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Wow. I didn’t know this, but I was actually able to observe this state on myself. When going to sleep, my mind is wandering. But at one point it drifts from rea

Wow. I didn’t know this, but I was actually able to observe this state on myself. When going to sleep, my mind is wandering. But at one point it drifts from real world thoughts to completely abstract concepts and wild imagination that sometimes makes no sense. It’s almost like a hallucination. What’s most interesting is that sometimes I am able to notice the transition to this state and consciously observe it. Usually it makes me happy because I know I’m about to fall asleep within the next few seconds (which I often have problem with, writing this comment at 1:26am again..). I am also able to consciously observe the images being generated. It’s very weird, because it feels like one brain looking into someone else’s brain to the extent that is impossible by any technology or in any other way. Sometimes I’m able to consciously wake up from this state, because I have weird “sleep phobias”. Sometimes I am fascinated by the idea generated at that stage. But unless I write them down or really get up, they are typically lost if I fall asleep within next 5 minutes - maybe I’d have a Nobel prize already, if only I kept a pen and paper ready next to my bed. Or apartment full of crappy kitch paintings..

chrisweekly 5y ago
IIRC this is the "hypnopompic" state and yeah, it's weird and cool. Personally I have more memories at the other end ("hypnogogic"?) on the transition to waking up.
- 123pie123 5y ago
  Me too, I used to be able do this in the morning for what felt like hours in a extremely vivid dream like state It's how I got into self-hypnosis to help with my exams
t8e56vd4ih 5y ago
the state you describe i only, but then very clearly, experience when falling asleep while being stoned.
- pvarangot 5y ago
  Do you also have the visualizations of interlinked concepts? I find weed makes me have "the thoughts" and they are very present and come fast, but being absolutely sober sometimes those thoughts are there but not moving as fast and they it's more likely they also come with visualizations of the thought process.
  - sedivy94 5y ago
    I’m not sure if everyone is like this but, in my case, cannabis and psychedelic use has really ramped up that type of mental imagery. I see it without being able to describe how it looks, which is odd. The components usually comprise of blocks of logical arguments and the intersection of event spaces. Another observation: dualistic thinking is a token side-effect of psychedelic use, but I’d go so far as to say I’ve also decoupled cause and effect in many of the abstract phenomena I observe. Whatever I’m observing or contemplating appears to be a condition or state with no time domain, rather than an operation where A causes B in that order.
    - pvarangot 5y ago
      Dualistic thinking is so pervasive in the US that I think it's far fetched to say it's a token side-effect, as much as saying never speaking another language that is not English in your life if a token side-effect of psychedelic use... like the correlation is so big if you do self reported studies just in the US that it will be hard to deal with it. Probably what's going on is that people just become more aware of dualistic thinking because of the extra open-mindedness or increase in empathy that forces one to somehow deal more with that "other side" that they are definitely "not a part of".
- josefrichter 5y ago
  Interesting. I heard very similar description of similar state from people using LSD. I never tried LSD, so would be curious whether that indeed triggers the same state. I personally never felt any effect of weed, so I’m not really inclined to try “harder”.
bentcorner 5y ago
I recognize this exact moment, because it occurs precisely prior to when I begin snoring, and my wife will sometimes nudge me awake. The best I can describe it in concrete terms is that the world stretches before me and my mind bounces around for a moment.
IWantToRelocate 5y ago
You just described exactly what happens to me and that "sleep phobia", I read somewhere, is linked usually to people with anxiety/panic attack issues. Not sure if that's your case but 100% accurate in my case.
- josefrichter 5y ago
  Yes, same here, unfortunately
  - IWantToRelocate 5y ago
    Actually I don't feel it anymore since I started to practice deep breath before I close my eyes. It improved my sleep a lot.
pvarangot 5y ago
Yeah I call it being aware of ones thought process in third person. It's not that unusual of an angle of perception, the first place I ever saw it "documented" was here: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Perceived_exposure_to_inner_mechanics_of_consciousness https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Perceived_exposure_to_inner_... which leads to a very accurate description of that kind of visualizations: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/8B_Geometry_-_Perceived_exposure_to_inner_mechanics_of_consciousness https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/8B_Geometry_-_Perceived_expo...
tambourine_man 5y ago
