Thread: Geometric Night Terrors @ Fever Dreams

Oh my God! I'm 25 years old and I've always talked to my parents about a dream I used to have when I was little that I couldn't explain. I couldn't comprehend why I was so scared. My dad would ask me if the nightmare was about ghosts or monsters etc. I always knew it was an irrational fear but literally whenever I tried to remember the dream I couldn't!

As I started reading this thread I got chills because it's exactly what I experienced!

This happened about once a week for 3 years when I was around 8 years old and I've only had the dream once since, which was 5 or 6 years ago.


The deafening vibration, the shapes, the slowness, the agony is all there!

I find it astonishing that it isn't just me who had those dreams and I can't wait to show my parents this thread!

I'm genuinely freaked out and I've got chills still!

SO glad to have found this thread! I had similar dreams as a child. I always associate them with having a high fever.

In mine, it was always a dark, desolate landscape. There was a thin thread, extending from the outer edge of my field of vision (imagine a string extending from the outer corner of your left or right eye). There would be massive round or brutal geometric shape balancing impossibly on the thread. Often I would be aware of the room I was in (half-awake dreaming or hallucination), and know in my heart that the volume of the shape and its precariousness on the thread was impossible for the space I was in. A feeling of terror would accompany it.

I came here a few months ago after having vivid hallucinations of this. I've been having them all my life and been combing the internet to find this.

I finally found it a few months ago and it has helped a lot, but that's not why I decided to make an account and post.

Last time I was here, it went to 2007 and that's it, even though it was 2016. Visiting again, I see its from every year in between and I can't figure out why.

I still have the hallucinations of the shape being in the room with me and its every thing I can do to get rid of it. Worst experience in my life.

I'm going to try and overheat myself tonight and try to cause it. I believe it has to do with high body temperatures.

I will probably run, but I will try not. Hopefully I won't die.

I don't have much time because I am in class currently. Hopefully you guys will hear from me again.
Hopefully the thread doesn't change or disappear again....

Cya all later, I'll keep you updated if I try it.

Hello, TheCusp, and everyone else in this thread! I think this subject is so interesting, and I like the name suggested for the type dream, "The Timaeus". Great idea!

It took me two whole days to read through this thread, because I kept looking up all of the agreed upon features of The Timaeus, as everyone posting here described them. It started because I was reminded of articles I had previously seen, and snowballed from there. Consequently, this is a very, very long post, but I’ve tried to boldface the dream features I was looking for in the links, so if you’re busy, hopefully you can just scroll to anything of interest.

I thought maybe these links would be mostly of interest to anyone looking for physiological explanations?

If you don’t care about any of that, and you’re solely interested in a spiritual or metaphysical explanation for The Timaeus, you might skip this post, because it’s extensive, and probably boring.

I also want to add that there are some words in my descriptions which are medical and came from the pages I've linked to, like parts of the brain, which I don't completely understand myself, so it probably won't help you to ask me about them. I'm just someone who's interested in dreams!

First, I've always had an interest in art. One of my main interests has always been ancient rock art . . . cave paintings and stone carvings, that sort of thing. A while back, I came across some articles that discussed the possible connection of geometric motifs in rock art being related to the biology of hallucinations, rather than being symbolic of anything in ‘waking’ life.

The idea is that ancient people saw these images, either after ingesting hallucinogens, in a feverish condition, while closing their eyes in the sunlight, or in blindness, and felt that the images were sacred/powerful specifically because they were hallucinations, and so made a permanent record of them in their rock art.

This article is 3 pages long, and particularly good:

The 'Meaning' of Symbols - Motifs & the Human Nervous System

If anyone is interested in reading more about the biology of hallucinations in blindness, and personal accounts of what that's like, here is a really good link:

Charles Bonnet Syndrome Foundation - Personal Stories

And a further link from a quick internet search for “Charles Bonnet Syndrome inspired art”:

https://www.google.com/search?q=char...w=1113&bih=593

If you're wondering what blindness has to do with febrile hallucinations, first follow this link to an image showing how the optic nerve sits just below the hypothalamus:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedh...2387/?figure=2

And next look at this page, describing the function of the hypothalamus, including body temperature regulation, fluid balance, secretions of the gut, and sleep cycles. If there is inflammation in this area of the brain, it could explain some of the experiences The Timaeus dreamers mentioned in this thread like, dry tongue, fever, nausea, vivid dreams, and hallucinations:

https://www.endocrineweb.com/endocri...w-hypothalamus

The next links connect to articles discussing how the eyes and ears send signals to the amygdala (which rests very near the hypothalamus) to interpret, and if it (along with other structures, I think) perceives danger, it prompts the hypothalamus to initiate the “fight or flight” response. This could help to explain why objects and sounds in The Timaeus hallucinations and dreams often seem to be described as impossible, and horrible:

https://science.howstuffworks.com/li...tions/fear.htm

https://www.health.harvard.edu/stayi...tress-response

The amygdala is the focus of the article in the next link, too. This article says the amygdala isn’t only associated with fear, but also the perception of importance, and attention, which might affect decision making, and motivation. I’m including it because multiple dreamers have mentioned the experience of encountering an impossible task, an object which seems perfect, seems to impart a sense of ecstasy, or a feeling unable to look away from an object in The Timaeus dreams and hallucinations. Also, there’s some good information about the pupil dilating automatically, which could help to account for the eye pain, and headache many dreamers experience during The Timaeus:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3811090/

Because some dreamers have mentioned the shared experience of dreaming or hallucinating about numbers, which often feel unpleasant, here’s an article describing how scientists discovered that the temporal inferior gyrus (seems to be located near the base - beneath the hypothalamus, amygdala, and optic nerve - and outer cortex of the brain . . . near your ears) specializes in processing numerals. Interestingly, it says that the same area of the brain is already known for processing visual information:

