what an interesting lucid dream I'd had - I had been able to 'decide' to switch the kettle on, add the coffee, go to the fridge for milk etc, and all the time had been convinced that what was happening was real. So I went to make a 'real' cup of coffee now that I was back in the land of the living.

Back in the bedroom things continued to go wrong. I found that it was nightime when seconds ago it had been light outside ( I didn't think to check the time). Even worse, each time I blinked the scene outside the window would change from night to early morning or vice-versa. By this time I was convinced I was going mad, or someone had put LSD in my coffee. After all I really was wide awake - who the hell blinks and can taste coffee in a dream?

This went on for what seemed like hours; waking up, going for coffee, the positions of the furniture and the time of day changing every time I blinked. Needless to say when I really did wake up and was getting ready for work I couldn't shake off the suspicion that any second I was going to be sent back into this bizarre recurring nightmare. I was still completley freaked halfway through the afternoon. Scary.

Anonymous, Sep 26, 2001

 

[Andy X]

This is so odd. I have noticed - and it ought to be a topic in its own right - that any new or peculiar experience will be reported by someone else (and equally new to them) within days.

Well yesterday morning when trying to record my dreams into the dictaphone through the night a couple of strange things happened.

The first was - not once, not twice, but on three separate occassions - I found myself recallign my preceding dream, dictating it,eyes closed, into the tape and,...waking to realise I wasn't recording it at all. Basically 3 separate instances in the one night of false awakening, and in each case I appear to have dreamt the action of remembering and recording my own..er..dreams.

What has this to do with you question? Well only that I have a very strong visual of the last such incident i the night/morning..when I could "see" the dictaphone, screen and all, trhough my closed eyes in front of me. I was aware my eyes were closed yet could nonetheless see it as if through my eyelids. I've no recollection of ever noticing such an experience before.

It seems my subconscious is keenly mulling the thing over, as the shut-eyed sight thing 'happened' to me last night - but during a dream that was obviously a dream, and which I sort of knew to be a dream at the time - the usual kind of dream nonsense in fact: in the course of sorting out junk in a very nice house where very odd things were happening I felt very tired after spending ages fixing a hi-fi amplifier / old-style music centre that had failed and was producing sparks, I dozed off looking at odds and ends found in a drawer...pictures on wooden plaques, some very nice cufflinks, coins celebrating either Australia or Canada, and embossed leather key fobs (souvenirs of Iceland). Despite my being briefly asleep they were still clearly visible as I was propped up against an sofa or something similar.

I'm not for a moment imagining, btw, that any of the above dreamwaffle is of interest. It's more for my own note-taking purposes.

 

[Ulalume]

While the seeing through closed eyes phenomenon is usually not disturbing to me, there was a time when hypnagogic hallucinations were very troubling, a bit like described upthread. About 20 years ago, my depression had begun to take an extreme turn for the worse, and this was one of the signs. (Not saying that's the case for everyone, just that it was the case for me.) It coincided with an increase in sleep paralysis, and the combination of the two is what actually drove me to seek therapy for the first time.

I's funny to think about now, but iI remember asking the therapist where the "hypnagogs" (as I eventually began to call them) were coming from. When she said "from your unconscious mind", I didn't believe it....it seemed so much like they were being inflicted on me from somewhere else! I recall saying that no way would I dream up something so horrible, which led the therapist to explain that the unconscious mind didn't work that way...which again I found hard to believe.

I've learned a lot since then. Thank goodness, too. Knowledge really helped in getting over the fear of such mental phenomena.

Years later, I would learn to use such things to trigger (percieved) out of body experiences, which was much better than simply suffering with the sleep paralysis.

 

[Andy X]

While the seeing through closed eyes phenomenon is usually not disturbing to me, there was a time when hypnagogic hallucinations were very troubling, a bit like described upthread. About 20 years ago, my depression had begun to take an extreme turn for the worse, and this was one of the signs. (Not saying that's the case for everyone, just that it was the case for me.) It coincided with an increase in sleep paralysis, and the combination of the two is what actually drove me to seek therapy for the first time.