Something that happened a few times to me during this transitional state is “hearing” (more like hallucinating) music that I was singing in my mind while still awake. Except much clearer and vivid than ever before. I think that since the ordinary hearing function was just shutting itself off, the conscious brain could experience only its memory of the song and did it intensely so. It lasted a couple of seconds only, while I was extremely tired, but it was an amazing experience. It’s such a fascinating topic and yet it’s remarkable how little we still know about sleep, consciousness, dreams, etc.
- bemmu 5y ago
  I've had this a few times. It's like listening to a good album on your headphones, except you are in control of the music. Being able to do that was a wonderful experience, especially since I've never actually played an instrument.
- karmakaze 5y ago
  A similar thing happened to me after some sleep deprivation in a noisy bar. I was moving to the music, and someone said the music had stopped. I listened while still moving to it, saying no it hasn't. They repeated that it had. I listened again and indeed there was no music in the air, only my mind. Cognition and perception is based on hallucination around stimuli--sometimes we fill in more than the gaps.
- sildur 5y ago
  If you try to sleep with your eyes partially closed, you’ll start to hallucinate the things in front of you. Things become shapes, and then completely different things. It’s pretty interesting.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tgb 5y ago
  I get this too. While awake, the sounds I hear on my own mind are just basically the signs I could make with my own voice. I can imagine a song by imagining humming or singing it, but I cannot recall what the actual recording sounds like. Yet there's that switch that flips as I go to sleep that I notice occasionally where I can hear crystal clear music. It's beautiful and I can't recognize the music. I also get this, much more rarely, with images. While awake, I can't truly picture what I imagine, it's like I just have a notion of what is there, like motion and shape, without really seeing it, or at best a momentary flash of a picture. But when drifting to sleep there is a moment where the images become real, with color and texture and detail far beyond what I can imagine while awake. It's shocking and wakes we up when I notice it happening. What is this switch? How can my brain have such discretely distinct modes of operation? Falling asleep itself seems so much more of a continuum.
Shared404 5y ago
> When going to sleep, my mind is wandering. But at one point it drifts from real world thoughts to completely abstract concepts and wild imagination that sometimes makes no sense. It’s almost like a hallucination. I can trigger this in myself consistently. Usually, it's either by pushing myself to stay awake for too long on too little sleep or waking up after a full days work and only sleeping a few (2-4) hours. I try not to, I find it terrifying tbh.
op00to 5y ago
Hope you fell asleep!
v64 5y ago
Thank you for posting this! I experience almost the same feeling of my thought processes abruptly changing in form as I'm falling asleep. The few people I've talked to about this couldn't relate so I thought it was something specific to myself.
waltbosz 5y ago
I've always had insomnia, and I often observe myself entering the N1 state of sleep. Like you, it makes me happy because it's how I know I'll soon be asleep. immediately.
beenBoutIT 5y ago
Apparently people with untreated narcolepsy (who naturally go in-and-out of that zone automatically on a nightly basis) tend to have "higher creative potential" than people without narcolepsy[0]. [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31143939/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31143939/
distantaidenn 5y ago
Wow, I have this exact same experience before falling asleep. It feels like a direct shift in the thought processes, and as you described it, it feels as though you have become a passive observer of your own thoughts. The images are sometimes so absurd and creative that I almost laugh to myself. But I also, don't KNOW if the images are creative or absurd, but just my brain believing it so -- is there even a difference? If anyone has ever had a "genius" idea while high, written it down, and read it the next day, you know what I mean... Just as you mentioned, this switch lets me know, I'm gonna be asleep in the next few seconds. I also often listen to audiobooks or ASMR while lying down to sleep, and just as this state kicks in, I know its time to flick out my earbuds just before I lose consciousness. However, sometimes I'm even able to ride this wave right into sleep -- as in, from weird observer state right into the dream world. I was actually thinking about this a few days ago, and did some very quick searching, but couldn't find anything -- I wonder if we are observing the switching of our own brainwaves from alpha to theta? I'd like to ask other people that experience this: do you also have high rates of sleep paralysis? I get it almost nightly. My dreams are also very vivid, and I remember about 80% of them. Also, if I wake up during a dream, upon falling back asleep, I'm able to "continue" them. Maybe I'll try this Dali method a bit, who knows!
- jniedrauer 5y ago
  >do you also have high rates of sleep paralysis? Yes, often toward the end of this near-dreaming state, just before entering deeper sleep. I experience a sensation like entering a free fall and lose the ability to move. It takes quite a lot of energy to climb back out of it and regain the ability to move.