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-ne...cognition.html

Also possibly (?) related to numerals, expanses of space, and grid lines is this article I found about the hippocampus, something called the entorhinal cortex, and how they create maps or graphs of triangular grid lines[/B], not only of the environment, but also of relationships between things that are abstract[/B], or two dimensional. I don’t understand it, but there is something in the article, too, about a predictive map, and rapid computation of values which might make sense to people who understand mathematics. The part about rapid computation of values reminded me of dreamers who mentioned waking up from The Timaeus with computations running uncontrollably through their minds. (Note: there should be images on this page. If you can’t see them, click on the link that says, “side by side”, and then “figures”) I have no idea why the grid pattern in the brain is triangular, but as a wild guess, I was thinking it might be partly because we have two eyes with binocular vision? And it made me think of the multiple images depicting mountains, or pyramids Timaeus dreamers reported. The second link is probably better for people who don’t understand a lot about math and science, and specifically mentions the role of sleep in consolidation of these memories, but doesn’t include images:

https://elifesciences.org/articles/17086

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/315184.php?sr

I noticed, too, while reading dreamers descriptions, the colors described are all very similar. I recall mention of red/burgundy, brown/black/silver, blue, green, and yellow/gold. I’ve grouped them together in that way because as someone who’s interested in art, it got me to thinking about color wheels, and how there’s a different color wheel for mixing paint, etc. then there is for mixing light (as on a television screen). I was wondering if these colors were related to how the eye/brain deciphers the mixing of light, and that’s why the colors are recurring so regularly. The subtractive color wheel, or CMYK model, shows how mixing red, green, and blue (which first have to be made by mixing yellow, cyan, and magenta) results in an imperfect black, which might be interpreted as brown, or possibly even silver (IMO) by the brain:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMYK_color_model

There are a lot of references to hands in these descriptions, and it reminds me of the homunculus brain/body map. A lot of the brain is devoted to hands:

https://mycerebellarstrokerecovery.c...12/homunculus/

Here’s one about cognitive dissonance. It looks like this part of the brain is sort of in front of the hypothalamus. I was interested in the part that explained how this dissonance can help us determine what is “wrong”. I was thinking maybe it could help explain why The Timaeus contradictions feel so unpleasant:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...e-dissonance1/

Juxtapositions of size seem like an exceptionally prominent feature of The Timaeus. I got to thinking about how in terms of evolution, a lot of threats people probably faced out there in the wilderness were either very small (like venomous spiders), or very large (like charging mammoths), and I found a link that explains that impending collision influences the perceived size of an object. In other words, if a tiny bug flies straight toward your eye, you react as if to avoid impact by jumping backward. If you don’t feel much like reading, scroll to the “Discussion” section, which includes some very interesting details. For example, visual stimulus paired with white noise can initiate automatic attention, the response doesn’t have to be conscious, and the amygdala and subcortical visual pathway seem to be involved:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5133426/

Because some dreamers mentioned feelings of horror, disgust, or nausea brought about by these images and juxtapositions, I’ve got a link about the neuropsychology of disgust:

https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/8/2/121/1625713

The following detailed article explores temporal perception (the perception of time) in the brain, and specifically examines the hurdles the brain has to overcome on the best of days regarding visual and auditory perception of time. I think this is especially relevant to dreamers who are interested in the common feature of excruciatingly slow moving objects, or The Grinds, they dream or hallucinate:

http://www.eagleman.com/blog/brain-time

And here’s an interesting link which explains how capillaries dilate, releasing plasma proteins into the surrounding tissue as a fever develops and peaks. That causes swelling in the tissues, probably including the optic nerve, and hypothalamus. And another link showing drawings of plasma proteins, just because I was wondering if these might look like some of the geometric shapes you've seen? (not all the drawings on that page are of plasma proteins, I don't think!):

Inflammation and the Pathophysiology of Fever

https://stock.adobe.com/search?k=%22..._source=ft_web

Here is a link from an internet search for, “feverish dream inspired art”. I noticed pillars, eyes, geometric shapes, some images seeming to depict vast landscapes, and ominous themes:

https://www.google.com/search?q=feve...w=1113&bih=593

For comparison, an internet search for “near death experience inspired art”. I feel like there are a lot more thin lines, and grid patterns on this page, but I didn’t count:

https://www.google.com/search?q=near...w=1113&bih=593

One dreamer mentioned experiencing The Timaeus while at the top of a large mountain range. This next link is brief, and shows the symptoms of a condition called, “High Altitude Cerebral Edema”, which also involves swelling within the brain tissues. Notice that nausea, hallucinations, and blindness are all listed as symptoms. It doesn’t say so on the page I’m linking to, but a low fever is also a symptom of altitude sickness:

High Altitude Cerebral Edema « Climbing High

And here’s one that gives some firsthand accounts of hallucinatory experiences of high altitude climbers which I thought was relevant because it discusses hallucinations involving strange bodily sensations, and strange distortions of perception regarding the size of objects or of the body. Some of the dreamers commenting on this thread have mentioned similar experiences:

http://anesthesiaweb.org/images/hypo...ugger-1999.pdf

Here’s another link which discusses Charles Bonnet Syndrome, and how pressure on the optic chiasm (the place where the two optic nerves cross in the brain to form an X shape) can cause visual hallucinations combined with a feeling of fear. I'm including these links not because I think anyone here is going blind, or has tumors, but because there is inflammation during fever, and that could possibly account for additional pressure on the optic nerves which could offer an explanation for these Timaeus hallucinations, coupled with a feeling of fear, dread, or horror:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com...nnet-syndrome/

The next link is a very good link which lists the numerous sensory experiences people have related to migraine aura, with or without subsequent migraine. I’m including this because, like the report of the high altitude climbers, it mentions strange bodily sensations and distortions of perceptions of size. It also mentions de ja vu’ and sensation of extreme fear, or dread which have been mentioned by dreamers in this thread:

https://migrainetalkblog.wordpress.c...f-think-again/

And here’s one regarding migraine as an inflammatory disorder:

Migraine as an inflammatory disorder

Finally, there's this informative page reviewing Tinnitus, a condition which could help to explain the rushing sound, or deafening silence dreamers hear along with the visual hallucinations/dreams of The Timaeus. Specifically of interest is the section "Types of Tinnitus" as it describes "Objective Tinnitus", which can be heard by another person, using a stethoscope. Tinnitus can be associated with headache, infection, anxiety, and dehydration. In the section, “Causes of tinnitus”, both ear infection and tooth abscess are mentioned. Although it doesn’t specifically mention fever, the second link does say that tinnitus can be associated with fever:

Tinnitus: Causes and Treatment

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC546075/

I’m not implying that the hallucinations or dream content of The Timaeus are insignificant, or solely a manifestation of a person’s physical condition. I think that the spiritual significance is personal, relevant, and probably influenced by the way each dreamer actually feels during the experience, and how they come to view the experience, afterward. The reason I’m offering up all of these links pointing to a physical source for The Timaeus, is because lots of the posts in this thread ask why so many people have similar experiences, and I was reminded of the articles I had seen in the past about the rock art, the tinnitus, hallucinations in blindness, and high altitude cerebral edema. So I started doing the internet search thing, and found a lot of other links to share.

I agree that there has to be something - that it can’t be coincidence! I think part of it might be biology/physiology . . . I don’t know the proper way to say it.

