Anomalous, extraordinary, or otherwise interesting conscious experiences

[Mk]

Tell us all about it, how was it?

Well, I won't get into it, but it wasn't better than normal.

 

[Alkatran]

When I go to sleep I sometimes 'trick' myself into thinking the bed is tilting. It's weird because I can almost feel myself slipping.

Usually after going to a theme park I'll feel like I'm still on the egg-beaters and spinning in bed (which is an AMAZING feeling).

Sometimes I'll suddenly feel like I'm being pressed very strongly into the bed. I can stop this whenever I want, but the sensation is pleasant because I know it's only in my head... and there's no pain involved.

 

[AngelShare]

This is all really interesting.

Hm, let's see...one of the oddest things I've experienced while sleeping is being asleep but being awake. I'm fully aware that I'm asleep but I can't move, talk, or anything...I don't even think I can wake myself up. BUT, I can hear people talking very clearly. Once, I figured I was just imagining this so I asked my Mom something that pertained to something she was supposedly talking about earlier. Turns out, I was right, she had been discussing said topic. It doesn't happen often but it's a really odd feeling.

When I was about eight, my Grandfather died and my Mom and Dad had a huge falling out. As a result, sleeping arrangements were shifted so that my Mom and Dad could be separate. On one particular occasion, I slept with my Mom in her room...but I couldn't remember where I was the next morning. It was still dark so I couldn't see...I knew my Mom was on my right but I wasn't sure what was on my left. Open air? A wall? If it was a wall, it was my Mom's room...if it was open air, it was either my room or my brother's room. I layed there for at least an hour, too afraid to move, thinking, "Where am I? Why can't I remember where I fell asleep last night?" Eventually, my Mom woke up and, by that time, I was pretty freaked out so I just up and asked, "Mom where are we?":rofl:

Oh yeah, I had a pretty unnerving dream about three or four years ago as well. I dreamt that our Beagle dog, Susy, was bleeding from her mouth. Not a lot but enough that I could see it. I was standing, for no apparent reason, in the doorway of my Dad's basement office (Where I'm at now- we keep the computers here.) when she started slowly and rather weakly walking towards me. I looked down at her and she looked up at me...then I woke up. I was then alerted to her having passed away...I took a close look at her and found that there was some blood on the floor not far away from where my dream took place and that it had come from her mouth. Everyone assumed she died from old age but I still wonder where the blood came from...

I would definitely like to explore this topic more as I wonder what some of these experiences would feel like first hand...I'll have to hang around this thread for a while.

 

[Mk]

This thread is very interesting to read.

 

[AngelShare]

Yes, it is. I'd like to try controlling my dreams but, so far, they've all been out of my control.:rofl:

 

[Mk]

I figured out I need to apply it to my real life, that's what works best for me. In a dream, I either a) think its real or b) are lucid dreaming and don't really care. In a dream a few weeks ago I was flipping through the tv channels and was reminded of oneironauting, and then made the *full* realization that I was in a dream. I jumped up many levels of lucidity. The higher your level or degree of lucidity, the more
*awake you are
*understanding you are of the situation
*clearer you think
*perception of the vibrancy of the world around you

Oneironaut comes from the Greek for "dream sailor," like astronaut comes from "star sailor." Sailor as in explorer.

What has really helped me, is to ask yourself as frequently as possible "am I dreaming," and reading up on the capabilities and things to do. Read about oneironauting experiments at http://lucidity.com.

 

[scott_alexsk]

Occasionally I go to sleep and then feel like I wake up the next day and do something stupid. Then I really wake up and think was I dreaming, since I feel regret. On several occasions I have had to convince myself that what I dreamed did not happen at all, since it seemed so real like I had just gone through another day. Would this be considered lucid dreaming? I have no idea.
-Scott

 

[Mk]

Occasionally I go to sleep and then feel like I wake up the next day and do something stupid. Then I really wake up and think was I dreaming, since I feel regret. On several occasions I have had to convince myself that what I dreamed did not happen at all, since it seemed so real like I had just gone through another day. Would this be considered lucid dreaming? I have no idea.
-Scott

Closely related to lucid dreaming, this is a typical case of a false awakening. You think you woke up, maybe move around, get up and get a glass of water, then you really wake up. I don't like them. I know I can never tell that its still a dream. Somehow if I "wake up," I take it at face value like normal people do in their dreams. I never, ever think twice.