  - deepakarora3 5y ago
    A similar experience occurs with me almost always when jet lagged. After fighting off sleep for much of the day when I finally fall asleep during the later part of the day, it starts off exactly like described - a really dreamy state. Then after I have slept a couple of hours, I enter a state where I am sleeping and also awake at the same time and wanting to wake up but in a state of sleep paralysis where it is a herculean effort to try and shake off sleep and wake up. More often than not, even though I know I am in this state, still a panic sets in me that I am not able to shake off sleep and I wake up after quite some effort. And yes, I have had dreams where I have been able to solve some problems at work even without thinking about them during the day. Its totally fascinating!
hrez 5y ago
>maybe I’d have a Nobel prize already, if only I kept a pen and paper ready next to my bed Far more likely it would be "The banana is great, but the skin is greater"[0] :) 0. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Where_China_Meets_India/_55zNZjP110C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22The+banana+is+great,+but+the+skin+is+greater%22&pg=PT71&printsec=frontcover https://www.google.com/books/edition/Where_China_Meets_India...
VeninVidiaVicii 5y ago
When I’m falling asleep, I worry about things from the day — then my mind starts mixing everything up at some point. Lying in bed, I vividly remember studying for a test on human anatomy, going over everything in my head. After five or so minutes, I felt pretty confident with my knowledge of human anatomy and I started panicking about my lack of knowledge of car anatomy (which doesn’t exist). Strange enough, I can always tell my thoughts are jumbled up but I can’t fix them. I hadn’t considered it was due to the shift into sleep — I always thought I was just too tired to keep making sense.
ddoubleU 5y ago
I've lately noticed this too but, my "N1" mostly looks more like... I am generating sounds - melodies, songs, talking people and it feels like I am indeed listening to it, not like the dreamy feeling that there just is a sound. Visually it's mixed up with "blank images" in that sense that I know there is something happening but I can't grasp it. It's like watching very fast recording - you know something is there but either it's too fast to catch or you are too slow to grasp the meaning (if there even is any). What's weird is that these background songs actually do make sense, well at least in my head (heh) and these are not copies or mixes of anything I can remember. I am mainly a electronic music junkie: DnB, techno, drumstep but from time to time I, mainly dictated by my emotions, listen to instrumental rock, indie metal and alike (BMTH, I Prevail, Royal Blood). But in contrast, all the songs in my head are instrumental, often being "lyrics first" which is pretty much out of my typical range - I like to fill in the words, feelings - some meaning into the beats myself, that is why I listen to progressive electro stuff with not much lyrics if any. I am guy with absolutely basic music theory and zero exposure to anything like music composition (okey I sometimes dream (like in wish) that I would learn piano or bass).
bglusman 5y ago
Richard Feynman wrote about something similar in “Surely you’re joking Mr. Feynman!” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surely_You%27re_Joking,_Mr._Feynman https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surely_You%27re_Joking,_Mr._...!) This appears to be most of the relevant except: http://entersection.com/posts/897-richard-p-feynman-on-watching-himself-fall-asleep-and-dream http://entersection.com/posts/897-richard-p-feynman-on-watch...
bemmu 5y ago
The nonsense thoughts sound very familiar. It takes me forever to fall asleep, so I have plenty of time to observe it happening. I go from actively worrying about/solving stuff, to slight relaxation with my inner voice being a bit less active, to an even more "nonverbal thinking", then finally I'll have some thoughts that seem to make sense at first, but a few seconds later I realize were actually nonsense, which makes me happy as I know sleep almost surely follows from there within 5 minutes. One thing I didn't see mentioned here is that sometimes it seems like some of the thoughts didn't originate from me, like someone else is present or said it. I assume when I'm deeper into sleep, the same process is responsible for creating all the other characters besides myself in my dreams.
godelski 5y ago
This kind happens to me too, except frequently when I'm transitioning I see a really bright like that comes from "above" (hard to describe which direction) and it wakes me back up because it's intensity. Though no one I talk to seems to know what I'm talking about. But the vividness before becoming unconscious (or the white light) is often the most creative part of my day. Sometimes I can take control but often this breaks the effect. Though the best way I learned to remember dreams and having some control is not when falling asleep but waking up. Rather set an alarm one or two REM cycles before you want to get up (cycle is 90 minutes) and then just go back to bed. It's far more vivid than when trying to go to sleep and easier to take some control (though I've only become lucid twice). At minimum you'll remember your dream.
- toshk 5y ago