TheCusp, if the theory about the rock art geometric imagery is right, then your suspicion that these hallucinations/dreams are very old is correct. And The Timaeus might be a fairly modern title for them, oddly enough!

sweet dreams!

Wow I finally found something on this. Like most of you have said I had these dreams when I was younger, from around the age of 8 till my last and most horrifying one at around 12 years old. Its so hard to explain what happened but reading alot of these posts seems to have brought more of the dreams back to me. I cant be 100% sure I had a fever at the time but I believe it had to do with either extreme stress or some kind of illness. Anyways the last time I had this dream all I can remember was being in a Infinite abyss where the only thing around were these geometric figures constatly on the move. The closest thing I could compare it to is like Tetris but everything was in constant motion. While this was going on I was there consciously but not physically if that makes any sense. It almost seemed like I was on trial or was being judged by some higher power. The way they communicated was almost telepathic or through vibrations. I just remember being horrified at what was going on and fealt like this was a life or death situation. What was wierd about my situation was when I had these dreams I would always sleep walk. The last time it happened I was standing on the split level of my stairs, staring up at the 2nd floor while "I was on trial" it was almost like I was in a different dimension. Once I snapped out of it I just remember being absolutely covered in sweat and deathly afraid for my life. I would wake up and be in a fog or half awake and it would take what would seem like hours to get back to normal. Very strange these dreams were. That was the last one I can remember.

Has anybody had these crazy dreams when not having a fever? Its not even a nightmare or dream. Its like an impossible task night terror but like no images... And nothing makes sense. You try to make sense and you try to explain but you just can't. And it takes you a while to get out of that horrible state of fear agony and desperation. It's there when you wake up for like 20 minutes. Lucky for me, though its rare, my husband goes through like I do. So we know how to comfort each other. Its just terrible tho. We were wondering is there anyone else??

I just responded on your other thread about this but I wanted to add something. I think you're just noticing a deep level of sleep/dream that we experience normally but usually don't notice or remember. Something might have enhanced your awareness - this can be because of stress or something causing your alertness to spike as if you might be in danger. Obviously when we used to sleep on the ground outside this would be very useful in case of predatory animals lurking nearby or whatever, but it also makes you more aware of the sleep state and of dreams that you wouldn't normally notice. A fever does cause this same kind of spiked awareness and can cause people to dream like this a lot, though other factors can too - it doesn't have to be fever.

Hello all! This thread has been an exciting find, as I too have had a lifelong curiosity regarding “the Timaeus” and its true meaning. Like many, I experienced these frequently in early childhood/adolescence. They continued infrequently throughout high school and college (1-2 times a year), and stopped around age 20 (I am now 23). I remember the final episode vividly, and hang on to the experience, as I may never have another.

TheCusp and many others have described these experiences well (as well as written language allows, at least), so I’ll refrain from rambling about the specifics of my own. I will try to focus on summarizing information, and adding new insights where possible. Being such a rare topic on the internet and elsewhere, I want to make the most out of this post.

I’d like to start with a list of the Timaeus’s hallmark characteristics. I’ve experienced just about every one described in this thread.

-Paradox, or extreme juxtaposition. Something may loop incredibly slow and fast at the same time, or an object may be simultaneously massive and microscopic.
-The infinite. A sudden and horrifying comprehension of infinity in its rawest form. Sometimes conveyed through size imagery, other times just as an abstract and indescribable “feeling”.
-Synesthesia. An overlapping of senses in an impossible and profoundly discomforting manor. Can be visual, tactile, and aural.
-Disembodiment, or warping of the one’s proprioception. Limbs stretching out to infinity. Existing as or within an impossible space.
-Dysphoria in many forms. Feelings of abject terror. Being subjected to cosmically intense scrutiny. Being consumed by hopelessness, with a sense of resounding and irreversible failure. Reduction of oneself and all the cosmos to a state of infinitesimal triviality--nearly to the point of nonexistence.
-Repetition. A rhythm, pattern, movement, or action carried out indefinitely. Nauseating in its monotony. Tedious, futile, hellish, unending.
-Inevitability. Being powerless in the face of a predestined and nightmarish outcome.
-All of these at once, and in every possible combination.

These dreams are some of the most fascinating and disturbing experiences of my life, and it is impossible to convey how utterly alien they are to people who have not experienced them. I like how someone described being robbed at gunpoint as less frightening. It’s as if during these episodes, every neuron responsible for fear and negative emotion is firing at once.

As for the cause? It’s impossible to say for sure. Some posters lean towards a more spiritual and metaphysical approach (omataozen in 2014), while others stick to the material sciences and how the phenomenon might manifest in structures of the brain (amateur in 2017). Of course, these are not mutually exclusive, and the respective posters acknowledge this.

I personally believe these dreams do reveal some hidden truths, even if they are the result of some “malfunction”. Research points to dream as a way to sort through and process information obtained in one’s waking life, and even “simulate” possible solutions to problems or queries. A number of famous scientists credit their breakthrough discoveries to images modeled in dreams (discovery of the structure of benzene, Mendeleev’s table of elements). There is also the threat simulation theory, positing that dreams help us face and prepare for danger without having to risk death, providing a distinct evolutionary advantage. This leads into my theory….

I think that night terrors may be a “short circuit” that occurs when the brain’s problem solving mechanism is fed an impossible question. Usually, our dreams simulate pertinent threats, both from our evolutionary history and daily lives (i.e. running from a tiger, or showing up late for an exam). For some of us, however, the dreaming subconscious may tackle more existential and philosophical queries that it is unable to handle. I know personally that I fixated on metaphysical questions from a very early age (death, nothingness, infinite space). These thoughts caused much fear and anxiety, and very likely seeped into my dream world. One might imagine how the dreaming subconscious, freed from its daily distractions and equipped with all of brains creative capacity and computing power, might approach near insanity when trying to model or resolve any of these concepts—much like what happens when you feed a computer an iterative set, resulting in a feedback loop and eventual crash.

I URGE everyone in this forum to watch this video on the Mandlebrot set. It’s fascinating, and lends some insight into the processes I believe are responsible for these night terrors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56gzV0od6DU

That’s about it. If you read all of this, thank you, and I’d like to hear your thoughts. It’s been 3 years since the last post, but I think this thread has some life yet in it.

Not sure if this thread is still active but is incredible. I never thought I'd find so many people who share the same inexplicable experience.

I'm 31 yo and have been having these dreams/terrors since I was maybe 4-5. They were more frequent when I was younger (maybe once a month) but I still have them (albeit less frequent - maybe 3-5 times a year). None of them have happened while I was sick or had a fever.