I's funny to think about now, but iI remember asking the therapist where the "hypnagogs" (as I eventually began to call them) were coming from. When she said "from your unconscious mind", I didn't believe it....it seemed so much like they were being inflicted on me from somewhere else! I recall saying that no way would I dream up something so horrible, which led the therapist to explain that the unconscious mind didn't work that way...which again I found hard to believe.

I've learned a lot since then. Thank goodness, too. Knowledge really helped in getting over the fear of such mental phenomena.

Years later, I would learn to use such things to trigger (percieved) out of body experiences, which was much better than simply suffering with the sleep paralysis.

Thanks for the interesting insight, Ulalume. If you're meaning faces and suchlike, or even auditory hallucinations, then I can empathise, as those can be alarming.

Glad to hear you're now free from anxiety brought about by these experiences...if taking the step of seeking therapy helped you then that's all good. I suppose what your therapist was trying to say is that just because unpleasant things well up from the subconscious, it doesn't mean 'You' hate 'Yourself', or anything??

Have you ever thought about 'turning gamekeeper'? Some therapists I know (one Jungian, one sort of Freudian, one CBT) found their calling after being helped through depression, and other problems, themselves.

'Hypnagogs' is a great coinage, btw. It might make a good theme for a book to scare children, after the style of 'Where the Wild Things Are', or that Ricky Gervais thing!

 

[gattino]

Once again this is a bizarre example of someone else reporting a matching odd experience to my own after I've had it. Your (Andy-X)'s resurrected multiple false awaking acount in this case...

I've only noticed false awakenings twice before, ever since I started fixating on dreams by the way, and the second of the two had an element of sleep paralysis (invisible entity getting into bed, struggling to stretch arm to dismiss, then waking up a second time even though it felt like I was awake already)

But in the last week or so I've two (varying) experiences of MULTIPLE false awakenings. The second I've mentioned above - the repeatedly believing myself to be recording my preceding dreams only to find myself wake up and realise the act of recording them was itself, each time, a dream. But the first of these, a week or more earlier, also had elements of the sleep paralysis scenario...

I was awake in bed in the morning, the room, tjhe light, me, everuthing as it would be - and was - in real life, when I was aware of a furry thing in the loose grasp of my hand, resting on my chest. I decided to squeeze it to determine what it was only to be shocked by the realisation it was alive, a kind of cat's tail, and growing from my chest. The shock of this caused my eyes to shoot open a second time and realise thses previous few minutes of being awake were unreal...only I then heard a voice (that of one of my brothers...who doesn't live here) saying "the eyes..the eyes follow you around hte room"...and I bolted up awake AGAIN! In other words my previous waking from a false awakening was itself a false awakening......

It reminded me...as does your tale (pardon the pun) of an episode of the early 80s tv series Hammer House Of Horror, in which Denholm Elliot was a henpecked husband who kept waking up and waking up ala ground hog day, till he came to accept he was trapped in this loop and might as well live out his fantasy of battering his nagging wife to death, safe in the knowledge nothing was real and he'd only wake up again....only this time, of course, he didn't...

It strikes me that the phenomenon is hte mirror image of lucid dreaming. Instead of your conscious/waking self turning up in your dream state, it's your unconscious or dream mind breaking into your waking state.

 

[gattino]

I was also - by coincidence! - thinking about all this this morning in bed, in terms of imagining future bereavement and fantasizing one might experience the farewell crisis apparition (I'm not being unneccessarilymorbid.. I was havign an online argument with someone yesterday who was declaring with astonishing confidence and arrogance that death is the end to anyone who would listen, cos science says so..apparently.) And it occurred to me that this unconscious breaking into the waking state would account for the mechanism of such farewells. Not to say that the communication isn't real, but rather that this would be how it was achieved.

 

[Andy X]

...
It strikes me that the phenomenon is hte mirror image of lucid dreaming. Instead of your conscious/waking self turning up in your dream state, it's your unconscious or dream mind breaking into your waking state.

That would certainly seem to make sense in respect of a few phenomena, especially if we're allowing the possibility of a Collective Unconscious as well? I must get around to reading my Intermediate Eejit's Guide to Jung again, as I'm not sure I took it all in last time.

.. I was havign an online argument with someone yesterday who was declaring with astonishing confidence and arrogance that death is the end to anyone who would listen, cos science says so..apparently.)

Ha! had one of those talks recently, having got onto the subject of deceased relatives (in a good way) during dinner conversation.