  Some buddhist sleep meditations are often called clear light meditations. For them btw is not the trick to remember the thoughts but to stay aware when transitioning to the sleep phase, this is one of the moments clear conciousness can be experienced according to certain teachings.
bloqs 5y ago
This definitely relates to the exchange of signals between hemispheres
jwdunne 5y ago
I get this too! And they are hallucinations - hypnogogic hallucinations. It starts out for me in thought but then blossoms into something that feels very real. Apparently it’s a normal phenomenon, I’ve noticed it’s more pronounced in those who struggle to get off to sleep. Usually, when I try to explain it, it comes out as nonsense that makes complete sense to me. But once I’m awake, the sense is lost and it makes zero sense. But it’s not always nonsense. Once I heard the most beautiful orchestra. The composition, the performance, it was truly beautiful. I can’t remember anything about it other than it was the most beautiful piece of music I’ve ever heard. Coming in at a close second was an incredible guitar solo. It was a deep, emotional ballad expressed entirely on the fret board of an electric guitar. Again, truly beautiful. I look but I can never find anything that matches it. The closest I’ve come are some live performances of Buckethead. It’s sad that I haven’t the ability to reproduce these experiences. For the nonsense stuff, I’ve heard voices talking amongst themselves next to my bed. Sounds like they’re speaking English but what they say makes zero sense. Like grammatically correct sentences that mean nothing. I’ve also watched pigs doing cartwheels while on a guided tour of a suburban neighbourhood. I’ve never had the self-control to break it and note things down (by that point, I usually just want the sleep) but I have tried to apply ideas from behaviourism. And funnily enough it seemed to help. On nights that are a particular struggle, I’ll let my mind wander and inject the odd bizarre, abstract thought, audio or visual in my minds eye. What I’ve noticed is that I seem to “catch the drift” and it triggers the whole hypnogogia thing that leads to sleep. Some nights it doesn’t work but on those nights I’m far too tightly wound.
jordanbeiber 5y ago
My problem is that when I start observing my ”N1”, as I do when I’m in a cycle of low/bad sleep, I get worried I won’t reach deep recovery sleep. This really have become a bad pattern for me that is hard to break. I can spend a full night in and out of N1 sleep and be completely wasted the following day. I seem to go through these cycles with 3-4 weeks of great sleep and roughly 2 weeks of getting stuck in N1, observing. Really interesting things show up while in this state, but it’s thoroughly incompatible with three young children…
burntoutfire 5y ago
> Sometimes I am fascinated by the idea generated at that stage. Same here. In periods of my life when I'm more into artistic creation (or even consumption), often quite vivid and elaborate images come to my head in the 10-15 minutes before going to sleep. That, or really rich and elaborate (original) music. Unfortunately, I don't have the skills to put them into paintings or compositions, or even to make a quick note of them so that I could remember them in the morning. But still, it's quite fun.
BlameKaneda 5y ago
I used to be able to do this thing to where if I kept perfectly still, I'd "stare" (with eyes closed) into the nothingness---by that I mean I'd be staring into the backs of my eyelids---and there'd be a point in which my mind would start to create images. For instance, the shape would take the form of a fish, and then I'd see it become a radio, etc. If I held on and tried this for as long as possible, I'd feel my body drift off to sleep. But it was hard, because there'd be something in me that would jerk and stop the imagery (like a hypnic jerk, just nowhere near as uncomfortable). There was a bizarre situation where one evening I felt my body convulse (or perhaps I imagined it) and I'd actually fallen asleep. However, I was so freaked out by it that I shook my body awake, in my dream, and I woke up. I must've been out for less than a minute or so. It's been 7-8 months since I was last able to stare into the nothingness and let sleep overtake me. Maybe it's my caffeine intake or something else, but I would like to experience it again. Edit: I'm pretty sure they were hypnagogic hallucinations. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/hypnagogic-hallucinations https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/hypnagogic-h...
- nabakin 5y ago
  > I used to be able to do this thing to where if I kept perfectly still, I'd "stare" (with eyes closed) into the nothingness---by that I mean I'd be staring into the backs of my eyelids---and there'd be a point in which my mind would start to create images. For instance, the shape would take the form of a fish, and then I'd see it become a radio, etc. > If I held on and tried this for as long as possible, I'd feel my body drift off to sleep. But it was hard, because there'd be something in me that would jerk and stop the imagery (like a hypnic jerk, just nowhere near as uncomfortable). I do the same thing, though the more mental effort put into creating the images makes it take longer before I'm able to fall asleep. There's a sweet spot of putting the smallest mental effort to go to sleep quickly. I usually use it as a crutch when I can't just let my mind drift.

