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Hypnopompic Experiences

T

theredmeanie

Gone But Not Forgotten
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I'd be interested to hear if others have had similar experiences to the following:

For a few years now I have regularly been able to 'watch' my mental activity in the morning for about an hour or so before becoming fully awake, and have noted a regular theme occuring, namely imagery of a 'part' separating from a 'whole'. The imagery varies, from geometric shapes breaking down into identical elements to more organic forms dividing like bacteria, or cellls.

I've wondered whether I am processing a separation from the collective unconscious to the individual as I slowly waken, and would be very interested to hear of similar experiences, or other views. It happens about 4 times a week
 
I have something similar, only mine comes just before i fall alseep. It's usually indicative of especially vivid dreams for that night.
 
I have had several "visions" as it were during sleeping and waking states. The most interesting phenomenon is just before falling asleep, my eyes suddenly feel relaxed and although my eyes are closed and all is pitch black - I can "see". The sensation is "3-Dimensional" in that it feels as if it envelops me. Then, occasionally from this state I can start and control a "rushing" sensation in my head accompanied by fractal patterns which dissolve into moving images which I can control further. Once you become aware of it though the vision recedes into the distance and you bcome fully awake feeling euphoric and fully rested.

I have asked on forums before what the explantion for this is and I was told it was a hypnagogic (spelling?) state.
 
For some reason, it's called 'hypnogogic' at night and 'hypnopompic' in the morning. It's mighty frustrating when you become aware of it and the scene just dissolves. But why into fractals, I wonder?:gaga:
 
Well, my degree is in Physics and Astrophysics, so I have a bit of Maths under my belt. I seen several presentations saying how fractals are the underlying structure of reality and therefore the Universe (blah, blah, blah...) so who knows what we are tapping into when we go to sleep (or awaken depending on your point of view). I for one, agree with your idea of joing the collective unconsciousness because I once had an experience where a friend and I shared the same bed one night and we had identical dreams, waking at the same moment. It was (as cheesy as it sounds) as if our sleeping minds had connected whilst out for the count. Whether these things are based on proximity to another person or whether we join a great big melting pot... it's all very interesting.

As an addendum to my previous post, after managing to control the images for a short while, once (and only once dammit!) I think I managed to enter a dream whilst conscious as I found myself floating down onto a street scene (in America?) lucidly although the people on the street seemed unaware of me. I have done a bit of reading around the whole fortean theme, and the only thing I can describe this experience akin to was Astral Projection. It seemed to fit the descriptions (disembodied, floating sensations looking down on to a scene), but this must have been accidental if it were since I don't subscribe to New Age wisdoms of meditation and I usually have one of the most restless minds in the world anyway!!! As I say, I have only managed this one once but if anything it certainly felt more invigorating than the other sensations I previously described. If you can manage it, I recommend it!
 
The waking experiences have a different flavour to the sleeping ones. I've had a couple of lucid experiences too (though never accidentally-although once an art tutor and I were discussing astral projection and she described a very similar experience to yours). When I was about 16 or 17 I dabbled with lucid dreaming techniques and became aware during a flying dream (flying over a familiar housing estate). As soon as I became aware, I lost my flying ability and landed in a dog pen and was eaten by a doberman. I regained control over the dream, thought 'aha! now i can think of a way to get out of this mess', by which time the dog had decomposed and I crawled out of the stink. My unconscious got there before my thoughts did!
Not the best example of a lucid dream, but hey, I was a kid!
 
Now that would mess me up I'm afraid! Have you ever visited the housing estate to check out if the doberman is there? I have dreams where I'm pretty sure I've been lucid and have met some very interesting characters who I'm sure I've later encountered in the waking world (admittedly we haven't acknowledged that we have "met") but I can't imagine being eaten!

Have you ever read why we get the "falling" sensation followed by a jolt when we are first dropping off to sleep? I don't believe I've ever read anything on it, but its quite common and quite cunning in my case. I'll be lying there with my bedroom light on and the view in my sight never changes so of course you believe yourself to be quite awake, but then you get the falling feeling come over you (it's quite a fast acceleration when you think about it) followed by the jolting of waking up (and sometimes sitting bolt right up in bed). Our brains are weird!
 