It's exactly as how people here describe them but they're also just so indescribable which has frustrated me my whole life. I could never explain them to people or doctors. They were really bad as a kid. I would often wake up and the the "feeling" of the dream would always linger for several minutes after waking up. I would go to my parents room and start crying and start hitting my head. All I could say was that "my head hurts" because if I said I had a bad dream, my parents would just tell me it's not real and to go back to sleep but it's so much more than just a bad dream. On a few occasions I started slamming my head into a wall to try to shake the feeling away. They tried taking me to a doctor once but I couldn't describe the dream so nothing came of it. When I was maybe 25 or so, I learned that 2/3 siblings also share the same dream but with lesser frequency. They said they never mentioned it because it's so impossible to describe. I have no idea what these dreams are but I can't help but feel they've had a negative impact on my life. Sometimes even in my waking life, something weird will happen that will trigger the return of the feeling. It just feels like an eternal darkness of some sort that still haunts me.

I'm not sure if this is related but I've had extreme depression and anxiety almost my whole life. It started maybe when I was 12-13. It's honestly debilitating and I'm sad of what has become of me. I just wanted to throw that out there in case there's other people in the same boat.

Here's my descriptions of the dreams. Since I've had so many of them, the details may seem to vary a lot but the core feeling is always the same:

- I never have a body

- Empty white room that appears infinite

- Suddenly something starts to invade the space. It starts small - pretty much miniscule. It's like a tiny dot that then suddenly morphs into horrid and enormous shapes. It feels infinite and like there is an incredible force and will moving it. It feels unstoppable and all I could do is observe it. It's full of contradictions. It moves agonizingly slow at times but also incredibly fast in an instant. The texture is both perfectly smooth and then spiky/jagged. The color is always either brown or black and shiny like oil. It's texture is gelatinous and blob-like. It often sprouts out lines that are both thin and thick. It moves at such slow speeds and that fills me with such dread and fear. It feels like it's going to engulf me. It often turns into a huge wheel or like a huge tangled ball of yarn. It seamlessly transitions between states of utter chaos and complete stillness. The chaos is unrelenting and it feels like having a panic attack x 100. The shape also becomes chaotic (more like the tangled ball of yarn I mentioned). The stillness feels wrong - almost like it's too calm. When still, the shape morphs back into a perfectly smooth ball but then starts to move and morph again at painfully slow speeds. The cycle repeats forever. Often it feels like both the chaos and stillness are happening at the same time which drives me insane.

- A grinding of gears or churning feeling. It often feels like this shape starts churning and grinding and it feels like a death factory at this point.

- There are voices I hear but they appear far and distant but also deafening. They sound like a really loud echoing whisper - not yelling though. Imagine someone is whispering to you but someone just turns the decibel level up drastically. The worst part of the voices is that they have no tone or emotions. They're flat, monotone, and emotionless. The best I can describe this is imagine being on the brink of death in an operating room and they put you under anesthesia but 1% of consciousness stays aware. You hear the surgeons talking over you and about you but to them, you're just their job so they don't really care. It's business as usual to them and they need to stay professional so their voices reflect that as they perform the surgery and communicate with each other. The voices for me also seem to be part of the "impossible task" that others have also experienced. They basically are telling me what I have to do and then inevitably, they tell me when I have failed. I don't remember any specific words or phrases but it's something along the lines of "It's over. You didn't do it. That's it. Oh well. You can give up now". But again, with no emotion whatsoever.

-The impossible tasks. Like I just mentioned, there's always a feeling of having to do something that seems impossible. Like counting to infinity or observing something that's infinite. If I don't do it, it feels like something terrible will happens.

- Contradictions of infinite degrees. Big/small. Loud/quiet. Slow/fast. Smooth/rigid. Clear/static etc.

- No objective sense of time. It all feels like eternity.

- Feelings of pure dread, fear, hopelessness, and madness. Feels like my soul is being ripped apart or stretched by a blackhole. As many of you know, this is the core part of the terror of these dreams.

- Lingering feelings after waking up. Even after I wake up ad move around, the feeling sticks with me. Sometimes walking around makes it worse because it creates another juxtaposition in that my head is still experiencing that agonizing slowness but my body is moving about at normal speed which in contrast, seems like high speed.

- Nausea and pulsating headaches after waking up.

- There's a buzzing or static noise. I'm not sure if it's actual noise or just the "sound" of deafening silence.

- There's the constant dripping sound every so often. It sounds like a leaky faucet that drives you crazy but it's so loud and the "splashing" sound of the droplet leads to my next point (below).

- A feeling of something very small and delicate bursting or being crushed by something of unimaginable force (the shape). I think someone said it best here when they said it's like an enormous boulder or planet crushing a single flower. In terms of the leaky faucet, it feels like the droplet gets engulfed by the shape and sends waves or ripples of dread throughout everything in place of the rippling of water that normally happens with a leak.

- To this day, I try to avoid certain things that have been known triggers for me. These are things that don't necessarily take me all the way back to the terror, but they give me an inkling of that feeling. These include clay animation (the blob-like texture and bizarre movements), sound or video played at fast or slow speeds, leaky faucets, seeing CGI renderings of impossible shapes (e.g. tesseracts) and large amounts of marijuana.


I really really hate that I have these dreams. If this is a glimpse of hell or of any afterlife, I want no part of it. My best guess (based on nothing) is that it's some universal consciousnesses memory or view of the universe. Like we're experiencing/witnessing something so unfathomable that our tiny minds can't comprehend or take it in which drives that feeling of madness and dread. A lot of this resembles aspects of the Big Bang to me as well as other phenomena such as black holes, planetary collisions, super novas, tiny objects with the mass of suns, etc. That being said, I can't help but shake the feeling that there is something conscious or aware driving the forces in the dreams. It feels like it's something unstoppable and unrelenting. I would love for someone to study this as this is so different than normal "dream psychology" but I'm worried I'm going to be having these terrors for the rest of my life.

just joined this forum to chime in ... for what it's worth ... came here by searching "geometric fever dreams".

had these from early childhood, stopped in early teens, always a sure sign of a fever in my case. always the exact same recurring dream -

everything is sort of grey, colourless, like in the dark, 'grainy'. there are these huge geometric balls/circles/spheres (at least two of them, and one of them has a 'spoke' pattern or something like that, at least that's how i drew it when i tried to paint it as a kid). the circles are moving terrifyingly slow. i can see a tiny shape moving in between them which i identify with (even though it's by no means 'me' nor 'my body'). the tiny shape looks a bit like what the childhood me interpreted as a cherry lollipop: a tiny circle with a thin stick, and this one is possibly in colour, whereas the rest of the space & circles is colourless. the space has a sense of huge expanse to it, even though the whole situation with the slow-moving circles is at the same time terrifyingly claustrophobic.

main characteristics being the contrast between 'overwhelmingly huge' and 'fragile tiny', and that terrifying slow movement that is threatening to squish the cherry lollipop me. mine had no sound perception associated with it.

to think of it still makes me feel out of breath even now, more than 30 years later ...

have found myself thinking of it as some scary pre-natal memory over the years, no idea if that's true.