chrisweekly 5y ago

IIRC this is the "hypnopompic" state and yeah, it's weird and cool. Personally I have more memories at the other end ("hypnogogic"?) on the transition to waking up.

123pie123 5y ago
Me too, I used to be able do this in the morning for what felt like hours in a extremely vivid dream like state It's how I got into self-hypnosis to help with my exams

t8e56vd4ih 5y ago

the state you describe i only, but then very clearly, experience when falling asleep while being stoned.

pvarangot 5y ago
Do you also have the visualizations of interlinked concepts? I find weed makes me have "the thoughts" and they are very present and come fast, but being absolutely sober sometimes those thoughts are there but not moving as fast and they it's more likely they also come with visualizations of the thought process.
- sedivy94 5y ago
  I’m not sure if everyone is like this but, in my case, cannabis and psychedelic use has really ramped up that type of mental imagery. I see it without being able to describe how it looks, which is odd. The components usually comprise of blocks of logical arguments and the intersection of event spaces. Another observation: dualistic thinking is a token side-effect of psychedelic use, but I’d go so far as to say I’ve also decoupled cause and effect in many of the abstract phenomena I observe. Whatever I’m observing or contemplating appears to be a condition or state with no time domain, rather than an operation where A causes B in that order.
  - pvarangot 5y ago
    Dualistic thinking is so pervasive in the US that I think it's far fetched to say it's a token side-effect, as much as saying never speaking another language that is not English in your life if a token side-effect of psychedelic use... like the correlation is so big if you do self reported studies just in the US that it will be hard to deal with it. Probably what's going on is that people just become more aware of dualistic thinking because of the extra open-mindedness or increase in empathy that forces one to somehow deal more with that "other side" that they are definitely "not a part of".
josefrichter 5y ago
Interesting. I heard very similar description of similar state from people using LSD. I never tried LSD, so would be curious whether that indeed triggers the same state. I personally never felt any effect of weed, so I’m not really inclined to try “harder”.

bentcorner 5y ago

I recognize this exact moment, because it occurs precisely prior to when I begin snoring, and my wife will sometimes nudge me awake. The best I can describe it in concrete terms is that the world stretches before me and my mind bounces around for a moment.

IWantToRelocate 5y ago

You just described exactly what happens to me and that "sleep phobia", I read somewhere, is linked usually to people with anxiety/panic attack issues. Not sure if that's your case but 100% accurate in my case.

josefrichter 5y ago
Yes, same here, unfortunately
- IWantToRelocate 5y ago
  Actually I don't feel it anymore since I started to practice deep breath before I close my eyes. It improved my sleep a lot.

pvarangot 5y ago

Yeah I call it being aware of ones thought process in third person. It's not that unusual of an angle of perception, the first place I ever saw it "documented" was here: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Perceived_exposure_to_inner_mechanics_of_consciousness https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Perceived_exposure_to_inner_... which leads to a very accurate description of that kind of visualizations: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/8B_Geometry_-_Perceived_exposure_to_inner_mechanics_of_consciousness https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/8B_Geometry_-_Perceived_expo...

tambourine_man 5y ago

Something that happened a few times to me during this transitional state is “hearing” (more like hallucinating) music that I was singing in my mind while still awake. Except much clearer and vivid than ever before. I think that since the ordinary hearing function was just shutting itself off, the conscious brain could experience only its memory of the song and did it intensely so. It lasted a couple of seconds only, while I was extremely tired, but it was an amazing experience. It’s such a fascinating topic and yet it’s remarkable how little we still know about sleep, consciousness, dreams, etc.

