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I wanted to know some opinions on the dream meanings (if any) of hypnagogic/hypnopompic states. I genuinely believe there is meaning there, but I'd like to get a feel for what others think, as well as examples that may back your opinion up. Thanks for reading!
Here's what I think:
Dreams are to be interpreted by ourselves. Sometimes they reveal something we hid long ago. And some are actually just random events combined together, however we are the readers of our dreams, and interpretations can be different for each person. When you find your interpretation, it may be true, or may not be, because only you can understand yourself in this world. No one else. Just you.
The hypnagogic state is characterized by the prevalence of emotions, typically (but not always) accompanied by images, thoughts, sounds, etc. I believe the most meaning you can ascribe to this pre-sleep state is that it sets up the mood/theme/setting. It's not so much similar to a dream as it is the "random passing of thoughts," like logs floating down a stream, as your brain begins to re-organize all the information it finds important.
I think you’d find that the most fruitful way to uncover the meaning in hypnagogic/hypnopompic states is via the Jungian technique of Active Imagination.
AI is defined in “Jung Lexicon” by Jungian analyst, Daryl Sharp:
“Active Imagination: The object of active imagination is to give a voice to sides of the personality, particularly the anima/animus and the shadow that are normally not heard, thereby establishing a line of communication between consciousness and the unconscious.”
Analyst Robert Johnson’s book “Inner Work” provides a very valuable introduction to Active Imagination as well as to dream analysis.
Mary Watkins’s “Invisible Guests” and “Waking Dreams” also describes the technique of Active Imagination, and it is also described to some extent in “Man and his Symbols” edited by C. G. Jung.
As an introduction from the works of C.G. Jung himself, here are a few quotes from his early writings on the subject which, though a little dry, still show the importance and meaning contained in such states:
“Schüle says: “The swarm of lights and colours that excite and activate the nocturnal field of vision in the darkness supplies the material for the fantastic figures seen in the air before going to sleep.” As we know, we never see absolute darkness, always a few patches of the dark field are dully illuminated; flecks of light bob up here and there and combine into all sorts of shapes, and it only needs a moderately active imagination to form out of them, as one does out of clouds, certain figures known to oneself personally.
As one falls asleep, one’s fading power of judgment leaves the imagination free to construct more and more vivid forms. “Instead of the spots of light, the haziness and changing colours of the dark visual field, outlines of definite objects begin to appear.”
Hypnagogic hallucinations arise in this way. Naturally the chief share falls to the imagination, which is why highly imaginative people are particularly subject to them.
The “hypnopompic” hallucinations described by Myers are essentially the same as the hypnagogic ones.
It is very probable that hypnagogic images are identical with the dream-images of normal sleep, or that they form their visual foundation”.
In “Symbols of Transformation”, Dr. Jung writes:
“We now pass to what Miss Miller says about the poem:
‘This little poem made a profound impression on me. I could not at first find a sufficiently clear and direct explanation of it. But a few days afterwards, having again taken up a philosophical article that I had read in Berlin the previous winter , which had delighted me extremely, and reading it aloud to a friend, I came upon these words: “The same passionate longing of the moth for the star, of man for God.…” I had completely forgotten them, but it seemed to me quite obvious that these were the words that had reappeared in my hypnagogic poem . Moreover, a play entitled The Moth and the Flame, which I saw a few years ago, also came back to me as another possible source of my poem. You see how often the word moth has been impressed upon me!’
The profound impression the poem made on the author means that it expresses a correspondingly intense psychic content”.
An early description of Active Imagination and dealing with the visual and auditory images involved is as follows:
“Critical attention must be eliminated. Visual types should concentrate on the expectation that an inner image will be produced. As a rule such a fantasy-picture will actually appear— perhaps hypnagogically— and should be carefully observed and noted down in writing.
Audio -verbal types usually hear inner words, perhaps mere fragments of apparently meaningless sentences to begin with, which however should be carefully noted down too.
Others at such times simply hear their “other” voice. There are, indeed, not a few people who are well aware that they possess a sort of inner critic or judge who immediately comments on everything they say or do.
Insane people hear this voice directly as auditory hallucinations. But normal people too, if their inner life is fairly well developed, are able to reproduce this inaudible voice without difficulty, though as it is notoriously irritating and refractory it is almost always repressed. Such persons have little difficulty in procuring the unconscious material and thus laying the foundation of the transcendent function”.
Essentially, the products of hypnagogic/hypnopomic states are interpreted using the same techniques as in the analysis of dreams.
Anyway, I hope these ideas can be helpful in some way.