Thread: How to distinguish HI from a dream?

First of all, you are generally just an observer during HI, with no dream body.

Another telling factor is that you think normally like you could when you're awake. And most of the time you're aware what you're experiencing is not real.

Hey there,

I do actually think Hypnagogia are the same as dreamimages/sounds/etc... with the difference just like Cusp said, you get hypnagogia while you're still awake, at the onset of sleep.

Once you fall asleep, your body 'shuts down' so to speak, so all external stimuli stop getting processed. At that time the hypnagogia can grow to become full blown dreams.

As for how to recognise HI from dreams, like Cusp said as well, you usually know you're awake when you're awake, so knowing when you're experiencing hypnagogia is generally not so hard. Mind you, as usual, there's a grey zone, right at the edge between sleeping and waking.

Hope that helps,

-Redrivertears-

HI usually disappears when you focus on it, while an LD would ensue if you did that in a dream.

A big THANK YOU to all who answered my question

Originally Posted by The Cusp

First of all, you are generally just an observer during HI, with no dream body.

Another telling factor is that you think normally like you could when you're awake. And most of the time you're aware what you're experiencing is not real.

Thanks for your answer, The Cusp!
I've tried to remember in more detail what happens when I experience those HI's (see below)

Originally Posted by Redrivertears

Hey there,

I do actually think Hypnagogia are the same as dreamimages/sounds/etc... with the difference just like Cusp said, you get hypnagogia while you're still awake, at the onset of sleep.

Once you fall asleep, your body 'shuts down' so to speak, so all external stimuli stop getting processed. At that time the hypnagogia can grow to become full blown dreams.

As for how to recognise HI from dreams, like Cusp said as well, you usually know you're awake when you're awake, so knowing when you're experiencing hypnagogia is generally not so hard. Mind you, as usual, there's a grey zone, right at the edge between sleeping and waking.

Hope that helps,

-Redrivertears-

Yeah, that certainly helps!
So I could see HI as a precursor to dreaming...

I think that what my question was about, could be the 'grey zone' you mention. Yesterday I had a really long period of allmost-falling-asleep but waking up a lot in between, so lots of moments to analyse.
As soon as I was thinking 'would this be HI or a dream' or 'I will enter a dream now', I lost the image, but some points it really felt like a dream (only 10-20 seconds)

Interesting too: my iPod played relaxing songs and from time to time I could here the music fade out (like it was the end of a song) but it wasn't the end of the song at all, it was my ears fading out the song

Originally Posted by Spartiate

HI usually disappears when you focus on it, while an LD would ensue if you did that in a dream.

OK, than I was probably too much on the HI-side of the grey-scale.
It's difficult to find the balance between 'too much focus' because that wakes me up and 'not enough focus' because then I'll enter a non-lucid dream.

Originally Posted by Sara

When I'm falling asleep, I experience a lot of short 'dreamlike' fragments of HI. Sometimes it's just sound, sometimes visuals, sometimes it looks/feels like a vague dream, but only for a few seconds.
I even talked in the last one (asking someone: what's your name? and he said: Billy Focus. And then I remembered to focus on my counting )

How can you know if it's 'just hypnogogic images' or the start of a dream?
Or do dreams start from HI?

From the point of view of an awareness of the unconscious I wouldn't distinguish at all. I'd add daytime daydreams and fantasies to that too. It's all the noise from our unconscious bubbling to awareness when our ego is off guard or asleep.

That's what I think.