bemmu 5y ago
I've had this a few times. It's like listening to a good album on your headphones, except you are in control of the music. Being able to do that was a wonderful experience, especially since I've never actually played an instrument.
karmakaze 5y ago
A similar thing happened to me after some sleep deprivation in a noisy bar. I was moving to the music, and someone said the music had stopped. I listened while still moving to it, saying no it hasn't. They repeated that it had. I listened again and indeed there was no music in the air, only my mind. Cognition and perception is based on hallucination around stimuli--sometimes we fill in more than the gaps.
sildur 5y ago
If you try to sleep with your eyes partially closed, you’ll start to hallucinate the things in front of you. Things become shapes, and then completely different things. It’s pretty interesting.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tgb 5y ago
I get this too. While awake, the sounds I hear on my own mind are just basically the signs I could make with my own voice. I can imagine a song by imagining humming or singing it, but I cannot recall what the actual recording sounds like. Yet there's that switch that flips as I go to sleep that I notice occasionally where I can hear crystal clear music. It's beautiful and I can't recognize the music. I also get this, much more rarely, with images. While awake, I can't truly picture what I imagine, it's like I just have a notion of what is there, like motion and shape, without really seeing it, or at best a momentary flash of a picture. But when drifting to sleep there is a moment where the images become real, with color and texture and detail far beyond what I can imagine while awake. It's shocking and wakes we up when I notice it happening. What is this switch? How can my brain have such discretely distinct modes of operation? Falling asleep itself seems so much more of a continuum.

Shared404 5y ago

> When going to sleep, my mind is wandering. But at one point it drifts from real world thoughts to completely abstract concepts and wild imagination that sometimes makes no sense. It’s almost like a hallucination. I can trigger this in myself consistently. Usually, it's either by pushing myself to stay awake for too long on too little sleep or waking up after a full days work and only sleeping a few (2-4) hours. I try not to, I find it terrifying tbh.

op00to 5y ago

Hope you fell asleep!

v64 5y ago

Thank you for posting this! I experience almost the same feeling of my thought processes abruptly changing in form as I'm falling asleep. The few people I've talked to about this couldn't relate so I thought it was something specific to myself.

waltbosz 5y ago

I've always had insomnia, and I often observe myself entering the N1 state of sleep. Like you, it makes me happy because it's how I know I'll soon be asleep. immediately.

beenBoutIT 5y ago

Apparently people with untreated narcolepsy (who naturally go in-and-out of that zone automatically on a nightly basis) tend to have "higher creative potential" than people without narcolepsy[0]. [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31143939/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31143939/

distantaidenn 5y ago

Wow, I have this exact same experience before falling asleep. It feels like a direct shift in the thought processes, and as you described it, it feels as though you have become a passive observer of your own thoughts. The images are sometimes so absurd and creative that I almost laugh to myself. But I also, don't KNOW if the images are creative or absurd, but just my brain believing it so -- is there even a difference? If anyone has ever had a "genius" idea while high, written it down, and read it the next day, you know what I mean... Just as you mentioned, this switch lets me know, I'm gonna be asleep in the next few seconds. I also often listen to audiobooks or ASMR while lying down to sleep, and just as this state kicks in, I know its time to flick out my earbuds just before I lose consciousness. However, sometimes I'm even able to ride this wave right into sleep -- as in, from weird observer state right into the dream world. I was actually thinking about this a few days ago, and did some very quick searching, but couldn't find anything -- I wonder if we are observing the switching of our own brainwaves from alpha to theta? I'd like to ask other people that experience this: do you also have high rates of sleep paralysis? I get it almost nightly. My dreams are also very vivid, and I remember about 80% of them. Also, if I wake up during a dream, upon falling back asleep, I'm able to "continue" them. Maybe I'll try this Dali method a bit, who knows!

jniedrauer 5y ago
>do you also have high rates of sleep paralysis? Yes, often toward the end of this near-dreaming state, just before entering deeper sleep. I experience a sensation like entering a free fall and lose the ability to move. It takes quite a lot of energy to climb back out of it and regain the ability to move.
- deepakarora3 5y ago
  A similar experience occurs with me almost always when jet lagged. After fighting off sleep for much of the day when I finally fall asleep during the later part of the day, it starts off exactly like described - a really dreamy state. Then after I have slept a couple of hours, I enter a state where I am sleeping and also awake at the same time and wanting to wake up but in a state of sleep paralysis where it is a herculean effort to try and shake off sleep and wake up. More often than not, even though I know I am in this state, still a panic sets in me that I am not able to shake off sleep and I wake up after quite some effort. And yes, I have had dreams where I have been able to solve some problems at work even without thinking about them during the day. Its totally fascinating!

hrez 5y ago

>maybe I’d have a Nobel prize already, if only I kept a pen and paper ready next to my bed Far more likely it would be "The banana is great, but the skin is greater"[0] :) 0. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Where_China_Meets_India/_55zNZjP110C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22The+banana+is+great,+but+the+skin+is+greater%22&pg=PT71&printsec=frontcover https://www.google.com/books/edition/Where_China_Meets_India...

