Thread: Hypnagogic Drive Bys

So I've come to realize that the large majority of the hynagogic imagery I am aware of involves some sort of fly through or drive by situation. It's as if I am viewing extremely realistic and vivid scenery from a camera lens attached to a car or other vehicle that is driving down a street. The view is specifically, from the driver or passenger side window.

Specific examples...

Driving down a neighborhood street with old houses
Driving down a country road looking out at an old farm house in the distance
Speeding past the banks of a river or lake as though I'm in a boat and watching the shoreline
Driving alongside a forest with freshly fallen snow
Flying over tree tops as if coming in for a landing in an airplane

I'm just curious to find out if other people have similar experiences with hypnagogic imagery. It makes me wonder if these are merely things I have seen before, from a passenger side window riding in a car...and if my mind is just replaying things that it has seen before in the past (either in real life or a movie perhaps).

Of course, I've had a large amount of hypnagogic imagery that involves some sort of visual angle or perspective which would be impossible to capture in real life, so I know for sure that it's not something I've seen before. However the majority seems to involve these "drive bys" or "fly throughs" and I'm just sort of wondering what the deal is with that. If anyone has any theories as to why that might be.

Interesting.

My experiences seem quite different. They seem more slow paced and centered around one location. It could be the way how your brain processes your images, and it wants to present it to you in such fashion.
Furthermore, I think everyone can identify themselves as a kid that would gaze through the car window, quietly observing the landscape, when sitting through a long car ride. This could explain that many people vividly generate drive-by like imagery whilst dreaming.

Just my 2 cents.

I experience a myriad of images in hypnogogic hallucinations, and usually, they are whatever my thoughts led to. Usually the only way for me to go to sleep is just to let myself start thinking randomly, and then this develops into a scene, then this develops into a dream, or sometimes just sleep. Sometimes is drive/fly bys, other times is weird extraterrestrial languages on artifacts, and sometimes its unkown lands, or people I've seen before. Sometimes its machines from the future. I'll pay attention to it more for you though.

Thanks for the replies guys!

I do know what you mean about the alien languages on artifacts...I've actually seen that quite a few times....in typical fly through fashion lol. I guess what interests me most is the motion...there is always lots of motion when changing over from HI into the dream state. I wonder if it's a side effect of certain brain processes, or if there's something about the motion that assists you into entering the dream state. I'm always "moving through" something in hypnaogia...and then eventually I move "through" the frame which I am viewing from and step into a dream. Gotta love those changeovers.

Ahh yes, the motion, I know what it is you are referring to. It is as if your brain is viewing different moving scenes, and then it cuts to another scene, and then another. For me, some are moving, and some aren't. I think the moving helps with making it 3 dimensional eventually, possibly? I still have to test it tonight.

Yep, that's exactly what I think too. Good luck!

Originally Posted by Moto

I think the moving helps with making it 3 dimensional eventually, possibly?

Oh, I'd love to see a 2 dimensional dream once. haha. But this could indeed be an important factor in dream development.
I'll pay more attention to it tonight and write down some more thoughts if I can learn more.

Originally Posted by Decade

Oh, I'd love to see a 2 dimensional dream once. haha. But this could indeed be an important factor in dream development.
I'll pay more attention to it tonight and write down some more thoughts if I can learn more.

Well if you attempt to WILD and reach the transition between hynagogia and lucid dream I guarantee you will experience a 2 dimensional dream. It's the difference between going to the theater and watching a 3D movie with silly glasses on, and actually being inside the movie.

Although not as real or immersive as the dream experience, they are still quite beautiful and breathtaking at times.