Auditory Hallucinations

**RedHouse** · 03-21-2017 03:46 PM

So just a few quick questions. As long as I can remember I have had auditory hallucinations when going to sleep, most often when I have gotten up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and gone back to bed. They have never been disturbing, I can't ever make out what I am hearing, kind of like background conversations like if you were at a party or something. I have always enjoyed it because I have used it as an indicator that I am going back to sleep. I just thought that this is a totally normal experience and that everybody experienced this too until reading more about it and finding out that it has an actual name, Hypnogogic Hallucination. Here is my question, in some of the articles I have read it talks about visual hallucinations as well like seeing geometric shapes and lights. Are people seeing this with their eyes close or do they open their eyes and see these shapes? Just to be clear, I am talking about when going to sleep, not when waking up.

**spellbee2** · 03-21-2017 09:52 PM

Visual HH almost always occurs with closed eyes. I say "almost" because I imagine that if the imagery is vivid enough (like you've almost completely transitioned into the dream), it is possible to have them after opening your eyes, though if that's the case they probably won't last very long. I don't necessarily have any experience with that though (I mean, if you're that close to the WILD, you usually will just want to enjoy the WILD, not enjoy the few fleeting seconds of weird visuals on your bedroom ceiling), but based on my experience with closed-eye HH, I can imagine it being possible (though I'm not sure semantically where you would draw the line between "Hypnagogic Hallucinations" and just plain old "Hallucinations" in that case).

Also, fun fact, HH isn't limited to only visual and auditory - it can literally be any of your senses, though those are typically a little rarer. I've had tactile HH several times, where I have like a rocking or spinning sensation, or the feeling that something touches my arm (sounds spookier than it actually was). In fact, just this morning I had some gustatory (a word I had to google tbh) HH. I had the taste of Skittles while I was falling asleep, and ended up transitioning into a dream where I ate Skittles.

**AnotherDreamer** · 03-22-2017 04:11 AM

I usually have visual hallucinations when I'm super tired - it will usually be limited to seeing the walls and carpet 'breathing' and I can control what I see too! I like to practice controlling the hallucinations when that happens, for fun!

I also sometimes have very vivid hallucinations when I'm at the point of passing out. I will have little micro-sleeps where my eyes are open but I will start to dream for a few seconds at a time.

When I'm normally going to sleep though with an average level of tiredness, I will often just see many various coloured dots throughout my field of vision. SO YeS, it can happen with your eyes open as well as eyes closed when going to sleep.

**snoop** · 03-23-2017 12:49 AM

Visual hallucinations during hypnagogia, for me, are basically like seeing a dream scene play out like a movie in front of me, but I'm not physically part of it and I'm aware I am lying in bed with my eyes closed. If I'm lucky enough to wake up in this state, I wait a few seconds and then (for lack of a better way of putting it) "step" into the scene and get a lucid dream out of it.