VeninVidiaVicii 5y ago

When I’m falling asleep, I worry about things from the day — then my mind starts mixing everything up at some point. Lying in bed, I vividly remember studying for a test on human anatomy, going over everything in my head. After five or so minutes, I felt pretty confident with my knowledge of human anatomy and I started panicking about my lack of knowledge of car anatomy (which doesn’t exist). Strange enough, I can always tell my thoughts are jumbled up but I can’t fix them. I hadn’t considered it was due to the shift into sleep — I always thought I was just too tired to keep making sense.

ddoubleU 5y ago

I've lately noticed this too but, my "N1" mostly looks more like... I am generating sounds - melodies, songs, talking people and it feels like I am indeed listening to it, not like the dreamy feeling that there just is a sound. Visually it's mixed up with "blank images" in that sense that I know there is something happening but I can't grasp it. It's like watching very fast recording - you know something is there but either it's too fast to catch or you are too slow to grasp the meaning (if there even is any). What's weird is that these background songs actually do make sense, well at least in my head (heh) and these are not copies or mixes of anything I can remember. I am mainly a electronic music junkie: DnB, techno, drumstep but from time to time I, mainly dictated by my emotions, listen to instrumental rock, indie metal and alike (BMTH, I Prevail, Royal Blood). But in contrast, all the songs in my head are instrumental, often being "lyrics first" which is pretty much out of my typical range - I like to fill in the words, feelings - some meaning into the beats myself, that is why I listen to progressive electro stuff with not much lyrics if any. I am guy with absolutely basic music theory and zero exposure to anything like music composition (okey I sometimes dream (like in wish) that I would learn piano or bass).

bglusman 5y ago

Richard Feynman wrote about something similar in “Surely you’re joking Mr. Feynman!” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surely_You%27re_Joking,_Mr._Feynman https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surely_You%27re_Joking,_Mr._...!) This appears to be most of the relevant except: http://entersection.com/posts/897-richard-p-feynman-on-watching-himself-fall-asleep-and-dream http://entersection.com/posts/897-richard-p-feynman-on-watch...

bemmu 5y ago

The nonsense thoughts sound very familiar. It takes me forever to fall asleep, so I have plenty of time to observe it happening. I go from actively worrying about/solving stuff, to slight relaxation with my inner voice being a bit less active, to an even more "nonverbal thinking", then finally I'll have some thoughts that seem to make sense at first, but a few seconds later I realize were actually nonsense, which makes me happy as I know sleep almost surely follows from there within 5 minutes. One thing I didn't see mentioned here is that sometimes it seems like some of the thoughts didn't originate from me, like someone else is present or said it. I assume when I'm deeper into sleep, the same process is responsible for creating all the other characters besides myself in my dreams.

godelski 5y ago

This kind happens to me too, except frequently when I'm transitioning I see a really bright like that comes from "above" (hard to describe which direction) and it wakes me back up because it's intensity. Though no one I talk to seems to know what I'm talking about. But the vividness before becoming unconscious (or the white light) is often the most creative part of my day. Sometimes I can take control but often this breaks the effect. Though the best way I learned to remember dreams and having some control is not when falling asleep but waking up. Rather set an alarm one or two REM cycles before you want to get up (cycle is 90 minutes) and then just go back to bed. It's far more vivid than when trying to go to sleep and easier to take some control (though I've only become lucid twice). At minimum you'll remember your dream.

toshk 5y ago
Some buddhist sleep meditations are often called clear light meditations. For them btw is not the trick to remember the thoughts but to stay aware when transitioning to the sleep phase, this is one of the moments clear conciousness can be experienced according to certain teachings.