It's great to see that I wasn't the only one who had a dream or dreams like this. The one I had was when I was very young I could say 5 or 6 but I'm not sure. I don't remember the time at all I just remember the dream and the house I lived in when I had it.

But I was in this void and the first thing I notice is a huge infinitely humongous cube that comes by. And it's yelling like a grown man. But the yell is tremendously loud and extremely terrifying. And it's constant. And for some reason it feels as if the big cubes are smiling at me. Not physically of course but it literally feels like there just messing with me cuz they know I don't understand. Then after they pass by my awarness shifts to an infinitely small cube and its mumbling in a very high pitch voice. There's no word just really high pitch loud yet quiet mumbling. And the cube feels more terrified then me. Which makes me even more terrified because how in the world could it be more terrified then me after what I just witnessed. Its a lot like The Crushing that IJJIJIIJJIJI mentioned. Very similar. But with no physical objects. I dont remember seeing the cubes I just remember feeling there presence. And they felt very sentient too.

I never really gave this dream much thought until a month or so ago. I'm 18 now. But I was experimenting with mushrooms because I know they can give you ego death and all that. God was I dumb for wanting that. But my 3rd experience with it went terribly wrong very quickly. It was all fun in games until I went into my friends living room and laid on the couch. Then I opened my eyes and pretty much woke up in a bad trip. I was quickly losing my self identity. At one point I looked at my friend and said who am I. All I could remember is I lived with my brother and that I had a dog. Bit i had no clue what any of that meant in the moment. Then I closed my eyes and went into this void. And it felt very very similar to the place in the dream. Although I wasn't really thinking about that. All that was on my mind was the tremendous familiarity of this sensation through my body. It felt like magnets trying to come together but pushing themselves away. I had no visuals I was in a void. And it was a very very strong feeling. I can't even really remember what it felt like at all but I remember opening my eyes and saying or thinking about how familiar it was.

Before this trip I was very spiritual and meditated every day. But after I didn't want to mess with it because every time I tried to meditate this feeling of fear would hit me. But I've slowly been getting back to it latley. Well the other day I sat down to meditate and I got this feeling of fear. But this time it was very strong. And it automatically reminded me of the dream I had with the cubes for the first time in years. I spoke to the fear and told it that I was done i wouldnt let it push me around anymore. And I wanted it to come see me in my dreams again. Even though I never want to be that terrified again. I want to go up against whatever this is and somehow make up with it. Even though we all know thats completely impossible cuz I don't even know what the hell "it" is. But then I went to lay down and got comfortable. It was 5 to 10 minutes after I got comfortable and the feeling from the dream was there. I haven't felt this feeling for at least 12 years. So it was very surprising. I was still wide awake. But between my hands I felt this feeling of a very very large slab. Like a infinitely big or small rectangular slab. And it felt like it was about to break on the right end. Not in the middle But on the right end. And this was 100% the exact feeling I had in my dream. So I've been obsessing with it since. Then I found this and it made me realize I'm not crazy. There's just something crazy happening. To those who read this huge thing thankyou and please tell me if you can relate to any of this in any way.

Out of all the experiences here that I've read, yours, blacksky01, probably has the most similarities to mine. A lot of what others have mentioned is also familiar, but I was surprised by the words you used -- they are so close to how I've talked about it.

I had these experiences regularly, as a young child. I learned how to trigger them, and would often have it happen in dreams, sometimes during high fevers, as many others have mentioned. From what I can recall, it happened once when I was 13, during a high fever, and once again in my early twenties, when I accidentally triggered it during meditation. I'm in my 40's now, and have only experienced the very edge of the it (it happens in stages for me) on the rarest of occasions.

It's something I'd like to explore, and I wish I could remember how to get into it. The experience in my 20's showed me that I could watch it in a somewhat detached state. I couldn't handle it for more than a few minutes at most, because it really does feel insanity inducing -- like one's mind is being ripped apart. I believe the experience has driven most of my curiosity for strange things in life, because it was direct, intense, and so far outside of the norm. Language can't articulate effectively, but we try!

The voices - I've always referred to them as Forceful Whispers. They are unimaginably forceful, almost as if they precede themselves. I think this is part of the feeling of madness. We try to track things from specific boundary points, but in this experience, there aren't any boundaries -- it's infinite, so our rational, conventional minds can't handle it. The whispers are one with the churning blackness. It's as if infinity is turning in on itself from every possible direction.

I deeply appreciate everyone's contributions here -- thanks for sharing!!!

Wow! I had completely forgotten about this site, used to post here infrequently several years ago when I was really into lucid dreaming, but I eventually lost interest. Had to make a new account to reply to this.
I ended up on this thread after a free fall down the google rabbit-hole after I came across a tweet where someone mentioned experiencing sensing a panicked voice silently screaming at them, and my first thought was "Oh, they're hearing squares!"

So, all though my childhood, and still on rare occasions, I had the Timaeus "dreams", or as my 6 year old brain dubbed it; Hearing squares. (Named precisely because the experience defied all sense of logic.) As many others here, it was impossible to describe to family or friends, and eventually I just shrugged it off as some weird stuff my brain used to do, but finding this thread re-awakened my curiosity, and I've tried my best to explain my experience of it below;

It either precedes or follows a night of sleep, but it always happens as I'm awake in bed.
Everything is perceived through a static-like filter, except its not purely visual; Myself, my thoughts, the room around me and everything in it is split into what feels like a fourth-dimensional kaleidoscopic grid of opposites. It's rust-red in colour. Or it feels rust-red. Everything feels simultaneously both immensely big and microscopically small, violently loud and deadly quiet. Mental images, no matter what they are, become almost comically or cartoonishly disfigured to the point where I feel like I'm going insane.
Along with this comes the strong sense of a presence, and from it, a notion of extreme urgency. It emanates anger and despair, directed towards me.
It is silently shouting at me about something, and it leaves me feeling like I´m a child in a world I don't yet understand.
The experience is mentally exhausting and almost painful, as if my mind is being ripped apart and my sense of self is deteriorating. It somehow feels industrial, dirty and just disgusting.
It lingers for a while after getting up and it can be so powerful I used to be afraid it would somehow damage my mind.