 

[scott_alexsk]

It is really strange with those dreams I have had. Whenever I have them I wake up feeling regret, then I remmeber the dream. In turn I feel bad until I convince myself that it did not happen. Perhaps I have more dreams like this, but the emotion of regret may change how I feel so I remmeber it in the morning.
-Scott

 

[Mk]

I have spasms a lot, well, I think its more than other people, I've never really been somebody else, so I don't know for sure.

I was just watching my arm two nights ago. One of my biceps was twitching quite a bit. I could see it hitting against my loose white T-shirt.
What I mean is that, like:
1. put your left hand on the keyboard, with your fingers on the "home row," touching the asdf and space keys.
2. Tense all the muscles in your arm, while watching the sleeve of your t-shirt, or make a muscle, or whatever your fancy while keeping your hand pinned to the same location on the keyboard, and your arm pinned to the same location on your shoulder.

Yeah, like that.

I think my muscles get very tense when I am exited. When I go to live music concerts, I always have to sit down. The suspense builds, I am more and more anxious, and feel the uncontrollable urge to tense and relax all my muscles. If I don't, I watch my feet, legs, and arms spasm. If I am immersed in very exiting movie or book it happens.

I think its anomalous or extraordinary, I've never seen anybody else experiencing this type of thing.

Can anybody tell me something about it?

 

[Mk]

I've found it!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-eye_hallucination
This is awesome1!

I asked about this before in this part of the forum, and found no answer, but browsing about Wikipedia I've found it!

KLASFJKLSGJKLS@! I'm sooo happy!

Closed eye hallucinations or closed eye visualizations (CEV) is a term used to describe a distinct class of hallucination, which generally only occurs when one's eyes are closed, or one is in a darkened room.

These are dots I was talking about before dancing on the walls. Comparable to a visual static, but it is not seen if you try and "focus" on a part of it.

Level 1: Visual Noise
The most basic form of CEV perception that can be immediately experienced in normal waking consciousness involves a seemingly random noise of pointillistic light/dark regions with no apparent shape or order.

Ha! See! Its like white and dark little things, like on the white and black static you get on tv.

This can be seen when you close your eyes, but try to actively look with your eyes at the back of your closed eyelids. In a bright room, a dark red can be seen. In a dark room, blackness can be seen. But in either case it is not a flat unchanging redness/blackness. Instead, if actively observed for a few minutes, you become aware of an apparent disorganized motion, a random field of lightness/darkness that overlays the redness/blackness of your closed eyelids.

The redness comes from the redness of the blood in your eyelid I think? The eyelid is very thin. In bright light I skip Level 1 completely.

For a person that tries to actively observe this closed-eye perception on a regular basis, there comes a point where if you look at a flat-shaded object with your eyes wide open, and try to actively look for this visual noise, you will become aware of it and see the random pointilistic disorganized motion as if it were a transparent overlay on top of what is actually being seen by your open eyes.

Uhm... that sounds weird.

Level 3: Patterns, motion, and color
At a sufficiently deep level of relaxation, the noise becomes highly organized, taking on complex geometric patterns and shapes, as if it were a field of tiny stars, squares, or diamonds, floating over and under each other in ribbons and fields.

Couldn't be said better. Sometimes I just like to close my eyes and watch.

This level is relatively easily accessible to people that smoke marijuana, and appears to be what most people refer to as the colorful visuals.

I've never smoked pot before.

However, this is also accessible to people involved in deep concentration for long periods of time, such as doing complex math or geometry problems in school. When lying down at night and closing the eyes, right before sleep the complex motion of these patterns can become directly visible without any great effort.

Yeah, sounds like me.

Level 4: Objects and things
This is a fairly deep state, typically only accessible through psychoactives or people who have practiced meditation for a long time. At this level, what you are thinking becomes visually manifest as if it were a real object or environment. When this level is reached, the CEV noise seems to calm down and fade away, leaving behind an intense flat ordered blackness. The visual field becomes a sort of active space where what you think is what you get. A side component of this is the ability to feel motion if your eyes are closed. For example thinking of moving down may cause the interior of an elevator to manifest in the CEV field, along with the distinct perception of physically moving downward.

