Thread: Rapid induction of the hypnogogic state

I offer no money back guarantee's or "100%" promises with this technique, its something that works and has always worked very well for me and im hoping others find it useful also.

The origional idea of this technique was the rapid induction of sleep, and for the longest time ive used it as such, infact it solved the mild insomnia i was experiencing at the time i came up with it (think years ago).

The technique
So one night while trying to get to sleep i found something strange, I found that i could start hypnogogia manually by simply mimicking it instead of laying for ages waiting for it to kick in on its own.

What ive found is that if I mimic hypnogogia the mind seems to take control of it, sometimes after only a few minutes, and when this handover occurs Ill find myself in full blown HI on the border of sleep. Ive taken to calling this "leading the mind", and i think it may have potential in other area's of mind too.

Leading/coaxing the mind to hypnogogia
This is by no means easy to describe so i apologise in advance to all confused. Ive decided not to try and list definitive steps but instead to describe what i experience in hopes those who want to can follow it .

1) I'll first relax and empty/blank my mind for a few seconds to clear out thoughts from the day. Usually this relaxation includes 3 deep and slow breaths holding my breath on the last one for around 8 seconds and then slowly releasing it (Thanks hypnotist1).

2) Once my mind is clear i begin mimicking hypnogogia, auditory hypnogogia to be precise. If you've ever experienced auditory hypnogogia you'll know that you sometimes hear a jumble of voices, like being in a room with a few people talking over the top of each other, very few words of which you can make out.
What i usually do is imagine a friend or 2 talking and mumbling, interrupting each others sentences as they go, just cutting each other up and talking over the top of each other. Im not too specific with voices, ill have other random friends voices, voices i dont know etc randomly cutting in and speaking. Now the things they say are chaotic too, i may catch or even passively control the first few words such as "why do you even need to..." or "no because..." but then it degenerates into unintelligible mumbling almost like the game sims heh.

Theres no subject, no direction the talkings going in... After maybe the first few sentences Im not actually taking in the words but am passively making sure the speaking continues, alot of it will be almost randomness, just a random collection of words and noise but with the voices of my friends. After so long, which is usually only a few minutes for me, the mind will takeover completely, im nearly always aware when this is happening and its interesting to observe. With the hypnogogic state set in i can usually predict within seconds of when ill lose consciousness, alot like when you're waking up from a lucid dream and watch yourself losing dream consciousness, although the lines a little more blurry than that.

Why Attaining Lucidity?
I think this has the potential (at least for me) of being a supplement for some WILD'ing techniques. If at the moment of the handover you can re-focus and keep a degree of awareness, there may be a good chance of entering sleep consciously and quickly. Although i will add it would be like pulling a parachute at the last possible second.. if you miss time it theres probably not alot you can do about it.

I just wanted to stress:

Dont try to control every aspect of the process, this isnt a controlled process, you're passively making sure the voices continue with minimum input and focus.
Also I think the worst thing you can do is try to understand what's being said. The main strength of this technique (as far as falling asleep is concerned) is that you not only lose the connection to the outside world, you also lose connection to your conscious and controlled thinking processes. Essentially once the voices start and the mind begins to take over very little conscious involvment is needed, unlike maintaining a clear mind or imagining a scene... and with such a low amount of conscious involvement it seems the unconscious mind begins to fill in the void.

So... Imagining the voices in a mumbling and sometimes overlapping way firstly stops you from trying to understand the voices, its just garbled talking therefore you cant really pick out many of the words anyway.. you'll hear some but you wont be actively trying to understand them like you tend to with whole sentences.
Secondly it seems, at least to me, to put me in a very detached state. My minds occupied by the voices but im not really paying them too much attention, just like hypnogogia, my consciousness sinks back as the voices flood my mind and then the handover occurs.

This actually sounds like it might work for me, i usually have that auditory hypnogogia when im falling asleep before any visual starts. Sometimes i actually find myself answering back questions almost as if i think that there is someone there. The conversations are kind of like when you are at a friend's house and you are lying in the dark ready to fall asleep and are having a convo about something and you eventually lose consciousness. Im going to try this tonight then i'll post about it tomorrow. Thanks

I'm definetely going to try this tonight!
I have a bit of trouble falling to sleep when trying to WILD, or with other things on the mind.
I'll report back tomorrow I guess.

This sounds like an interesting technique. I don't have much visual hypnogognia, so this might work well. When is this most effective for you? I assume, like most WILD techniques, it is best done in the morning...?

I usally use visualization to bring on the HI, but it's usually quiet. I'm going to try the auditory technique because sometimes I am so excited, it takes me a while to fall asleep.

I'll report soon!

Maybe a good way to keep thoughts that keep you awake from running through your head.
Correct RooJ, if you just keep it to chatter and no real sense it would work best.
Enough to focus on but not get too focussed on it.

(sorta would remind me of those horror movies though, with the ghosts voices whispering in the background)

Just apply FILD with this and should do the trick.

That's a pretty interesting approach.

I experienced audio hypnogogia a few nights ago and found it easy to concentrate on the sounds and voices as they occurred. The only problem is that I equate hearing voices to being crazy, and although I knew I was just falling asleep it still felt uncomfortable and a little frightening.

I'm going to give this a shot tonight though, because I was using visual hypnogogia techniques at the time but it seemed to be the audio and sounds that really pulled me in.