bloqs 5y ago

This definitely relates to the exchange of signals between hemispheres

jwdunne 5y ago

I get this too! And they are hallucinations - hypnogogic hallucinations. It starts out for me in thought but then blossoms into something that feels very real. Apparently it’s a normal phenomenon, I’ve noticed it’s more pronounced in those who struggle to get off to sleep. Usually, when I try to explain it, it comes out as nonsense that makes complete sense to me. But once I’m awake, the sense is lost and it makes zero sense. But it’s not always nonsense. Once I heard the most beautiful orchestra. The composition, the performance, it was truly beautiful. I can’t remember anything about it other than it was the most beautiful piece of music I’ve ever heard. Coming in at a close second was an incredible guitar solo. It was a deep, emotional ballad expressed entirely on the fret board of an electric guitar. Again, truly beautiful. I look but I can never find anything that matches it. The closest I’ve come are some live performances of Buckethead. It’s sad that I haven’t the ability to reproduce these experiences. For the nonsense stuff, I’ve heard voices talking amongst themselves next to my bed. Sounds like they’re speaking English but what they say makes zero sense. Like grammatically correct sentences that mean nothing. I’ve also watched pigs doing cartwheels while on a guided tour of a suburban neighbourhood. I’ve never had the self-control to break it and note things down (by that point, I usually just want the sleep) but I have tried to apply ideas from behaviourism. And funnily enough it seemed to help. On nights that are a particular struggle, I’ll let my mind wander and inject the odd bizarre, abstract thought, audio or visual in my minds eye. What I’ve noticed is that I seem to “catch the drift” and it triggers the whole hypnogogia thing that leads to sleep. Some nights it doesn’t work but on those nights I’m far too tightly wound.

jordanbeiber 5y ago

My problem is that when I start observing my ”N1”, as I do when I’m in a cycle of low/bad sleep, I get worried I won’t reach deep recovery sleep. This really have become a bad pattern for me that is hard to break. I can spend a full night in and out of N1 sleep and be completely wasted the following day. I seem to go through these cycles with 3-4 weeks of great sleep and roughly 2 weeks of getting stuck in N1, observing. Really interesting things show up while in this state, but it’s thoroughly incompatible with three young children…

burntoutfire 5y ago

> Sometimes I am fascinated by the idea generated at that stage. Same here. In periods of my life when I'm more into artistic creation (or even consumption), often quite vivid and elaborate images come to my head in the 10-15 minutes before going to sleep. That, or really rich and elaborate (original) music. Unfortunately, I don't have the skills to put them into paintings or compositions, or even to make a quick note of them so that I could remember them in the morning. But still, it's quite fun.

BlameKaneda 5y ago

I used to be able to do this thing to where if I kept perfectly still, I'd "stare" (with eyes closed) into the nothingness---by that I mean I'd be staring into the backs of my eyelids---and there'd be a point in which my mind would start to create images. For instance, the shape would take the form of a fish, and then I'd see it become a radio, etc. If I held on and tried this for as long as possible, I'd feel my body drift off to sleep. But it was hard, because there'd be something in me that would jerk and stop the imagery (like a hypnic jerk, just nowhere near as uncomfortable). There was a bizarre situation where one evening I felt my body convulse (or perhaps I imagined it) and I'd actually fallen asleep. However, I was so freaked out by it that I shook my body awake, in my dream, and I woke up. I must've been out for less than a minute or so. It's been 7-8 months since I was last able to stare into the nothingness and let sleep overtake me. Maybe it's my caffeine intake or something else, but I would like to experience it again. Edit: I'm pretty sure they were hypnagogic hallucinations. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/hypnagogic-hallucinations https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/hypnagogic-h...

nabakin 5y ago
> I used to be able to do this thing to where if I kept perfectly still, I'd "stare" (with eyes closed) into the nothingness---by that I mean I'd be staring into the backs of my eyelids---and there'd be a point in which my mind would start to create images. For instance, the shape would take the form of a fish, and then I'd see it become a radio, etc. > If I held on and tried this for as long as possible, I'd feel my body drift off to sleep. But it was hard, because there'd be something in me that would jerk and stop the imagery (like a hypnic jerk, just nowhere near as uncomfortable). I do the same thing, though the more mental effort put into creating the images makes it take longer before I'm able to fall asleep. There's a sweet spot of putting the smallest mental effort to go to sleep quickly. I usually use it as a crutch when I can't just let my mind drift.