Well that sounds right to me except for the motion. After the moving geometric patterns and shapes, "real" things appear, such as wildcats and owls. Sometimes they can get scary, there is no reason why though.

Opening the eyes returns one to the normal physical world, but still with the CEV object field overlayed onto it and present. In this state it is possible to see things that appear to be physical objects in the open-eye physical world, but that aren't really there.

Uhm... noooooooooo.

Level 5: Overriding physical perception
This is the point where it appears to the outside world that a person is either unconscious or insane. The internal CEV perceptions and think-it/feel-it perceptions become stronger than physical perceptions, and completely override and replace open-eye physical perceptions. This can be a somewhat dangerous state if a person is still mobile while literally off in their own little world, but by this time most people are motionless on the couch and as such, are not likely to do something hazardous to themselves or others.
This is the point where most hallucinogenic references say it is a good idea to have a "sitter" present to watch over the person using the chemicals, and keep them from accidentally harming themselves or others while deep into their own world.

Wow, insane-o... I can get it to override physical perception if I woke up but never opened my eyes. This is what I aim for every morning. I try and wake up with my eyes closed, so I can go over the dreams I've been having, because they are quite interesting and some may want to be remembered. I keep them closed and create a fantasy world, sometimes after long enough, and if I'm calm enough, I can fall asleep into the fantasy.

Nobody else has these?

Come to think of it, I hallucinate a lot by comparison to other people I think. If I'm in a darkened room, and am calm, I will see the flashing black and white visual static, and when looking into the edges of where the ceiling and wall meet, it will appear for them to move. If things are very dark, and are very hard to distinguish from their surroundings, they will appear to move. All three of these hallucinations are alike in that if I try and focus on a region the whole thing will stop. Does anyone know a person I can contact about all these weird things?

 

[Lars Laborious]

Drinking and dreaming

I've had a few wicked experiences a few days after drinking too much. Once, when I was resting with my eyes open, I started seeing dreamlike clouds in the room. I realized I could control them and soon I made a really vivid man taking form. Then I closed my eyes since it was starting to freak me out a bit. It all disappeard when I opened them again.
Annother time I woke up (after dozing off for about 15 min) by a man grabbing my chest and squeezing hard. The first thought that hit me was "Jeez..., it's the Moral Man... I really got to cut down on drinking." He to disappeared after I "shaked" him off like a dream.
I've also had some "clear dreams" were I know that I'm dreaming, and can control much of what's happening. This one time I tried to "confront my fear" by walking down a hall to meet whatever might hide in the shadows at the dark end. Even though I was fully aware that it was all just a dream, I simply couldn't do it. I didn't dare walking into the darkness. I still wonder if I would have died of fear if I had done it.

 

[Mk]

I've also had some "clear dreams" were I know that I'm dreaming, and can control much of what's happening. This one time I tried to "confront my fear" by walking down a hall to meet whatever might hide in the shadows at the dark end. Even though I was fully aware that it was all just a dream, I simply couldn't do it. I didn't dare walking into the darkness. I still wonder if I would have died of fear if I had done it.

Called lucid dreaming, welcome to the club! Eh, you just got to do it. Do it before thinking too much about it, because you know you are dreaming.

 

[Tsunami]

Okay, hypnagogue asked me to describe what it's like to drink absinthe. Unfortunately, for the most part, I don't really remember. I've only drank it once, and I actually made a concerted effort not to drink too much. I played the role of instigator that night, daring and prodding those who had drunk too much into performing outrageous actions that they would otherwise never do, largely so that I could photograph them and have something interesting to write in my journal (I was in the middle of a road trip and documentation was the word of the day).*

The strongest feeling I can actually remember is that of disconnection. I didn't seem to be participating in any directed way in what I was doing, or what was going on. I experienced things as an observer rather than as an actor. One thing I would like to say about this is that this may not be a typical effect of absinthe. It seems likely that what happened is that the absinthe simply intensified a sense of disconnection that I often feel in awkward social situations to begin with. I've always had a tendency to experience life as if it were a novel, a story that I was either writing or reading. In this case, I was the reader rather than the writer, and some other part of me took control of crafting the narrative, a part whose motivations I have no access to in my memory.

