Hypnopompic and Hypnogogic hallucinations

[LadyShea]

This is one of my favorite subjects and it came up in another thread so I thought I'd start a thread about it.

These are hallucinations some people have when transitioning to or from sleep (like just as you're falling asleep or just as you're waking up). They can include visual and auditory hallucinations and even physical sensations of floating or vibrating, or be accompanied by body paralysis.

Here are some interesting links:
Hypnagogic hallucinations
Sleep Paralysis Page
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/169/4/459
hypnagogic state

I believe this natural phenomena explains a number of supernatural experiences like demon attacks, ghost encounters, astral travel, and alien abductions...how many supernatural stories start "I had just gone to bed" or "I woke up in the night.."?

I personally have had these experiences when taking prescribed painkillers like Vicodin or Lortab. They were scary enough that I refuse to take them anymore, and instead suffer through whatever pain or take Advil.

Anyone else have an experience to share?

[Dingfod]

When I took Lortab I saw evil-looking eyes every time I closed my eyes. That alone interfered with sleep after taking a drug that was supposed to make me very drowsy.

[Ari]

For me these hallucinations are reasonably common. Although I don't get the alien encounters just oddity. When stressed it's often much more chaotic but when calm it's a bit like existing in two places at once while falling asleep. Knowing I'm going to sleep while also having a conversation with someone outside or listening to music I'm pretty sure I've never heard before. Normally trying to concentrate on the hallucinations makes them go away. The strange ones are when it combines and someone touches me on the arm in a 'dream' but I feel it and react to it in the real world.

I can understand a supernatural believing person who has never experienced this before making the leap to demons or aliens or angels.

Edit to add: Whenever I take a sleep dose of benydryl (two standard allergy tabs) it seems to make standard dreaming more vivid but reduces the hypnagogic hallucinations.

[brikenjon]

It doesn't happen often and I'm not 100% sure it falls into this category, but two sensations I have had either falling asleep or waking in the middle of the night are exaggerated senses of gravity and distance. It's never been medication related and I can usually shake it off just by moving.

The one sensation is like my limbs are heavier than normal and/or somehow being pressed into the bed without any feelings of pressure on my skin.

The other sensation is usually looking into a corner of the room. Everything in the corner seems smaller and farther away than I know it is.

[freemonkey]

When I was a kid I had similar visual sensations as brikenjon, it was like perception was off, like things were close, yet far.

As an adult the most common experiences I have are of falling, or a loud auditory thing, like a bang. These happen as I'm falling asleep.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

I personally have had these experiences when taking prescribed painkillers like Vicodin or Lortab. They were scary enough that I refuse to take them anymore, and instead suffer through whatever pain or take Advil.

Me too, specifically hydrocodone. They are very scary and I also won't take it.

[Qingdai]

I've had some interesting hallucinations while falling asleep (a scary seeming series of circles that were collapsing and expanding as a child) and a few incidences of sleep paralysis, one in which I thought a hand was coming through a window. Then I woke myself up.
I never thought to attribute them to demons though!
I've had a few odd dreams which seem to come true later, but don't think that there is a supernatural force behind them. I've got some vivid dreams.
I haven't noticed a link between any sleep disturbances and drugs.

I've always been interested in sleep and dreams, thanks for the links.

I wonder if people who aren't getting enough sleep are more prone to odd experiences like this.

[Iacchus]

Originally Posted by Ari

I can understand a supernatural believing person who has never experienced this before making the leap to demons or aliens or angels.

I experience it all the time, and am still quite certain that it is supernatural.

In fact here are a couple of links to some of my more vivid accounts:

http://www.dionysus.org/x0501.html

http://www.dionysus.org/x0901.html

[JoeP]

Shame on those links, LS. Not one of them includes Fuseli's Nightmare:


Should be mandatory in any discussion of sleep paralysis.

[LadyShea]

I experience it all the time, and am still quite certain that it is supernatural.

When a natural explanation exists for any experience, why would one still assume supernatural?

Shouldn't the possibility of supernatural be reserved for when no other explanation is available?

[Sock Puppet]

In practice, it appears that the possibility of supernatural is reserved for when no other explanation is as desirable.

[ChuckF]

Cool, I never knew the name for these. I have them occasionally, usually either falling or a vague sense of spatial disorientation. I get the sensation that I'm "upside down" in bed, and my spatial relationship with the walls is wrong. This leads me to the conclusion that I am in a different location, usually one where I have slept in the past.

I more frequently experience false awakening.

Originally Posted by freemonkey

Me too, specifically hydrocodone. They are very scary and I also won't take it.

Last time I took hydrocodone I ordered a golf club online. I have never played golf.

