Is there a name for dreamlike thoughts that happen before a dream?

Over the years I've occasionally become (barely) aware of a phase of involuntary mind-wandering that occurs just as consciousness is lost on the onset of sleep. I wonder if there's a technical name for it. I've informally just called it the “predream state” since it seems very similar to dreaming, the only difference being that the scenarios playing in my thoughts are still internal, rather than appearing “for real” through my senses like full dreams do. But they wander and behave in seemingly random ways just as dreams do, and I tend to mentally react identically as if they were actual non-lucid dreams (i.e., happening “for real”). In rare cases, I've even experienced actual transitions from these thoughts to “proper” dreams, where images I'm thinking about smoothly transition so that I'm seeing them for real in a dream. Anyone happen to know what I'm talking about?

My guess, your remembering dreams from nonsense

I think your talking about HH or hypnagogic hallucinations. As your relaxed and starting to fall asleep images or voices pop up into your mind.I use HH as a sign that I'm getting closer to falling asleep. Sometimes after you get HH you will get a non lucid or lucid dream. But based on my experience If its my first dream it won't last long. Like you said it will feel like a non lucid dream but you will snap back out of it and realize you were getting a dream. Another possible outcome of it is you just falling asleep and after some time you will wake up remembering a dream or waking up without a dream.However,If I wake up after falling asleep and try to enter a dream, lucid or non lucid the dream will probably last longer and be more stable.

Well, there's a distinction here between actually seeing HH (which I've also had before) and it merely taking place in my mind, which is what I'm describing here. Also, this can happen right at the very beginning of sleep, before the first REM period, so no dreams yet. But I have noticed it can sometimes lead right into an actual dream, and admittedly the line can seem rather blurred at times. It's sort of like a very early stage of dreaming or something (although I can experience it right at the beginning of sleep, where NREM would take place first).

There have also been those occasional “Tetris effect” thoughts, where it feels like I've been thinking about or trying to solve some kind of hard problem all through my sleep, but of course I can never remember what it was actually about when I wake up. :P That feels like something similar, along with the “automatic mind wandering” that I've seen some WILD tutorials mention can happen.

When you say theres a distinction between seeing it and it merely taking place in your mind, do you mean the times when you are aware of it and the times you are unaware of the HH? Anyways I think you had the name for it the whole time which is Hypnagogic Hallucinations. However, I have had moments similar to problem solving before. It would only happen rarely whenever I got a annoying cold though. But only like once or twice during the time I had the cold. It was sort of weird cause it would always happen as I was waking up.It felt like i was trying to solve a game/musical problem so I could clear my stuffy or runny nose. Even though I wasn't aware of what I was doing till I snapped out of it. I'm not sure if that is HH though because I think I was moving my hands or arms a bit and I was slowly waking up.

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Originally Posted by DawnEye11

When you say theres a distinction between seeing it and it merely taking place in your mind, do you mean the times when you are aware of it and the times you are unaware of the HH? Anyways I think you had the name for it the whole time which is Hypnagogic Hallucinations.

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I'm not sure I understood your question correctly, but I mean that when I happen to notice it (usually just after snapping back awake), I can tell that I wasn't actually seeing/hearing the thoughts; they just seemed to be thoughts (although I might have been startled awake by them as if I thought they were actually happening, like in a non-LD). I assume HH means that you actually do see/hear/etc. things, and I have experienced those on rare occasions where I occasionally gain consciousness while the rest of my body is trying to fall asleep. The former is what I'm asking about in this thread. During the latter case, I've also sometimes experienced an actual transition between thinking of something (as in the former case) and then suddenly being in a dream and seeing it, like when people do a WILD.

I also wonder if you could call this a form of non-REM dreaming. Maybe NREM dreams tend to be more thought-like in nature?

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However, I have had moments similar to problem solving before. It would only happen rarely whenever I got a annoying cold though. But only like once or twice during the time I had the cold. It was sort of weird cause it would always happen as I was waking up.It felt like i was trying to solve a game/musical problem so I could clear my stuffy or runny nose.

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Haha, yeah, I find myself trying to solve weird, nonsensical problems like that sometimes. Or, for instance, you're supposed to get up early but you're too sleepy and can't because you think you have to solve some esoteric problem in order to “figure out” how to wake up and get out of bed. :P

That's interesting because when I've experienced it, it could have also been when I was having trouble sleeping for some reason (say, stress/excitement). Maybe it's more likely when sleep is harder.

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I'm not sure I understood your question correctly, but I mean that when I happen to notice it (usually just after snapping back awake), I can tell that I wasn't actually seeing/hearing the thoughts; they just seemed to be thoughts (although I might have been startled awake by them as if I thought they were actually happening, like in a non-LD).