The other notable quality of the experience is the complete lack of fear. Absinthe is alcoholic, and alcohol already lowers one's inhibition level, but this did it to the extreme. I had the sense of being in a reality without rules. It wasn't like I could violate the laws of physics or transcend my physical limitations or anything that profound; it was simply that I had the feeling that the social rules which normally dictate human behavior were gone. All of us were reduced to the level of primal beasts, literally becoming the monsters that lurk just beneath the surface of the knowable psyche. Consider the situation of Caligula. As Emperor, there were no real consequences to his actions. He could do whatever he wished to do and get away with it. Moreover, he seemed to reach the point where morality no longer made any difference to his decisions; it simply seemed to no longer exist in his world. It was something like that.

*I realize this might make me sound like somewhat of a sociopath, but whatever.

Wow.


So is this the absynth you can buy in a local supermarket, or the now forbidden kind that was popular in Parisian artistic circles?

 

[Tsunami]

This is definitely one I can expand on somewhat. It has mostly to do with the way I feel about events that occur in my life, as well as my motivations for bringing about certain events and avoiding others. Typically, or at least I get the impression that typically, people are pleased by generally good events and angered or saddened by generally bad events. While I do often feel the same way in regards to an immediate emotional response, I do not always, and oftentimes I do not feel these ways even in the immediate response. Instead, I feel the way a writer does when crafting a story. If a certain events moves the plot forward or reveals a particular aspect of character development, or even seems to make a metaphorical point if looked at from the outside, then it pleases me. If it does not, then I am not satisfied. I have to note that I do not always feel this way, particularly with regards to my immediate responses to events, but when I do, my interactions with people can become rather awkward, as the way I feel about what is going on becomes completely different from the way they feel, and I would even say that my experience of the event as being in context with a fuller narrative is probably completely different from the other person's experience. My experience is artistic rather than visceral.

If you consider the difference between watching Romeo after killing
Tybalt to actually being Romeo at that time, you can get an idea of what I mean. Romeo cries out that he is fortune's fool, in a moment of absolute despair. I would venture the guess that he probably feels nothing but despair. A viewer of the play, however, is moved by a different set of emotions, an appreciation of how fate is playing out to construct what is a beautiful tragedy. In many ways, I would rather lead a beautiful life than a happy life.

Where this manifests most explicitly is in the way I make life-decisions. Most people will simply do what makes them happy, or what they think will bring them success. But a stable home life, meaningful relationships, and material success have never been particularly important to me. When I decide what to do on the large scale of overarching plans (choosing a partner, school, job, whatever), I always take into consideration first and foremost how it will contribute to the story of my life. Does it take the plot in a new and interesting direction? Does it make any kind of artistic statement? Or, more pedestrianly, does it make for a good read?

Paul Ricoeur: Life is a story in search of a narrator.

or: We become the narrator of our own lives, but never its author.

 

[complexPHILOSOPHY]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-eye_hallucination
This is awesome1!

I asked about this before in this part of the forum, and found no answer, but browsing about Wikipedia I've found it!

KLASFJKLSGJKLS@! I'm sooo happy!


These are dots I was talking about before dancing on the walls. Comparable to a visual static, but it is not seen if you try and "focus" on a part of it.


Ha! See! Its like white and dark little things, like on the white and black static you get on tv.

The redness comes from the redness of the blood in your eyelid I think? The eyelid is very thin. In bright light I skip Level 1 completely.


Uhm... that sounds weird.

Couldn't be said better. Sometimes I just like to close my eyes and watch.


I've never smoked pot before.


Yeah, sounds like me.


Well that sounds right to me except for the motion. After the moving geometric patterns and shapes, "real" things appear, such as wildcats and owls. Sometimes they can get scary, there is no reason why though.

Uhm... noooooooooo.

Wow, insane-o... I can get it to override physical perception if I woke up but never opened my eyes. This is what I aim for every morning. I try and wake up with my eyes closed, so I can go over the dreams I've been having, because they are quite interesting and some may want to be remembered. I keep them closed and create a fantasy world, sometimes after long enough, and if I'm calm enough, I can fall asleep into the fantasy.

Nobody else has these?

Come to think of it, I hallucinate a lot by comparison to other people I think. If I'm in a darkened room, and am calm, I will see the flashing black and white visual static, and when looking into the edges of where the ceiling and wall meet, it will appear for them to move. If things are very dark, and are very hard to distinguish from their surroundings, they will appear to move. All three of these hallucinations are alike in that if I try and focus on a region the whole thing will stop. Does anyone know a person I can contact about all these weird things?