On the subject of lucid dreaming, I've had one, when I was young (about 7 or 8).

In the dream I was at school with a friend, at least I assume it was me, I was viewing the dream from a stilted "3rd person perspective", though I never can focus on myself - I just know that it's me, I dream this way an awful lot, but I digress.

We were both trapped in the school as a giant was circling the building threatening to kill us. After a short while in hiding the school began to crumble as the giant pounded the walls.

It's at this point I became aware I was dreaming, so decided to run knowing that I could easily make it away from the giant as this was my dream, after making it across several fields, and effortlessly leaping accorss numerous fences I stopped and looked back.

The giant was giving chase but at this time was a good distance away. I then decided to wait for the giant to catch me, why not? I had nothing to fear! The giant came closer, looking very pleased with himself, picked me up and ate me.

"Fair enough" I thought to myself, and was able to wake myself from the dream, the whole thing must have lasted barely 2 minuites, I don't know what caused me to become aware of the dream, but it's sadly not happened since.

Just a quick note to say I've also shared a dream, or at least had a very similar dream as a friend. We were walking together at the time and the conversation of dreams arose, I told my friend of a very strange dream I'd had previously (but it was a while back and I couldn't quite remember the date), turns out he'd also had a dream previously that was the same almost down the the last detail - either that or he was pulling my leg!

I won't bore you with the details of the dream but it involved the same school, but no giants this time ... only dinosaurs :p

-Kornflake™
 
I read somewhere that the falling or dropping sensation happens at the exact moment one falls asleep. I get this all the time too. For me, it tends to manifest itself as a 'comedy slip' on ice where I fall over backwards (Colatron, your point about rapid acceleration is interesting; I get that too).
I also get a similar feeling whilst dreaming I can leap HUGE distances, and on the way down my tum is like 'aaaaaaaaaaargh!'
Interesting also to hear about another lucid dream involving being eaten, Kornf1ake! I wonder whether, when dreaming lucidly, being eaten is symbolic of being 'swallowed up' by the unconscious/collective; that we have, by becoming conscious during a dream, stuck our head out of the cavern, so to speak, and the collective trying to engulf us becomes 'being eaten by a giant, or a doberman, whatever.
hmm...being eaten during lucid dreams: I feel another thread coming on:smokin:
 
Well, dare I say it, but the only type of eating I want to be involved in whilst lucid dreaming is something I cannot unfortunately talk about on a family orientated forum :D

But seriously, I definitely agree with you Shaun about going into the collective unconscious. I don't know about you but when I have met various characters in these dream scenarios there is an overwhelming emotional bond formed which sometimes feels so strong, you wake up knowing you have just met someone tangibly real. I am convinced I have met my "soul mate" through dreams and the sensation is so strong, you (unfortunately) end up on your Friday/Saturday nights out searching for this person in your pubs/bars/clubs. They have to exist out there somewhere!

As a sidenote, the recurring theme in my lucid dreams is escape, usually from a gang of youths, or sometimes ufos, but always by deciding to run through back gardens and by jumping fences. The fences are quite a prevalent detail. Any ideas?
 
Colatron, still your filthy mind!;)
I'm really beginning to wonder about this whole chase/pursue theme. Are we, when dreaming lucidly, literally 'on the run'?
Kinda nice to think of one's dreaming body as a renegade during such times! I can imagine sirens going off when someone reaches a lucid state in dreamworld, and the dream police despatching crack squads of giants, dobermans and all sorts to bring us back and shut us up!
"We've got ourselves a live one! Wheres Blinky the uzi-toting daisy? GO!GO!GO!"
or something
 
oh yeah, and about the fences: symbolic perhaps of the separation between
1) conscious/unconscious/collective?
or perhaps
2) our individual ego consciousnesses (our nicely kept, fenced off gardens)?
 
Oddly enough the dreams I tend to remember are the ones where I'm being chased / am in hiding. I'd say 80% of the dreams I can remember are of this nature.