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Oh. Sorry I reread the definition for HH and they mention being aware of what is happening. So maybe its not HH...Sorry its kind of confusing. I just thought it was a form of HH that we were unaware of occurring or a mini dream episode but I guess I could be wrong. Guess someone is going to have to answer the question for the both of us. ^w^"

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Haha, yeah, I find myself trying to solve weird, nonsensical problems like that sometimes. Or, for instance, you're supposed to get up early but you're too sleepy and can't because you think you have to solve some esoteric problem in order to “figure out” how to wake up and get out of bed.
That's interesting because when I've experienced it, it could have also been when I was having trouble sleeping for some reason (say, stress/excitement). Maybe it's more likely when sleep is harder.

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Yeah, that makes sense. :3

What you might be experiencing, Travis, is a phenomenon that some people call dreamlets.

As you drift toward sleep, your mind straddles a fence between wake and sleep. During this time you might experience small bursts of dream, though those dreams do not have the normal cohesiveness or "reality" of actual dreams, they are quite brief and generally meaningless, and you are still aware of your waking-life body in bed. These dreamlets can come in the form of bits of imagery, unintelligible voices, or odd "deep" thoughts that you simply cannot remember upon waking.

I'm not sure dreamlets are an official term in the psychological lexicons, but it is something the likes of LaBerge have discussed, and may be what you have been describing.

When you have NREM dreams (or rather, when you remember NREM dreams, because you probably already have them) you will likely see them as something quite different from what you are describing here, and much more like actual dreams with a remarkably different content (or lack thereof) coupled with an unusal sense of, um, your "presence" in a very different environment.

tl;dr: I think these are called "dreamlets."

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Originally Posted by Sageous

What you might be experiencing, Travis, is a phenomenon that some people call dreamlets.

As you drift toward sleep, your mind straddles a fence between wake and sleep. During this time you might experience small bursts of dream, though those dreams do not have the normal cohesiveness or "reality" of actual dreams, they are quite brief and generally meaningless, and you are still aware of your waking-life body in bed. These dreamlets can come in the form of bits of imagery, unintelligible voices, or odd "deep" thoughts that you simply cannot remember upon waking.

I'm not sure dreamlets are an official term in the psychological lexicons, but it is something the likes of LaBerge have discussed, and may be what you have been describing.

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Interesting. That description seems to fit. Admittedly, the line between “actual” and “thought of” imagery I keep mentioning can seem rather blurred sometimes in this state—something a bit difficult for my waking self to comprehend, being as accustomed to always having a sharp distinction between the two as it is.

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When you have NREM dreams (or rather, when you remember NREM dreams, because you probably already have them) you will likely see them as something quite different from what you are describing here, and much more like actual dreams with a remarkably different content (or lack thereof) coupled with an unusal sense of, um, your "presence" in a very different environment.

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Okay, I've probably never recalled experiences like those (yet?). Makes me curious, though.

I only started noticing stuff like this after I originally joined DreamViews years ago (before taking a several-year hiatus). That's when I learned about intriguing stuff like WILD for the first time and began doing heavy experimentation with LDs and even my sleep rhythm in general; since then I've been privileged with these rare, brief windows into the fascinating, mysterious stuff that really goes on when I'm normally not consciously aware. :)

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Originally Posted by Sageous

As you drift toward sleep, your mind straddles a fence between wake and sleep. During this time you might experience small bursts of dream, though those dreams do not have the normal cohesiveness or "reality" of actual dreams, they are quite brief and generally meaningless, and you are still aware of your waking-life body in bed. These dreamlets can come in the form of bits of imagery, unintelligible voices, or odd "deep" thoughts that you simply cannot remember upon waking.

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I notice this most when I have woken up on a Sunday morning and I drift towards sleep but don't actually fall asleep. They're kind of in between HH and proper dreams. A very blissful state yet, as you say, much is forgotten once you wake properly.

Is there a way to become "lucid" in them?

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Originally Posted by Bobblehat

Is there a way to become "lucid" in them?

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Sure. In fact, if you use WILD as your gateway to LD's, you will likely encounter dreamlets during your dive. Trouble is, dreamlets are much more impressive as a memory than as a "here & now" sensation, so when you lucidly encountered them, you probably did not care.