Ingest some triptamines or entheogens and you will experience a level of consciousness that you could NEVER imagine.

 

[eeka chu]

Lots of the visual effects people mention, like static, can be caused just by how your eye works on a mechanical level.

Dead cells float around in the liquid core of your eye and will show up on your vision as they float past the retina. You can also see things like the back of your own eye as a reflection, and I'm sure I've actually seen blood flowing in my retina, or somewhere else in my eye, before now.

Some of the strangest things I've experienced have been just on the edge of going to sleep. Quite often I hear things, but vividly as if someone is actually making that noise in the room I'm in. It was happening last night and has done quite frequently these last few nights. It's usually just a word or two, like my name. Or sometimes it's a few notes. But it's very clear. I think at least once I've actually replied to these sounds thinking someone was calling me.

But complexPHILOSOPHY is right, all of this is nothing compared to what you'll experience with the help of something like magic mushrooms.

I remember cycling home after eating some psilocybe truffles that hadn't worked very well (they'd been in storage for a while and the psilocybin had obviously started to break down). It was funny actually, I was, without thinking, repeating Hoffmann's own psychodelic bicycle ride home.

Along the way I heard crystal clear sounds as if there was a group of people chatting around the corner I was about to go round (it was dark and being a cyclist I'm always listening out for people who I might be about to ride into at a corner). But the weirdest moment was as I came towards my house I went by a car that was emitting a noise identical to that which you'd get when you tune a radio into some kind of satellite, the computery encoded sound. It sounded very glossy and almost like music. It was so weird and interesting I stopped my bike and backed up to investigate, but it had stopped by then.

However, that's not much compared to the hour or two I spent totally naked one night lying on my bed occasionally waving to faces I was watching appear on the ceiling.

 

[Tsunami]

So, a couple of days ago, I noticed that I heard a high, constant tone in my head. This tone hasn't gone away since.


This is seriously freaking me out, considering that this is very likely to be a symptom of ear damage. So, first off, as a question unrelated to the topic: is there anything I can do to stop this damage from becoming permanent? I think I might have caught it because of the high frequency buzz of my tv channel when I link it to my laptop; if not, it's a tone from my laptop itself. I'm now working on it, with my headphones on (of course, with no sound coming in through the headphones, I use it for protection from outside sound).

Anyway, there are some odd things I noticed.

1) It's a background sound. An hour ago, I went out in the street, where it was raining, and the sound of the rain completely blacked out the high tone. When I came in, I heard it again.

2) It can resonate. Whenever my laptop or the tv sends out the same sound, I hear the tone being reinforced.. sometimes I even noticed beating, when the frequencies are very similar.

3) Not sure about the beating though ; there's something that seems like beating, when I try to analyze the sound, with no other sounds in the proximity. It seems like a constant tone, but when I imagine a sine wave, it seems as if the tone starts to oscillate as well.

 

[Mk]

Dead cells float around in the liquid core of your eye and will show up on your vision as they float past the retina. You can also see things like the back of your own eye as a reflection, and I'm sure I've actually seen blood flowing in my retina, or somewhere else in my eye, before now.

Its not floaters.

But complexPHILOSOPHY is right, all of this is nothing compared to what you'll experience with the help of something like magic mushrooms.

Oh, no way man! This is very subtle, and it is so subtle that its almost like you're not seeing it... because you're not. But I doubt that shrooms could bring you up to a level of consciousness parallel to some lucid dreams I've had.

I remember cycling home after eating some psilocybe truffles that hadn't worked very well (they'd been in storage for a while and the psilocybin had obviously started to break down). It was funny actually, I was, without thinking, repeating Hoffmann's own psychodelic bicycle ride home.

What was that?

1) It's a background sound. An hour ago, I went out in the street, where it was raining, and the sound of the rain completely blacked out the high tone. When I came in, I heard it again.

2) It can resonate. Whenever my laptop or the tv sends out the same sound, I hear the tone being reinforced.. sometimes I even noticed beating, when the frequencies are very similar.

3) Not sure about the beating though ; there's something that seems like beating, when I try to analyze the sound, with no other sounds in the proximity. It seems like a constant tone, but when I imagine a sine wave, it seems as if the tone starts to oscillate as well.