As a kid I used to have recurring dreams of being chased, one of them was in the house, whenever I was left alone upstairs I somehow knew I had 10 seconds to get downstairs before they got me. The dream always ended with me bounding down the stairs to be held back by a black force, hard to explain but it was like the light was being drained away behind my heels as I ran, but it always caught me.

The other I had 3 times over a period of 3 years, this dream wasn't in anyway frightening, just strange. I was being chased by the The Staypuft Marshmallow Man from the Ghostbusters film as I was making my escape in a helicopter made of scrap that was powered entirely by milky bars ... I had quite an imagination.

Although these dreams aren't lucid they're definitely powerful enough of an impression on my conscious for to me to remember them when I wake.

-Kornflake™
 
Mr Staypuft, eh? My personal demon was always the Incredible Hulk (the TV show version) or Kermit the Frog (a dream version of this really manky puppet I had of him on my bed as a youngster). The nights I used to wake up and that thing would be staring at me!

As an interesting aside, my friend once told me a spooky story, which may be him tapping into a collective unconsciousness. Do you remember after 9/11 there was the story about one of the parapsychology groups registering some fluctuation in one of their psi tests the day or week before 9/11, and how this showed a collective awareness of what was going to occur?

Well, my friend who has lived all across Europe, was living in Florence at the time, and his then girlfriend talked him into buyin a Dreamcatcher from a Native American Indian souvenir shop. Now bear in mind my friend is so sceptical, he gives the likes of Phillip Klass and James Randi a run for their money. So he puts this dreamcatcher up in his apartment to humour his girlfriend and goes to sleep. His description of his dreams were quite vivid so I guess they must have stuck in his mind. One started off involving a rather sordid scene with Keith Chegwin and his ex- back in England. That is worthy of a Fortean investigation of it's own. However, the next one involved him being stood in a bar in Florence (where he was living) watching a football game on television when he is called from a table, to find another of his ex- girlfriends sat there in the bar. This girlfriend is called Chiara, a native Italian from Rome where he used to live and he hadn't seen in about 8 months. She told him some various personal stuff and then mentioned how he was in danger. The next dream begins straight away when he finds himself in an absolute hell of a scene, surrounded by dust and twisted metal and general chaos.

He woke up the next day, in Florence, went to meet his workmate for a beer in his local bar and to watch the football. Needless to say, he hears a voice and there stood in front of him is Chiara! Coincidence? The date of this was 9/11.

Once he realised the connection between his dream and what was occuring in New York, he took the Dream Catcher straight down through sheer fear.

Now he told me this story a couple of weeks later when he returned to visit England and I gotta say, I honestly believe him. He gave the Dream Catcher straight to his ex (the one involved with Keith Chegwin) as he wanted nothing to do with it, and the look on his face was one of bewilderment. As I say, he has spent the better part of 14 years taking the mick out of me for my own beliefs so for him to tell this story...

Was this dream precognition, or was it again, him tapping into something more on a global scale. They say that people in a community can 'feel' when there is trouble brewing. Another example of collective unconsciousness?
 
or another example of the diabolical powers of Keith Chegwin?:devil:
 
The sudden muscle contractions, sometimes felt when falling asleep are called hypnic myoclonia (hypnic jerks); these are often accompanied by a sensation of starting to fall. Muscles relaxing are thought to be the cause. I have been informed that the imbibing large amounts of alcohol before sleeping can prevent these jerks.
 
Whin said:
I have been informed that the imbibing large amounts of alcohol before sleeping can prevent these jerks.
Click to expand...

Funny. In my experience, large amounts of alcohol at any time will *cause* people to become jerks.

At least, the kindest thing is to assume that the alcohol is at fault...:) Sorry; it's late. I'll be on-topic next time.
 