Re-discovering this collective nighttime insanity has made me want to try to replicate this feeling visually since words can only explain to an extent, (Im a filmmaker and I've been toying with the idea of making some sort of little documentary about this whole thing), and I've come across an effect that, to me, is the closest I've seen the Timaeus "feeling" depicted, and I'm curious to hear if its just me or if anyone else feels the same way. Its a Photoshop tool called "Content aware scale" and is these days primarily used to make distorted memes.
As a new member I apparently can't post links yet but a quick YouTube search for "content aware scale memes" gets you tons of results.

Also, if anyone is interested in participating in the potential documentary, (and replies within a couple of months), I would love to interview fellow Timaeus sufferers/enthusiasts

Originally Posted by magnus0pus

Wow! I had completely forgotten about this site, used to post here infrequently several years ago when I was really into lucid dreaming, but I eventually lost interest. Had to make a new account to reply to this.

If you already created an alternate account, contact an administrator for help sorting it out.
Either PM or Talk To Staff ASAP.
Here: https://www.dreamviews.com/talk-staff/ so you can reconnect with your old account.

Please see Da Rules here: https://www.dreamviews.com/rules-regulations/
Do you remember your old User Name?
We don't really allow Alt OR variants accounts here.
--------------------------------

Back on TOPIC!!!

Originally Posted by magnus0pus

.
I ended up on this thread after a free fall down the google rabbit-hole after I came across a tweet where someone mentioned experiencing sensing a panicked voice silently screaming at them, and my first thought was "Oh, they're hearing squares!"

So, all though my childhood, and still on rare occasions, I had the Timaeus "dreams", or as my 6 year old brain dubbed it; Hearing squares. (Named precisely because the experience defied all sense of logic.) As many others here, it was impossible to describe to family or friends, and eventually I just shrugged it off as some weird stuff my brain used to do, but finding this thread re-awakened my curiosity, and I've tried my best to explain my experience of it below;

It either precedes or follows a night of sleep, but it always happens as I'm awake in bed.
Everything is perceived through a static-like filter, except its not purely visual; Myself, my thoughts, the room around me and everything in it is split into what feels like a fourth-dimensional kaleidoscopic grid of opposites. It's rust-red in colour. Or it feels rust-red. Everything feels simultaneously both immensely big and microscopically small, violently loud and deadly quiet. Mental images, no matter what they are, become almost comically or cartoonishly disfigured to the point where I feel like I'm going insane.
Along with this comes the strong sense of a presence, and from it, a notion of extreme urgency. It emanates anger and despair, directed towards me.

But, Yeah, I've been there in a sense. Everything feels simultaneously both immensely big and microscopically small, violently loud and deadly quiet.
Clone myself in my dreams and the feeling of simultaneously getting torn apart and stitched back together... The textile feeling is crazy and sometimes very painful.

Btw, Are you getting enough sleep? Not getting enough sleep can cause Hallucinations like these too.

~Lang
DreamView Mod.

My sleep schedule is pretty good at the moment, these episodes never seemed to correlate with a lack of sleep, as far as I can tell.
"A textile feeling" is a pretty good way to describe it as well!

Btw, maybe you can answer this as you are a mod Lang, but would I be allowed to use a some quotes from some of these replies in my video/documentary, if I exclude the usernames? Just general descriptions of how the Timaeus dreams appear for different people.
I would message each user privately and ask but as this thread dates back to 2006 I'd imagine there are a lot of inactive users.

This was a recurring dream for much of my childhood, until I was roughly 15 years old. Even now, many years later, it still creeps into my psyche as flashbacks of the visions and emotions felt at the time and tears at corners of my sanity. It still terrifies me to this day. I’m not big on religion or believing in higher beings or alternate planes of existence, but to this day, it is the experience that likened itself the most to encountering a god-like entity. Something so completely otherworldly and incomprehensible that I cannot explain its occurrence through my otherwise rational, explainable, deterministic vision of the world.

I’ve read through every post on all 9 pages, and some of the accounts I’ve read are shockingly accurate and relate the experience incredibly well.

I’d like to add to this pool of accounts, but by taking a pseudo-scientific approach to the dream and breaking it down as best I can to its barest elements, and build a somewhat coherent logical framework to explain elements of the dream. I’ve not finished writing everything either, some parts are left blank for now.

I believe the existential dread, abject terror, intense panic, physical nausea and complete loss of sense of self stems from two main sources. The inability of the human mind to cope with physical manifestations of the infinite, and the cognitive dissonance of the juxtaposition of deeply contradictory facts.

The Observer:
This is the perspective of the dreamer.

In most cases, there is no physical presence, but a sense of awareness and consciousness of one’s existence in the dream world. The dreamer can perceive and feel the space he inhabits, not through a first- nor third-person perspective, but through an elevated, dematerialised sense of self. Additionally, the dreamer is prone to being in a state of high emotional sensitivity, as is often the case during dream states.

The Space:
This is the plane where the dream unfolds.

It is an infinite space of absolutely uniform colour - blindingly white in my case - which has no up, down, left, right, no horizon and prevents any sense of depth perception and shows no bounds (think along the lines of the White Room in the Matrix (1), Assassin’s Creed Animus loading screen (2), or futuristic world where Squidward is alone (3) - links not working because new account). Despite The Space being infinite, it feels sickeningly claustrophobic.

In many cases, The Observer reports having the innate knowledge that the space is infinite. However I would like to offer a rational explanation for how one comes to this conclusion. Rather than simply “knowing” the space is infinite, I posit that The Observer physically experiences infinity in a deeply unsettling and dread-inducing way for the first of many times in this dream.

How he does so can be explained by looking at how our human brains perceive movement. To do so, we look for one of two things. First, movement of the object itself; for instance the movement of legs marching, even against a static white background, would indicate to our brain a sense of direction and movement. Or second, movement of the background in relation to a static object; think of a train moving - if we fix a camera to a moving train, the background whizzing by would indicate movement.

However, as explained above, The Observer has no physical presence in The Space, thus when moving in it as a formless viewer, there is no movement coming from The Observer himself. This rules-out the first way of perceiving movement. Moreover, since The Space presents no objects that could be used as a frame of reference - just one constant unwavering colour - no background change is observed when moving through it. Hence, movement cannot be perceived in this way either.

This is the big first cognitive dissonance. The Observer has the intimate conviction that he is moving through The Space, but when he does so, it’s as though he is standing still, since no movement is perceived. The Observer rationalises that he exists in some instance of infinity - where it is logically sound that movement should behave in this new way - where moving through infinity is the same as not moving at all. Miraculously, our brain has formulated a nightmarish physical representation of infinity which can be experienced through movement - or lack thereof. This experience is so unlike any other that it forces our mind to twist and contort to attempt to comprehend something so foreign it induces the deep sense of panic and existential dread often reported.