Does anyone else here a sometimes very annoying "hum" that you hear when it is ALL quiet? TOTALLY quiet, the hum comes in, it can be quite loud. It is not a hum... but akin to the sound of moving air in a conch shell. In fact, that is probably what it is.

For you, how high is it? Very high? Somewhat high? What tone?

 

[Tsunami]

Well, it resonates with my tv when it's on dvd channel, so it's pretty high.


When I was a child, I used to have that hum sometimes.. it's been a while though.

Anyway, I'm going to see my doctor about it, I don't think it's healthy anymore (three days really is too long).

 

[PIT2]

There was a documentary about people with 'sound shock syndrome' (something like that, i can't remember the name). They showed a guy who was in a band, and one day they decided to let their audience hear a shotgun sound. The sound was too loud for the singer near the speakers, and the following days he noticed that he started feeling weird (he didnt know why). He ended up with a constant very loud hum/beeping noise in his head, and he couldn't sleep anymore. His ears weren't damaged, but his brain was confused by the sound.

Other examples in the show were people who had listened to music or other noises for too long. Their ears/brains had adjusted to the sound and when the sound was removed, the ear would still give off signals to the brain.

 

[PIT2]

I forgot to write it down here, but a few weeks ago i had what i think may have been an OBE, but it could as well have been a dream.

Here is what happened:

I was asleep and dreaming, and somewhere along the dream i thought: "im dreaming... I am dreaming... hey I am dreaming!". So at that point it was a lucid dream (also my first, or perhaps second one). Almost instantly when i realized i was dreaming, i thought it would be interesting to see if i could leave my body. As soon as i thought this, i started hearing static noise (like radio or tv), the dream was gone and replaced by my normal room, and i felt that i was being pulled/pushed out of my head. Then i felt/heard a *pop* and it felt as if i had exitted my body and was now floating somewhere in my room.

I was aware that my eyes were closed, so all i experienced was darkness, a loud static noise, a feeling of floating around, and a feeling of being in an open environment. However i was too scared to open my eyes and check if i could really see the environment. I wanted to check if i was experiencing something real, but i just didnt feel safe. Picture urself getting up in the middle of the night and walking outside in the rain completely naked into an unknown place, and then u can imagine how it felt. I mention the rain because that is what the static noise reminded me of - rain hitting the roof and giving off a noise, or perhaps it was really raining at the time. The situation felt unsafe because i thought if i opened my eyes i might see a sleep paralysis demon walking around the room. I didnt feel any presence, it was just my mind remembering that people had said they sense beings while in sleep paralysis situations. I would not have thought of any demons if i hadnt known about SP.

Because i didnt feel safe and was scared, i almost instantly ended it all (by just willing it to stop). The whole thing happened in a timespan of maybe 20 seconds, so it was very short. After i ended it, i was briefly awake and thought "wow did i just have an OBE? I should remember this", then fell back asleep.

So i don't know what this was: an OBE, a lucid dream, a normal dream, or a sleep paralysis episde, or a combination of all four, and i wish i had opened my eyes too see if the environment was real.

 

[Rader]

Has anyone ever had the experience of reading in 3D. What I mean is, while your reading, all the letters on the page can be focused in on like a necker cube. The letters have depth like you see sometimes on the big movie theatre. Its possible to look around the sides of the letters as if they were houses and by moving my head to one side or the other or from the top or bottom. This has happened to me three times and lasted one day then dissapears. When it happens I can remember the feeling is like when I go inside those 3D hidden pictures. It feels good.

 

[Mk]

How anomolous, extraordinary, or otherwise interesting, Rader.

 

[quantumcarl]

My totally conscious experience that defies conventional ones is as follows.

I had finished a climb of about 600 vertical feet and was rewarded by a bluff overlooking a large straight of ocean between me and a large island that was 21 miles to the west where I was looking.

I was standing and admiring the vista when I noticed something small and hovering at my eye level. At first I thought it was a bug until I focused my vision and attention on the object.

After carefully watching this eye level object I could discern that it was actually about my size but about 60 feet away from me, 600 ft over the ocean below. As I inspected what I now accepted as something the size of a miniture helecopter cockpit I began to make out its content. It was a humanoid form yet it was transparent like the cockpit is was inside.