I've experienced this collective consciousness phenomenon also.
Several times with my wife as well as in the form of precognition.
One of the times with my wife was odd in the fact that I "asked" her if she was seeing what I was seeing. I felt my consciousness recede into the larger consciousness or collective consciousness and was aware that I could communicate by sheer will of thought.
So,next thing I know she asks me if I can tell what SHE'S thinking of. Of course I knew! I made the pictures form in my mind first. In my vision I was floating over the abandoned ruins of Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas where we went on our honeymoon.
She didn't freak out this time or several times after when we tried telepathy together.
The first time however she got really scared and accused me of being into satanism.
I told her I could read her mind and told her to think of something.Actually,I was a bit shocked on this occasion myself since the images were so clear and so quick. I got about five hits in a row before they started to become vague.
An unusual thing happened to my wife afterwards. I "saw" her envelop herself in what looked kind of like a luminous jellyfish.
The shape was domed above her head and spread out like a skirt beneath her feet. It glowed a pale blue with white sparkles and I instinctively felt it was some sort of spiritual barrier.
Funny thing about receiving the images is that it felt sort of like a game in which I was supposed to guess what I couldn't see,but for me it was as if some one was drawing a secret picture and I was watching her draw from a reflection in a mirror. Like she didn't think I could see what she was doing when in fact it was rather clear for the fact that my "view" was extended.
To me it feels as if the collective conscious is a network very similar to the internet and when you tap into that particular state of mind in which it is accessible to access the "web" you need only direct your thought and a line will open up in relation to your search.
Speaking of 9/11,I had a dream the night before it happened.
In this dream I felt as if I was in the military and was in hand to hand combat with an arabic man with a bald head.
Moments later there was a boom and I remember telling someone that it would soon be followed by another boom.
The booms in my dream were however related to trains and not aircraft. Although there was enough similarity for me to make a connection.

Interesting thread,I'm fascinated by such experiences and what they mean in regards to the nature of reality in it's entirety.
 
For me, hypnic myoclonia almost always manifests in my dreaming mind as slipping off a kerb with one foot.

I have had many lucid dreams, or many periods of lucidity in dreams, all comparatively recently, none involving being chased by anything, and all associated with self-hypnosis of one form or another.

A recent example being a couple of weeks ago when I was rather worried about some real-life issues and couldn't sleep and so was performing a stepped relaxation exercise ... you know the sort of thing ... you imagine a beautiful golden light spreading upwards from your feet relaxing every muscle as it goes, filling you up with thick, heavy, sleepy .... warm ..... syrupy .... zzzzz ..... eh? oh yes :D .... anyway I had to repeat this several times in the night when I woke up stressed out, and at some point in a dream I became completely aware that it was a dream, at which point all dream 'plot' ceased.

It's a great feeling : for me (who tries daily to improve my powers of creative visualization) it always astounds me how complete and detailed the dream environment is and I end up feeling the texture of paint on plaster of the walls with my fingers and so on, utterly blown away by the fact that I know it is not physically real and yet the perception of it is indistinguishable from waking reality. I have managed to levitate quite easily and change location etc in these lucid episodes but I find it very difficult to manifest other people and there is often a powerful sense of having to concentrate intensely to avoid slipping back into 'unconscious' dreaming, or waking up.

I have had similar experiences after listening to 'brainwave-synched' (theta) guided visualization and magick ritual audio whilst falling asleep .... you could argue that this just leads to disturbed sleep as in the above case and that leaving the radio on would work just as well : I have not performed scientific trials on the subject. My theory, for what it is worth, is that it is something to do with inducing a mild hypnotic/visionary state while still 'awake' immediately before going to sleep and so training the brain to attain these 'inbetween' states - as I say, I do a lot of visualization and consciousness change work anyway, and it does seem to be a matter of training.

These experiences often seem to directly preceed waking and sometimes there is a sense of having woken up but chosen to continue the dream, as if I am vaguely aware of lying in bed but there is much greater clarity of and immersion in the mental imagery than I am able to manage when awake, so I suspect this does count as hypnopompic. .....
 
