A White Light took me?

[Lampllight]

I've never lucid dreamed before, maybe when I was a little kid. I know of the subject though and this is the closest thing that I can guess my experience last night was. Not sure if I was awake or dreaming. First, I know I 'had' a dream just before. One of my longer ones, normal dream not lucid. Next thing I know I'm laying in bed, so I think I was awake. In my left eye a bright white light kept appearing, when I looked at it I'd hear a strange but gentle kind of noise. I couldn't see it with my right eye. It was kind of spherical with rays of light extending from it. Somehow I knew or guessed it was to take me somewhere, maybe for a lucid dream. I kept my left eye closed to avoid it, and looked through my right eye. Heck, I even told it to go away, and that I dont want to go anywhere! It wouldn't go away though. I could look away from it but it would eventually follow me, that's why I just decided to close the eye which was the only way to make sure I dont look into it. I went into another room, hoping to avoid it if someone was there... this is where I'm no longer sure if I was even awake to begin with, I was being fooled the whole time that I even had a chance to escape? Eventually I went back to bed thinking its gone. Then when I finally relaxed and opened my left eye thinking it was all over. I thought there was a bit of the white light still there in the center of my vision to catch me... next thing I know I was looking at it, barely visible, and instantly brought into what I knew was not just a 'dream'. I was still laying in my bed, but it wasn't the real world for sure anymore. Everything was very vivid though, I was able to move my arms and legs just as I do in real life, if I concentrated I could float around a bit. I also failed in waking up. I tried waking up and it just put me right back where the experience started, right back into my bed and I was getting up after a few seconds certain this still wasn't real life. After messing around 'my room' a bit more I decided to take a different approach rather than simply commanding myself to wake up. I sat on my bed, looked up at the ceiling and said, "I will clap 3 times. and after the third clap, I will wake up." I then looked up and clapped my hands above my head. I began to clap and counted along with it; 1 - 2 - 3, wake up. This time I was in my room, I could feel this was different I was back to real life, but still took a while to be certain. On each attempt to wake up, both failed and successful attempt, everything went white and a short noise with it. Kind of like a fade in/fade out. Other things to note: - Another thing to mention that I thought about after... When I was attempting to fly and only managing to float a bit I ended up hitting my back against my closet door. Not really hitting my back, but it was near it. When my back was near the closet door I felt a weird tingling along the bottom-middle of my spine. It wasn't a really pleasant tingling, almost like a vibration. I thought that was strange even when it happened. No other weird problems with any other parts of my body. - I went to sleep relatively late, around midnight. I was pretty tired. - If this is also of use, I was never really panicked or my heartrate going up at anytime during this and when I was trying to avoid the white light. That may just be my personality though, I try to stay calm in any given situation. The mood was pretty much, "Ok, I guess this is happening." Well, after waking up man times to hypnogogic hallucinations and seeing spiders and stuff flying around and crawling on my walls (different occasions, unrelated to this) I guess this wasn't enough to shock me. It all transitioned pretty smoothly, nothing was violent or aggressive. Even when the white light took me it was smooth, and very quick. Like a few seconds... looked at the white light, short little noise, and done. - Anyway, hope this was an interesting enough story and if anyone could direct me to what the heck just happened to me that would be wonderful. And why the white light, is there any reason it was some sort of gateway (and a stubborn one at that!)?

[Prelin]

As I drifted to sleep at my parents' house not long ago, I had an overwhelming sensation of white light through my closed eye lids. I knew it was a hypnagogic experience, so it didn't bother me. But it was pretty intense...it actually started to hurt my eyes.

[Lampllight]

That's pretty interesting. My only hypnogogic experiences involve spiders and other creatures flying around or crawling on my walls. Sometimes even rats on my bed. Its usually only with my eyes open as well, never had anything with closed eyes.

[Saizaphod]

My WILD successes always contains a part where my whole body is "pulled" either up or down to complete whiteness while my head is buzzing like crazy. I don't know if it has something to do with visual senses that hypnagogic experiences contain lights, patters etc. since I haven't really done any research about it. But light transitions are the best