So you believe in an afterlife then?
I didn't say that.
Yes you did.
No. I just denied that science had proved it impossible.
But it has, hasn't it, obviously.
Really? How? When?
Well what do you believe then?
I don't believe anything as far as that goes. I don't know the answers.
But if there was an afterlife, who'd do all the admin?
Lol, well that's a good point, but if there was I don't think it would work like that, and maybe the 'after' bit isn't quite appropriate.
What do you mean?
Well, time and space wouldn't be relevant in the usual sense probably. I dunno...you know that poem 'Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room...'
So what do you believe? What's your faith?
I haven't got one.
Well it sounds like you have.

Not having any answers I deftly changed the subject for fear of looking more and more like a feeble-minded New Age woo-woo merchant

 

[gattino]

Ha...that is almost identical to my conversation...except I'm 900 times more long winded. But the essence was the same. The "trick" being never to fall into the trap of offering a belief but stickto questioning their assertions. They don't,as private jones would say, like it up 'em.

What you find time and time and time again is that people who use words like science, reason etc when dismissing all this stuff have never given the slightest attention to either, but have just adopted those terms as a club badge or banner to protect their adopted set of opinions. Challenge them to specify anything in science and they wriggle like a pig on a stick.

 

[Andy X]

Quite so. It's interesting that it's the ones digging in to safeguard the hostile 'rational' position who are generally dogmatic and, it might be argued, a bit unscientific.

Actually, the conversation I transcribed pretty accurately (although edited a bit) was with someone close with a genuine scientific background and wasn't hostile at all, just fraught with the awful realisation that I might not be the man I was thought to be, but some dunderhead unable to cope with reality. Which was disconcerting for both parties.

Turned out alright though.

 

[Loquaciousness]

However, as I have said before, often believers are just as closed minded about having their assertions questioned, or ignore evidence that goes contrary to their believes. So I think there is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black at times.

 

[gattino]

Quite so.. but I think the idea that "believers" are blind to evidence and reason is the kind of cultural default position. The accusation generally flows in that direction. So it's novel and entertaining and just pleasing to be honest to have the same light shone upon the source from which it generally comes. The people who believe/accept/whatever the fringe side of reality are not generally held to be speaking for or i the name of science and the application of rational investigation (even where they may be doing just that as individuals). Thos who wear the club badge of rationalism and the scientific method are, I would hope, presumed to adhere to all of those things as an absolute essential standard in the forming of any judgement.. If they're doing nothing of the kind, of they are the very thing that they are fixated with mocking, then its surely far more extraordinary and worthy of comment?

I'd love to copy and paste my conversation but its sadly monunmentally long. And to edit it down would inevitably involve skewing it in my own favour, intentionally or otherwise.

So for now I'll go back to the subject of dreams. I didn't know whether to put htis n my dream diary thread or here, but as this one is ongoing...

Yesterday morning I woke up with a word..in this case a name...repeatign in my head, superimposed over a dream to which it bore no connection whatever. I kept thinking Melchizedek. I knew the name was familiar and "real", and possibly biblical but couldn't place it. Kept thinking must look that up, to remind myself, but didn't bother. Thismorning on the bus however it suddenly leapt into my head. In the Catholic liturgy, during communion, they mention "your priest melchizedek". (look him up on wikipedia.. pretty fortean figure, and all rather weird)

Now the interesting thing about this is a) like I say it had no bearing on any content of the dreams I was having while thinking the word. b) communion has been a minor but relatively frequent theme/meme in my dreams since I've been paying attention to them. There are many others, none of them religious, nor any such interest in my waking life btw. The association between this dream word Melchizedek and the recurring theme of communion is likely not ot be coincidence. But what the hell does it mean?

Of recurring dream symbols I've only ever worked out one to my satisfaction. A camera that fails to work means "this dream relates to an upcoming trip away". But the rest...no idea. And communion is so suggestive....communication? union? sacrifice? "This dream is spiritual communication" perhaps? (doubtful.. the dream was littered with B list celebrities) *scratches head*.

 

[Andy X]

However, as I have said before, often believers are just as closed minded about having their assertions questioned, or ignore evidence that goes contrary to their believes. So I think there is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black at times.

What do you mean by 'believers'?