Originally Posted by Qingdai

I wonder if people who aren't getting enough sleep are more prone to odd experiences like this.

I wonder this too. I've had more trouble sleeping in the past couple of years and it seems like it happens a lot more than it used to, but it's hard to judge very precisely.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Sock Puppet

In practice, it appears that the possibility of supernatural is reserved for when no other explanation is as desirable.

Welcome to the quote generator, my friend.

I've had vivid sleep paralysis experiences a couple of times. I can totally see how someone who believed in the supernatural could see such an experience as a visitation. Waking up in a cold sweat, unable to move or speak, with a imagined flappy winged thing on my back and red eyes glaring at me from across the room was pretty damned unreal.

Originally Posted by Chuckles

I more frequently experience false awakening.

I get that all the time. You have no idea how pissed I am when I think I'm halfway through my work day and then I wake up to discover that not only do I have the entire day ahead of me, but I was wasting dream time on work instead of Natalie Portman or something.

[Ensign Steve]

I think work should have to pay me for hours worked in my dreams.

[yguy]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

When a natural explanation exists for any experience,

None of the links you provided offer anything beyond noting correlations between symptoms, so what explanation do you have in mind?

[beyelzu]

Originally Posted by Ensign Steve

I think work should have to pay me for hours worked in my dreams.

Indeed they do, if they add up all the hours you dream about working plus the hours you actually work while at work, I think maybe they are getting their forty out of you.

[yguy]

Originally Posted by Adam

imagined flappy winged thing on my back and red eyes glaring at me from across the room

Since you presumably didn't set out to paint such an image on the canvas of your mind, how can it have been "imagined"?

Unless some other intelligence commandeered your imagination, of course...but I don't suppose that is a more comforting alternative.

[Ensign Steve]

@beyelzu

I wouldn't go that far!

[beyelzu]

Originally Posted by yguy

None of the links you provided offer anything beyond noting correlations between symptoms, so what explanation do you have in mind?

Do you think everyone with those symptoms are instead having supernatural experiences?

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by yguy

None of the links you provided offer anything beyond noting correlations between symptoms, so what explanation do you have in mind?

That it's a product of the brain like dreams, nightmares, night terrors, sleepwalking, and hallucinations.

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

I personally have had these experiences when taking prescribed painkillers like Vicodin or Lortab. They were scary enough that I refuse to take them anymore, and instead suffer through whatever pain or take Advil.

You mean most people don't have it all the time? I've always had it, like maybe not nightly, but weekly at a minimum. When I'm falling asleep, I get the "stepping off a curb" sensation that causes me to jerk awake. And just the other morning, I woke up with my arms paralyzed, and I couldn't tell where they were. This has happened more than once. And I often get the sensation Chuck described, of not knowing which way the bed is oriented in the room, or which way my body is oriented on the bed. I haven't noticed any difference between whether I'm on drugs or not, but then I haven't been looking for one. I thought everybody got this! That it was just a normal part of falling asleep/waking up. Like REM and dreaming.

[Dingfod]

I once awakened while I was dreaming. The surreal part of it was I was still dreaming and seeing the imagery of the dream, but I could also see the bedroom through it. Plus, I couldn't move. I shook it off, literally. I wrote of this experience once on FF (or was it HH?), remembering it because I had written it down on the notepad I used to keep on the nightstand.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by yguy

Since you presumably didn't set out to paint such an image on the canvas of your mind, how can it have been "imagined"?

Unless some other intelligence commandeered your imagination, of course...but I don't suppose that is a more comforting alternative.

Everyone has seen, read about, or heard described all manner of things. Flappy winged demons and glowing red eyes are prominent in art, movies and literature. Since these images are in our brains they can therefore show up in dreams and/or hallucinations.

One of the hypnagogic hallucinations I had was of flashing red lights coming through the window. At the time I interpreted them as police flashers...someone else may have interpreted aliens I suppose.

[LadyShea]

ES, some people seem to experience it more than others . Just like most things it's very individual. It can even be categorized as a sleep disorder if it is very frequent.

When I take the hydrocodone I also get vivid scary hallucinations along with feelings of "rushing", floating, falling, or paralysis.

[Ensign Steve]

That's so weird. There's so many things I always thought was the norm, and it turns out I'm in the minority. Like sneezing when you walk out into the sunlight.

Then again, I'm sure there are a million things out there that I've never heard of, that other people think is pretty standard. Like my friend Corey suffers from migraines, and it never occurred to her that everybody didn't.

[yguy]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

That it's a product of the brain like dreams, nightmares, night terrors, sleepwalking, and hallucinations.

...and everything else you perceive with your physical senses.

Right?