Anyone ever try to pull something out with them from a lucid dream?
I've tried several times to no avail.
Very frustrating,especially since I've heard it can be done.
I remember one time in which the detail was extraordinary.
I picked up a book which had a purple silk rose sewn to the cover.
I could feel the texture of the jacket,the silk flower and the thread attaching it.
I knew that this was a dream but since the reality of it was so complete that maybe I could bring something back with me as long as I held my focus.
I put two fingers underneath the rose and felt the thread in between my fingers and intended to snap the thread and bring the flower with me.
I held my focus and held the flower tight in my fist but as I emerged into the waking realm I could feel one part of my mind disengaging from the rest. I was fully conscious of this as it happened but could not wake AND retain a grasp of this other realm simultaneously.

A woman I used to work with told me that her brother actually had strands of red hair in his bed after dreaming of being with a woman with red hair.
I cannot confirm this and do not personally know the man,but it is fascinating if true.
 
Lucid dreams ... I get 'em and I love 'em! I can't induce them by any means other than by getting up early and munching loads of strong cheese. This doesn't always work, but it triggers great nightmares, which are the best starting points for 'going lucid'.

My usual dreams are mostly about military conflicts and being nabbed by the IRA etc. Either that or being in murky horrible swimming pools in dingy cellars or being in caves and labyrinthine buildings and all that sort of stuff.

But sometimes I get real nightmares like being chased by fiendish invisible horses with miniscule heads. That's the sort that can turn into a lucid dream because I come to realise the improbability of the whole thing and figure I must be dreaming. With that realisation, anything goes. I'll usually start by letting the monster catch me and do its stuff before I rudely dismiss it and get on with my experiments.

I often used to wake up almost as soon as I realised I was dreaming, but gradually my stays in this weird realm are getting longer. For example it used to be almost impossible to choose a beautiful dream girl and have sex with her, but now that seems to go pretty well.

The thing that gets me in this type of dream is that I see structures and hear music, which are the most beautiful I can imagine. I'm amazed and usually very pleased to find that my mind is the source of these. Maybe it isn't and things are actually as they really seem during a lucid dream - that this is in fact a different plane and that I've managed to venture into it for a short stay. (If that is the case, I'll have to be careful about the sex with these beautiful dream girls ... who knows what the laws of that particular place have to say about that sort of behaviour?)
 
Sometimes I have dreams so realistic that when I wake from them I experience disorientation for about thirty seconds as I will be in the middle of a situation indistinguishable from reality, in the middle of a conversation or doing something, then suddenly I'm in my own bed. I can even experience time-lag if the time of the dream doesn't correspond with the time I wake up.

I also had a nightmare the other week about wrestling with a strange humanoid shaped crocodile type thing - could I have found my dreaming I wonder?
 
Also I sometimes have a really annoying recurring dream where I get up for work, go downstairs, get showered, put the toast on and various other humdrum morning routine tasks; then wake up and have to do it all again for real. Complete waste of my time! ;)
 
A number of times my dreams have been precognitive although I can't remember if they were also hypno-pompic/hypno-gogic.
Although I've read that these states of consciousness are conducive for seeing things remotely through time and/or space.

One such dream was rather odd and then rather freaky to me as it unraveled in waking consciousness.
I was dipping my hands into a small pre-fab pond trying to find turtles.
When I took my hands out of the pond they were filled with small white leeches/maggots?
The very next day my wife and I went to visit my mother who had a pond like the one I dreamt of in her front yard.
While we were there she asked me if I would clean out the pond for her and take it out of the ground for her and fill in the hole.
I remembered that my brother had put in a large legless salamander in the pond a while back. So I felt around for the animal to remove it from the pond.
I didn't find the animal,perhaps it had died and decomposed because when I lifted my hands from the water they were filled with these little white worms just as I had seen in my dream.
Odd thing was that she had never mentioned wanting to have the pond removed or cleaned before that time so there was no way that I was even thinking about the pond before I dreamt it.

It makes me wonder how much of our dream life is real(different plane perhaps) and how much is random thought and imagination.
Obviously thought itself exist has some form of reality since it can be conveyed from one mind to another via telepathy.
Or shared dream experiences which would also be a form of telepathy I guess.
 
When I fall asleep I can see swirling patterns behind my eyelids. I presume that it is the blood circulating inside my eyelids. Is it possible that as you approach sleep your mind loses it's ability to process such random information and starts to interpret it as actual geometric shapes?
 
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