Sleep/Wake Transition Trip

[syberdelic]

Hypnagogia is the experience of the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep: the hypnagogic state of consciousness, during the onset of sleep. Mental phenomena that occur during this "threshold consciousness" phase include lucid thought, lucid dreaming, hallucinations, and sleep paralysis. -Wikipedia

-eg

 

[null24]

I've been teaching myself how to do this for awhile. While most often resembling a dream narrative, I've experienced the explosions of color shape you describe as well. I think there's someone who advises on a similar practice, calling it "liminal dreaming".

There's a little discussion on some my experience with something like you describehere if you're interested.

 

[JustAnotherHuman]

Hypnagogia is the experience of the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep: the hypnagogic state of consciousness, during the onset of sleep. Mental phenomena that occur during this "threshold consciousness" phase include lucid thought, lucid dreaming, hallucinations, and sleep paralysis. -Wikipedia

-eg

I've experienced this phenomenon many times, with all the phenomena mentioned in the above quote being a part of my experience. Usually not all at the same time though. Like I might have lucid thought with sleep paralysis one time, I've had lucid, and normal dreams while in this state, never had any hallucinations though.

I actually just had a hypnagogic experience, coupled with dreams, one of them lucid, a few hours ago. This state of consciousness fascinates me.

I've never experienced anything like syberdelic describes, however I had the doors of perception blown off by DMT, so I wouldn't know.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

'Hypnopompia' is the name for the corresponding state experienced during the process of waking. I get this much more readily than hynogogia, maybe because I'm incredibly lazy...

 

[lsDxMdmaddicThc]

I can personally relate to those effects.
I experience them quite often actually, even while sober.
I've noticed they're strongest near Full Moons.
Sometimes it even rivals medium dose DMT sessions.
Maybe by maintaining a certain level of relaxed awareness you are able to see what happens as you fall asleep.
The depths of the mind/subconscious are infinitely bizarre.

 

[○]

Yeah, I can stay in that transitional period for awhile. That state can be so incredibly finicky for me. There's been these real odd occasions to where I lost my awareness in that state, fell off the mark and was greeted by this overwhelmingly loud bang/siren/jet/air type sound, it's really hard to describe. It's almost deafening in how loud it is. Only lasts for a few seconds then I either fall asleep or I wake up immediately [the latter is usually the case].

 

[null24]

I've noticed they're strongest near Full Moons.

Man, I never thought of that being a possible variable! I'm going to have to pay attention to that in the future. I had a small experience last week, although i wasnt trying-right around if not on the night of the full moon.

Huhm. Thanks for bringing that up, IsDXM.

I love this topic, it comes up pretty frequently, it seems, as soon as someone discovers it. :d

 

[entheogenic-gnosis]

Hypnagogia is the experience of the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep: the hypnagogic state of consciousness, during the onset of sleep. Mental phenomena that occur during this "threshold consciousness" phase include lucid thought, lucid dreaming, hallucinations, and sleep paralysis. -Wikipedia

-eg

I wouldn't completely discount this theory, but I experienced no dreaming, lucid or otherwise, and no sleep paralysis.
I have experienced the hypnagogic state before and this felt very different. It was much more like a psychedelic experience. In the hypnagogic state, my hallucinations are more like a poorly drawn version of reality whereas this was more colorful geometric patterns dancing on my eye-lids and some euphoric tranquility.

Hypnagogia is the experience of the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep -Wikipedia

syberdelic said: Last night, while laying in bed, I felt myself transitioning from awake to asleep.

I see this anecdote as an example of novel Hypnagogia...but that's just my interpretation.

Hypnopompia' is the name for the corresponding state experienced during the process of waking. I get this much more readily than hynogogia, maybe because I'm incredibly lazy...

I was using the term in the "more general" sense expressed below:

Sometimes the word hypnagogia is used in a restricted sense to refer to the onset of sleep, and contrasted with hypnopompia, Frederic Myers's term for waking up.[1] However, hypnagogia is also regularly employed in a more general sense that covers both falling asleep and waking up, and Havelock Ellis questioned the need for separate terms.[2] Indeed, it is not always possible in practice to assign a particular episode of any given phenomenon to one or the other, given that the same kinds of experience occur in both, and that people may drift in and out of sleep. In this article hypnagogia will be used in the broader sense, unless otherwise stated or implied. -Wikipedia

There may have been some confusion regarding this section of the excerpt:

Mental phenomena that occur during this "threshold consciousness" phase include lucid thought, lucid dreaming, hallucinations, and sleep paralysis. -Wikipedia

This does not mean the phenomena are limited to what's listed, and this does not mean these phenomena are occurring simultaneously. Hypnogogic states can occur without any the phenomena listed. There can be a wide variety of mental states that can occur during the transition states between wakefulness and sleep. I consider any state of novel consciousness occurring between wake and sleep as being hypnogogic.

-eg