Describe your hypnagogia, the borderland of sleep

**SystemsLock** · 07-08-2012 02:25 AM

When attempting a wake induced lucid dream (WILD) there is usually a moment just before the dream begins when you experience a series of hallucinogenic (hypnagogic) effects. There are a broad range of experiences. Some people experience lights, sounds, voices, or other things.

I've been lucky enough to discover that while taking Galantamine* my hypnagogic experiences are very consistent and I can rely on them to become lucid.

After lying down for enough time I'll begin to hear a succession of ringing sounds. The sounds are short and high pitched, growing louder then dying off in a few seconds. They can be quite loud and were pretty dramatic the first time I experienced them. I've nicknamed them "pings" due to their sound and in reference to the signals sent by networked computers. At this point, I'll begin to visualize the scene I want to enter into. If I do this properly, the pings grow from short and erratic to a long consistent tone. My visualization will suddenly become extremely vivid and the pings will break up again into many rapid and chaotic pings then fade away. After which I will be completely induced into a lucid dream.

My hypnagogic experiences are entirely auditory. I see no colors or feel any other sensations. I can infer no sleep paralysis. My dream visualizations are not part of the hypnagogic process and they feel very fake until the dream has actually begun.

I'm very interested to hear what the experiences of others are like. Perhaps there are certain camps everyone fits into. I'd love to find someone with the same experiences as me. Share your thoughts!

* For those interested I've written a how-to post on Galantamine here.

**xChris12** · 07-08-2012 03:16 AM

My first ever successful WILD attempt was a couple of days ago and this was done when I was wide awake. I had some classical music playing on a radio on my ipod and my fan on. It's usually hard for me to fall asleep when I attempt to but I am able to fall asleep quickly after some time. I started off by counting down from 100. Each time I would say "Let go" when I would go down one number. I kept doing this trying to relax further and further until I reached about 30. There I started to get some imagery. I first noticed a man playing soccer and shortly after I saw a man hacky sacking. I continued to count down further and once I reached 0 I started at 50. I had eventually reached 20 and I started to hear whispers and voices when I was not focused on it. Then, after counting down from 0 I started at 25. I reached 0 and decided to stop because it was starting to get annoying. By this point I am in a day dream and I occasionally snapped back to reality every once in a while. As I was in the day dream I started to lose consciousness and eventually I was neither awake nor asleep. For me, it's the same as sleeping in a car. My lose my sense of time and my surroundings and time moves by faster. Then all of the sudden I felt a jolt of energy and regained consciousness. Right after, I started to get these intense vibrations throughout my entire body. While that was happening I felt as if my body was moving readjusting to a certain position even though I wasn't moving at all. While this was happening I felt as if my body was floating to my left and I felt like I was floating in the air. Then it all stopped as fast as it started and I opened my eyes and uncovered myself from my blanket. I looked at my right arm and there was nothing there at all. I sat on my bed trying to remember how to stabilize my dream until I woke up which was about 30 seconds.

**Yosma** · 07-08-2012 05:02 AM

My experiences don't really have a set pattern. I have heard gunshots, a women screaming in my ear, and ringing. I Have also felt my self dragged across the floor and flung around my bed. The only thing that seems to be normal about my experiences is that they are always intense.

**lukass** · 07-08-2012 03:03 PM

few days ago, i was attepmting wild in the morning.i had laid there for a while when my dad walked in the room and asked me something.i was bit angry because he was ruining my wild attempt.Of course i failed like always, and fell asleep. after i woke up i asked him if he really had asked me something.He said he didn't.so it means that either i had dreamt it , or it was so called hypnagogia.

**bluewolf** · 07-13-2012 01:18 AM

Mine are always terrifying but I think it's because until recently I wasn't really sure what was happening to me. I have been able to lucid dream since my childhood without trying but the hallucinations occur about once a fortnight. I'm still not 100% sure what I do differently on those nights for it to occur. I often see someone standing next to my bed, fixtures in my room ripple like water, I have seen fire and the other night I could hear my window rattling as if someone was trying to get in. All the while I am absolutely powerless and can't move. When I was a child they were more related to things I had seen during the day. I spent a day playing with some dogs and that night as I drifted off my bed covers 'barked' at me, haha!

**Stirred** · 07-14-2012 01:25 AM

Thought, except I'm not the one thinking.

**smouse** · 07-14-2012 08:10 AM

While in sleep paralysis I've seen a dark figure that looked like darth vader standing on my bed right beside my head looking down at me. I just keep my eyes closed during SP now haha

**wesnaw** · 07-16-2012 04:54 AM

For me, it feels like my head is getting scrambled (don't know how else to explain it) and sometimes I hear noises such as whispers or even a tape rewinding. As for visual effects, I've only seen one where there is an old school movie screen counting down from 4..3..2..1.., but before it struck zero i got a bit afraid and woke myself up. That was probably the closest i ever got to lucidity. Hopefully tonight i will become lucid.

**imfivebyfive** · 07-16-2012 04:26 PM

Does anyone else ever get the one where you hear someone briskly and clearly saying your first name as if they were sitting beside your bed. That one always freaks me out.

**Chard** · 07-16-2012 05:43 PM

I have two very different kinds of hypnagogic experiences, one for nighttime sleep and one for daytime naps.

The nighttime experience is hallucinations based on what I was doing before I went to bed. For example, if I was just playing Words With Friends, then I'll start to see tiles appear on the WWF board. If I had been filing all day at work, then the experience is none other than sudden and brief visions of being at the job with coworkers around, filing. Too bad I don't get paid for being there after hours. I will also hear some people talking; the voices can come in from different directions and I can make out phrases here and there.

The daytime hypnagogia is a whole other ballgame that I prefer much more to the nighttime variety. It is also eerily similar to your experience, System, but instead of pings, I feel euphoria. I'll get my first flash of euphoria in my head after lying down about an hour. I can be almost certain once that happens that I'm going to have a lucid dream. The flashes start off erratic, then become consistently more frequent and intense. I then get about 5-15 seconds of full-on ecstasy and the dream starts. I feel lucky to be able to achieve this day in and day out with lazy effort on my part.

**Queen Zukin** · 07-16-2012 09:06 PM

I get hypnagogia a lot. Sometimes even when I'm awake.

So, mine will come on the moment I close my eyes for bed. Even if I'm not tired. It's usually a bunch of random BS, like two ice cream cones having sex. When I am WILDing/DEILDing, though, the sounds are really intense and it sounds like someone is repeatedly smashing a bell against a wall.