Compounding these feelings, there is an intense feeling of claustrophobia and inability to escape The Space, which is understandable given the explanation above. It results from the lack of perceived movement when travelling through this infinite plane. Even though The Observer is actively trying to move around, there is no change in himself or the background and he feels stuck in place, unable to achieve any motion.

The Shapes
These are the geometric shapes that exist in The Space.

The main feature of this dream. Nightmarish geometric shapes of varying attributes are present in The Space and morph into different configurations of these attributes. I attempt to deconstruct the attributes below.

1. Size, Weight, and Mass
First, let’s look at how the size, weight, and mass of the shapes are experienced, then I will propose an explanation for these experiences.
Unanimously, the most panic-inducing property of The Shapes is their simultaneously microscopic and gargantuan, infinite size. An imperceptibly small shape the size of a pinhead expands to a horrifying monolithic entity of incomprehensible scale, encompassing and filling The Space in its entirety, taking over as the only matter in existence, before contracting again to microscopic size, yielding room for the void of The Space. When The Shapes expand, The Observer intuitively knows that the strength needed to enlarge a microscopic object to an infinitely large size cannot exist, at least not in our human world. When an infinitely large and dense Shape is shrunk down and the infinite amount of energy present in it is condensed into a microscopic vibrating dot ready to burst out at any moment, The Observer cannot content with this given our established and subconsciously understood natural laws. An infinite mass cannot be shrunk to a finite microscopic object. The Shapes’ miniaturisation is sometimes so drastic that they cannot be seen, but their infinitely condensed energy can still be felt by the Observer. The Observer’s awareness of a metaphysical entity that yields this amount of power and is able to expand and contract energy and matter at its will is a deep source of intense terror and awe, further exacerbated by the fact that all the energy and force required for these infinite expansions and impossible contractions is gutturally felt by and forced upon The Observer.

Developing further the idea of this nightmare revolving around the mind having to face physical representations of infinity, we can find a logical, almost mathematical reasoning behind the Observer’s perception of The Shapes and of their energy as infinite, which is the main driver behind the feelings of panic and powerlessness. As mentioned previously, The Observer has gained the understanding of The Space as infinite through his act of motion in The Space but lack of perceived movement. Now comes the second unbearable cognitive dissonance which makes The Observer feel nauseous and terrified: how can The Shapes fill The Space if The Space is infinite?

For this to happen, The Shape must expand to an infinite size in order to fill the infinite Space. This is a paradox – if The Space is infinitely big, the expansion of the Shape into this infinitely big Space will take infinitely long. What unfolds is a relentless and everlasting process of expansion of pure matter and energy into an infinite space. In mathematical terms, two infinite sets can have the same size (for instance the set of positive and the set of negative numbers contain the same infinite number of elements). In this context, The Observer is subject to viewing and experiencing first hand this phenomenon of infinite equality, forced to wrestle with these two infinities melding into each other, forced to feel The Shape growing infinitely and unrelentingly into the infinite Space until it has almost taken it over before repeating the eternal expansion. I believe this is a prime factor in why these dreams cause such arcane, almost mythological fears. The Observer is both physically crushed and consumed by the mass of The Shape expanding infinitely into the space he inhabits, and psychologically crushed by the weight of the realisation of the inconceivable, of the otherworldly occurring before his eyes.


2. Shape
The Shapes themselves vary from report to report. Minuscule dots expand into agonizingly large spheres or monstrous wheels whose gruesome curvature feels all-consuming and absorbs and imbibes both The Space and The Observer with its gravitational pull. Tiny cubes morph into infinitely large ones in which all corners of the cubes are somehow perceivable and form lacerating edges and where the faces of the cubes bring a sense of impending doom in their unflinching and awe-inspiring size, forcing The Observer to submit before their colossal and monstruous scale. Jagged and spikey Shapes emerge, torturing pricking, electrocuting, and poking at The Observer’s consciousness, instilling a sense of deep physical pain and irregularity and unpredictability. Lines stretch out along the infinite Space, sometimes sharply piercing through other infinite shapes, often reported as the least threatening Shapes.

The Shapes sprout out lines both thin and thick at the same time. They meld into each other and with each transformation they change mass and shape. The seamless transition at varying speeds from one Shape to another in no discernible pattern adds to the sense of powerlessness and terror. The Observer is confronted with the reality of these impossible visions, and short-circuits the brain – the amygdala fires and creates a sense of fear, dread, doom and intense anxiety and encourages The Observer to flee, with little success since there is no movement in The Space.

3. Movement and Speed
This feature can be decomposed into two further components: the counterintuitive movement of The Shapes in The Space. and the change of The Shapes from one form to another.

I would suggest that the movement of The Shapes inside The Space is another deeply unsettling element of the dream. Despite what The Observer knows of The Space with regards to one’s inability to perceive movement within it because of its infinite size, The Shapes seems to have a clear sense of direction and motion. This again forces the mind to reckon with a contradiction. If no movement can be observed in The Space in which The Observer is stuck, how can they perceive movements of The Shapes. It’s as though these have transcended the - albeit surreal - corporeal plane of existence where The Observer exists and are able to move through this space on a dimension we humans have no access to and cannot understand. I believe this phenomenon is at the core of why many reports include experiencing a 4th dimension of sorts. The brain tries but is unable to make sense of the geometric and special incongruities it is experiencing. This is a strong factor for why these dreams feel so foreign to the dreamer who feels a slow and terrorizing descent into insanity.
At times, The Shapes stand completely still, but the stillness feels wrong. They go from pure chaos to complete standstill - in the blink of an eye a tiny dot invisible to the naked eye expands to a sphere and overwhelms completely The Space, releasing a grotesque amount of energy.

4. Texture

5. Sound


The Task
The awareness of something not well defined that needs to be accomplished which causes obtrusive obsessive thoughts on solving it but cannot be physically done or even understood.

I've been reading through this thread, and a lot of the replies remind of of a game called Irisu Syndrome. This is the gameplay:
irisu_syndrome_gameplay.jpg

It's described by the main character as such:
I intently destroy odd things in the cold, inhuman reality of the strange world on the back of my eyelids.
It's a game I've played my entire life, ever since my lonely childhood.

As I play this game and calm my heart,
my feelings of insecurity have somehow disappeared.

So, not a dream and not terrifying (the opposite, in fact), but the geometric shapes and "inhuman reality" make me wonder if the gameplay could have been inspired by these kinds of dreams. I also saw some people saying they experienced it while awake, so that's something.

