Hypnagogic hallucinations are hallucinations which occur at the boundary between sleeping and waking. They can occur when people are falling asleep, or when they are starting to wake up, and they tend to be extremely vivid, feeling like a Technicolor Oz after the black and white Kansas of every day life. Many people experience hypnagogic hallucinations at some point during their lives, but recurrent intensehallucinations can be a sign of an underlying medical condition which may require treatment.
Visual, auditory, tactile, and kinetic sensations can all be experienced during hypnagogic hallucinations, and everyone experiences slightly different forms. Some people, for example, may feel like they are falling, and jerk themselves awake to avoid hitting the ground. Others mayhear voices as they are trying to drift off to sleep, or experience a vivid sensation that someone or something is in the room. Sensory experiences such as feeling like one is submerged in a pool of water are also not uncommon.
In some cases, hypnagogic hallucinations can be frightening for the people who experience them. They may include vivid and frightening images, including images which are out of scale, which can make the hallucinations seem even more unsettling; people may see giant spiders on the walls, for example, or feel like they have shrunk down to a tiny size in the bed. The vivid experiences may also be brought to mind over the course of the day, causing inexplicable images or sensations to filter through someones consciousness at an unexpected moment.
The cause of hypnagogic hallucinations is not fully understood. These hallucinations tend to be more common in people with sleep disorders, especially narcolepsy, but they can also appear as a side effect related to prescription drugs, and drug abusers often experience them as well. Hypnagogic hallucinations tend to be more common in young people, especially children, which may be because their minds are still developing and forming pathways, which can occasionally lead to some crossed wires.
=-Comments
Reader Writes:
I'm 19 and just got my first of these. I've had two now, and at first I've been freaking out about them. A lot of these posts I've seen say they have interesting visions of just patterns and stuff. But mine have been very freaky. i think its due to my stress in life. I just recently broke up with my girlfriend of three years and its been really tough.
My first hallucination was that she was there lying next to me. This wasn't frightening though, just very weird i thought. i talked to her and went back to bed. But just recently i had the most scary experience of my life. I "woke up" from my dream and went outside my bedroom and went into my friend's room and there i was hit with a sudden wave of blackness and collapsed to the floor. It felt so real and as this happened, i felt like i wasn't myself. So i tried to wake myself up but i would come back to my real self in bed and couldn't move. i was literally petrified in my bed. Which freaked me out but then i would be back in my dream and i ran to wake myself up but once i got back into my bedroom i was stuck again by this darkness that killed me. I watched myself die from my sleeping self. So i woke up again this time in real life and freaked out, thinking i just died.
I don't know – it's really hard to explain, and it's freaking me out. I hope these go away.
The same shit happens to me, I it is worse, but I seem not to be too frightened until recently. I have recently split up with my fiance of ten years. We had grown apart and her perception of me was that of the abused, she believed me to be mentally abusing her. Without going off track I will say that her secrets had caused much resentment within me, and as a result a blockade towards her. So there is a lot of guilt leftover within me and the questions, all unanswered. No sure understanding of the cause or effect in the past year of our "love". She kept everything and the dogs. I now live across the world from my family and friends and although content, have made a massive sacrifice in vain, unseen for years and years.
I have been single for 6 months, and certainly have moved on successfully in some areas of life. I can go to sleep and wake up without thinking of her, but there are interruptions.
I have had problems with violent dreams, traumatic and horrific dreams, some of which actually manifested themselves or rather,... really fucking happened scene for scene. As a child I was frequently waking up screaming or swinging and flailing my arms or punching etc. There were dreams which appeared to be in a series and sometimes wouldn't occur again for years, but I certainly had no mistake when they came back.
So after this break up I was damaged, still am a bit too. More applicable, I was severely depressed and lonely. All the usual stresses were engaged in life. I would have these dreams and sometimes there would be a good week, with enough distractions to keep my mind off her and the big situation I was now faced with. After all, everything in my life was now foreign and new and unknown. All life plans were abolished in one day.. I was still in shock.
The dreams had developed into something which began about 90 mins after I fell asleep and was so traumatic and never racking I would wake up in 2 or less hours. The scenarios were either good or bad in the dream state. When I say "good" I mean that the depiction was that of a break up recovery, making amens, or fixing everything and getting back together. Enjoying past times, vividly, my dogs growing moments, engagements on the islands, etc. When I say bad, I mean cheating, sex, fights, chasing her, searching for her, stalking her, seeing her in distress and I am helpless.
Either way they were horrible dreams, I would wake up sweating, heart racing and covered in tears, at times with no recollection of the dream content itself and would simply be aware I was alive. I was alive, but completely helpless and terrified of my own reality and tormented by my surreal dreams.
I have had some pretty good 'moving on' time since the initial break up and I putting things back together, slowly and it is very well... extremely difficult and testing on my will to persevere. As for the sleeplessness and insomnia, I have got that to a minimum threat, but certain elements still haunt me.
As of recent I have been falling asleep briefly while watching
films or after dinner while lounging, and it is in these times that the haunting returns. I have l have lucid and vivid dreams, almost hallucinations or delusions in real time, in the live environment. I will pass to sleep and within moments (under15 mins), I am in the same room, enjoying the present activity, and she is there or here with me. It soon escalated as well to an emotional state. It always seems to involve some self perceptions or view of myself. I will make a facial expression or express a feeling, in response or towards her in these scenarios, and it is so live I reach out to hug her or kiss her and then I awake. At times I have fallen out of bed, grabbed a bundled blanket or jumped out of bed happily laughing etc. The key to this current state is her side of the situation. I appreciate and did appreciate the way she understood me, knew me and loved me. This is the element I really, truly miss the most and it is most relevant here in my dreams. I see her there in front of me, and we are in love, sharing positive thoughts and stories and expressing our unconditional love for one another when.... SMASH I wake up and it'sall too real once again and she is still gone forever.
This is fucked up, and a shame overall. There is no chance for me to fix things in realtime and I have no closure on the causes. I cannot make any headway in contacting her for closure, her mind is still set on her new way of yoga living and her artificial discovery of herself as a ' free woman'. It is this factor which, I believe, fuels these night terrors.
Is it a case of "Hypnagogic Hallucinations"?
No comments:
Post a Comment
What do you think of this?