Thread: Hypnagogia

(Been poking about a bit for something else and keep finding these FASCINATING articles...)

Here's a nice article on hypnogogic imagery:

http://www.forteantimes.com/articles...pnagogia.shtml

This article goes into depth on the history of interest in the hypnogogic state. Here's a little teaser:

One little known hypnagogic explorer is the Danish philosopher Jurij Moskvitin. In his little-read Essay on the Origin of Thought, Moskvitin desribes how he came to observe “states of mind when consciousness is kept somewhere halfway between the waking state and dream.” Moskvitin became aware of strange “sparks” and “smoke-like forms”, which “upon close and intense observation became the elements of waking dreams, forming persons, landscapes, strange mathematical forms...” The sparks, Moskvitin writes, reminded him of “the tips of waves glittering in the sun” which on prolonged observation appeared to be “strange rings and nets moving swiftly over the waves.”