Anyway, it's a good game, I recommend it

Originally Posted by Meiseki

I've been reading through this thread, and a lot of the replies remind of of a game called Irisu Syndrome. This is the gameplay:
irisu_syndrome_gameplay.jpg

It's described by the main character as such:
I intently destroy odd things in the cold, inhuman reality of the strange world on the back of my eyelids.
It's a game I've played my entire life, ever since my lonely childhood.

As I play this game and calm my heart,
my feelings of insecurity have somehow disappeared.

So, not a dream and not terrifying (the opposite, in fact), but the geometric shapes and "inhuman reality" make me wonder if the gameplay could have been inspired by these kinds of dreams. I also saw some people saying they experienced it while awake, so that's something.

Anyway, it's a good game, I recommend it

Where can I find it?

Where can I find it?

I believe I got it from this website: https://www.neoseeker.com/irisu-synd...lkthrough.html Make sure you check your files regularly, or you will be very confused (like I was at the beginning ).

Originally Posted by blacksky01

I'm 31 yo and have been having these dreams/terrors since I was maybe 4-5. They were more frequent when I was younger (maybe once a month) but I still have them (albeit less frequent - maybe 3-5 times a year). None of them have happened while I was sick or had a fever.

Your descriptions are some of the few to give me uncomfortably vivid flashbacks. I can tell you've visited this hellish realm far more than I have, and I don't envy you for that.

I'm also amazed that you still have 3-5 of these night terrors a year at 31. Mine stopped in the early 20s and I thought I had it bad, but your case seems unusually severe.

I too recall waking up in the midst of the "dream" and having the feelings and sensations persist for 10 minutes or more after I got out of bed. In early childhood, I would "sleepwalk" to my parent's room and just stand there. I could not communicate or describe the horrors that were happening to me. Later in life, I would just turn on a lamp and ride it out.

I attempted an "optimistic" take on the subject in my first post, but sadly I can relate to the bleaker aspects of your post. You describe an "eternal darkness" that still haunts you, and I relate. While the dreams have stopped, there's a kernel of existential terror that still lingers in a corner of my mind. Like you, I have a set of triggers that can bring back the feeling (some identical to yours, others different). I have episodes of dissociation/depersonalization that I feel may also be related.

For what it's worth, I can also report struggles with anxiety and depression from an early age. I was always an abnormally "existential" child, and would contemplate death and the infinite until I felt I would go insane. I'm not sure if my temperament was a symptom of the dreams, or vice versa . . . I lean towards the latter.

Like you and everyone here, I'll never forget these experiences. They've made a permanent impression on my psyche, and continue to fill me with both curiosity and apprehension. I often fear that in these dreams, we're witnessing some dark underlying cosmic truth, and will have to revisit this realm in death. I try to push this possibility out of my mind, as it is too horrifying to bear.

"I can't help but shake the feeling that there is something conscious or aware driving the forces in the dreams. It feels like it's something unstoppable and unrelenting"

Bingo.

I just randomly noticed this thread on the forum and can't believe I never saw it before. I am yet another victim of these crazy ass dreams as a child, albeit with some slight variations.

The main one for me was set in infinite blank space. My awareness was attached to a small arrow shape, and even though there was blankness, there was an overwhelming sensation of moving impossibly fast, ripping through this blank canvas at the speed of light. The arrow represented a spaceship or 'something' that was slowly but inevitably going to collide with and destroy 'the universe' or perhaps just Earth... the feeling of knowing this was happening and being unable to stop it was just infinite doom and terror, it was incredibly frightening. I would have this infinite dream loop recurring semi-regularly for years, but can't remember having it past the age of 10 or so.

Another big one for me was seemingly being awake, and imagining an object in my room which was just impossible. I would have the image of a ring or a jewel in my mind, and in the small object was contained the entire weight and mass of the universe. This was less of a terrifying feeling but I suppose terrifyingly mysterious. It was a long time ago since I experienced this recurring experience but I seem to remember finding it fascinating and sort of playing with the concept in my mind, as opposed to the previously mentioned nightmare which was just sheer hell and doom lol.

I never met anyone who can relate to the first infinite doom/blank canvas until today, I'm seeing lots of similar experiences in this thread which I can't wait to dive into. The second dream though, the juxtaposition of something tiny holding the weight of the universe or vice versa, seems a lot more common. I remember a day back when I was in college when I went around asking loads of people about this, and a surprising amount of them were like OMG I HAD THAT TOO!! I remember doing a deep dive on it and I found a research paper explaining it as a symptom very minor type of stroke which is common in children. Wouldn't have a clue how to rediscover that article... I'm going to have a look around the internet tomorrow.

On a side note, it's definitely worth drawing a parallel between all this talk and that of a strong psychedelic/ego death experience. Coincidentally or not, the first time I took LSD (it was a very high dose and I was 16, stupid I know but this was 13 years ago lol) resulted in an experience of infinite time, infinite doom, absence of space/time/color which was very similar to the first dream I described. For me, most of these peculiar experiences have comprised of just white and black colours... not like black and white where there are shades etc, but pure whites and blacks. For the LSD experience, in the centre of this infinite void there were symbols that felt like archetypes at the time, but when I think back on them it just sounds like influence from conspiracy theories. It was like a middle perspective on this infinite white void, broken up by constantly changing triangles, eye shapes, nose-shapes, question marks, and the number 8. It was pure hell and I was genuinely terrified of question marks for months after that experience.

Despite everyone on the internet claiming they are myths, I 100% experienced INTENSE LSD flashbacks from this experience, albeit only induced by smoking weed. The flashbacks were even more terrifying than the original experience because it was objective and repeatable. However, these flashback experiences captured the vibe whilst putting me into a more IRL environment. For example, me and my friends would all be hanging out and smoking, laughing, and the laughter would erupt into such insanity that it was like I broke through into another dimension or something. I'd still be in the same room, but time no longer existed, and my sense of self and ego were completely replaced by infinite doom, and these terrifying sentences from my friends. They would say things like "Do you get it now... do you finally understand?" as if life was some enormous facade that I'd been believing up until this point. It's been years since I've truly felt the full force of this feeling, but can occasionally work myself into a less immersive version of it if I've got really high, watched a horror movie, or generally have heightened senses of anxiety/fear/mystery.

Man, deep shit. Sorry to get rambly toward the end there, but I've had a lot of spooky experiences like this and I find them totally fascinating. Can't wait to flix through this thread properly tomorrow.

I remember that one time, I woke up from those linear geometric fever dreams, and the slowing energy got dragged into the real world and all I heard was going in a different rhythm, the voices, the noice, even the music, everything was a mix of an slower and accelerated rhythm/cadence.