In other words, if you are lucid during a dreamlet, you acknowledge it for what it is: a bit of loose, generally meaningless dreaming imagery wandering across the sleep/wake fence before you are asleep, and it is imagery that you can really do nothing with, because it is so brief and single-dimensional. But when you wake up later, you think back to those voices that you couldn't quite hear, or images that flashed in and out so quickly, and -- probably in the natural process of organizing memory -- you might lend importance to them, imagining that those voices were whispering something that mattered, or that brief image was more than just a random blip of drowsy perception.

I have found -- after a lot of experimentation and high expectation of them mattering, BTW -- that dreamlets' only real value is as a roadmark on the way to sleep. If you are starting to hear those voices, for instance, you can assume that sleep is just around the corner, but you are not quite there yet, so it is best to stay focused. What I do not recommend is trying to use them for, say, forming your actual dream, because it is still a bit early for that and there is simply not enough information in the dreamlets to support your effort (and getting frustrated during a WILD dive is never a good thing, especially right at the beginning).

Thanks, everyone. I'm discovering now that this is actually mentioned fairly often, and there were even some similar questions to mine asked (one just last month)—I just didn't see them because until now I didn't know what exactly to search for.

Usually what I encounter in these dreamlets seems to be situations that are fairly ordinary, often related to what I was doing earlier that day. Every once in a while, something startling may happen that pulls me back awake, and I may be lucky enough to recall what is was; one particularly unusual case I remember was once where I visualized opening a CD-ROM drive, upon which the CD unexpectedly flew straight up in the air like a flying saucer.

I've also apparently done things like reading (also in actual dreams, I believe), where the text I'm reading kind of makes itself up and unfolds as I read it. It feels really fascinating and suspenseful, but I can never remember any of it afterward. I've also found myself apparently composing music in dreamlets (as well as in normal dreams) on occasion, which I don't even know how to do when I'm awake.

OP i know exactly what youre describing. I always know that im about to fall asleep when i get these thoughts. A single thought will only last for a half second and then another one takes its place. Theyre always so ridiculous, I couldnt even give you an example in real life. Its kind of like someone swiping through pictures on a phone, but youre not physically seeing anything, just thinking it.

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Originally Posted by evo315

OP i know exactly what youre describing. I always know that im about to fall asleep when i get these thoughts.

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Yeah, I'm discovering they're useful for knowing just that. For instance, if I'm having trouble getting to sleep but then notice these fleeting thoughts/dreamlets here and there that I didn't consciously initiate, I know I should hold out a bit more since I'm just about to go to sleep.

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Originally Posted by evo315

OP i know exactly what youre describing. I always know that im about to fall asleep when i get these thoughts. A single thought will only last for a half second and then another one takes its place. Theyre always so ridiculous, I couldnt even give you an example in real life. Its kind of like someone swiping through pictures on a phone, but youre not physically seeing anything, just thinking it.

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I've been trying to catch them lately and memorising them to think about in the morning. Last night I caught the voice of Jean-Luc Picard saying, "You have the dribble slipper". WTF? No images. Just the voice.

This crazyness would make an interesting thread :chuckle:

I get dreamlets a lot too...except they are something that is very unstable to remember right now. My dream recall is kinda funky...I remember more details a while after I wake up.

Come to think of it, I think I do become “lucid” during dreamlets on occasion myself. For instance, last night I'd be falling into the mind-wandering stage and unconsciously picture myself doing something (usually an ordinary, mundane daily task), and then make a big mistake or do something I regret. Then, I'd abruptly realize that they're just thoughts/dreamlets, not reality, and just think, “Nope, let's undo that,” and consciously modify the situation accordingly (or simply ignore it altogether). This tends to immediately bounce me out of the “dreamlet” stage and back to full waking awareness, though.

One more interesting observation/idea I realized, in case someone still cares.

On several occasions, I've observed what appears to be a smooth transition from this “thought” phase toward a full-on “dream” phase, where initially, things are still more thought- or daydream-like, but as I drift further into sleep, the imagery gradually becomes clearer, heading toward the point where it “becomes reality”. At the same time, I seem to become less consciously aware of the underlying “daydreamy” thoughts driving everything as they seem to sink further into unconsciousness and more aware of the actual sensory stimuli they represent as it becomes stronger. It feels as if there's a sort of decoupling that takes place between the two.

Also, during the thought-like state, “dream” control is easy (like waking-life daydreams, where I essentially have 100% control), but the state is unstable and tends to end immediately if I try that. As the “decoupling” continues, conscious control becomes gradually more difficult, it seems, since my LD control in general is kind of weak (my biggest long-term goal right now is improving this), but the state becomes more stable.

I could be just imagining things here, and maybe these states really are two completely separate, unrelated things, but, for me at least, there seems to be a very close relation given the apparent transitions that occur. Any thoughts/other perspectives?