After realizing the nature of the hoovering object my heart-rate rose and my adrenalin did what it normally does to my body and brain. The object then rather subtley began a backward retreat while remaining at my eye level.

It steadly, with a slight waver up and down, made it back to across the straight to the large island west of me in 20 seconds or so... this means it was traveling approximately a mile a second since the distance was 21 miles. I watched it till it became a dissappearing speck.

Not sure if this is the type of thing you wanted for this thread, but, its true and there you go!

 

[fuzzyfelt]

I was going to ask this in the hallucination thread, but this gets a little off track. I’d like to know about the difference between hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations. I have heard with no great authority, that the former is artistically helpful, and the latter, scientifically so.

I’ve also just read this, about whether or not dreams are useful to problem solving – “ Morton Reiser, a psychoanalyst at Yale University ….says ‘ How do you explain that so many scientific breakthrough ideas have been portrayed as dream imagery?’ (as cited in Schulte, 1998, p.3.)”. http://www.asu.edu/clas/english/linguistics/Joanfinalpaper.DOC
I wonder if this is the case and if this is related to hypnopompic experiences.

I wonder about the differences between states of hypnogogia, because I’ve had a lot of (not drug, but otherwise self-induced) hypnagogic experiences, mostly artistically helpful, but only one hypnopompic experience that I recall, and it didn’t seem scientific.

It was recent, early December, and involved the appearance of an astral traveller who was doing me the honour of visiting. I would say it would qualify as a hallucination because there was no distinction between sleep and waking. I had been aware of some movement and noise, but in identifying them as the 6:30 alarm and my husband waking beside me, the wonderful vision standing in our room, regrettably, was gone. However, I’m not science minded and so am unlikely to think scientifically. I’m also not a morning person, and find I’m not too good with hypnopompic experiences myself, but would like know more about them.

 

[complexPHILOSOPHY]

I embrace the activation-synthesis theory of dreams (random patterns of neurons fire and are perceived by certain cortices) and consolidation or mental-housekeeping theory.

Activation-synthesis explains incoherent, fragmented dreams while consolidation theory describes coherent, story-like dreams. Neither theory can explain all dream related phenomena but together help to explain a lot.

I really have not seen any convincing empirical research which indicates that problem-solving theories have any validity. Although, I am interested in your thoughts.

 

[madhatter106]

I'll put in my experience on this question first, "difference between hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations".
I've been experiencing this as far back as I can recall, toddler age on, so about 30+yrs. As a child it was very intense and I didn't know what to make of it, my mother figured the house was possessed by demons, she was a bit over the top with religion. However here's what I've "seen", the hypnagogic stage was sometimes more frightening as the wallpaper would come to life, pictures would start-up and behave as TV's complete with sound, as a child this is a bit much! As I got older I found that I could control what was happening and what the outcome was, I also found that this gave me a completely new world in my dreams. I learned to completely control my dreams and become the 'creator' at about age 8, I would travel to other planets by flying AKA superman, I could make entire environments appear etc... I found that I would rather spend more time asleep than awake. who wouldn't?

As I got older I found that I could induce the dream state while awake, it was sketchy at first and required concentration, usually in the form of day time school. which by the way I always daydreamed during, this started around 2nd~3rd grade - I'd 'zone' out of class and disappear into my own reality, while still being aware of my surroundings and 'remotely controlling' myself so as not to appear too detached.

Now on the hypnopompic arena, that's entirely different. It can be a mix of waking dream into reality or waking and carrying in hallucinations that I don't recall in the dream state, I also think it's just hallucinations related to external visual field that my mind plays with. These are at first so real that it's impossible to tell the difference, it's the voice of reason in my head that says, "wait a moment, this can't be real" I then have a choice, I can try and interact with it at which point the hallucination fades or disappears or do nothing and watch it evolve into very fascinating things, and here's the key difference I've noticed, in the prior state of lucid dreaming while falling asleep the visuals and what not are just what ever I want them to be or have induced no real deep meaning or substance, more like and alternate reality. In the case of waking and dreaming, there is always a very deep meaning sense of feeling tied to it, I also find that it relates to something I've been trying to solve or work related with my design process. It's like seeing the overall picture all at once and getting a sense of where to focus and what and how to tie it all together to get this 'flash' where the proverbial light goes on.

It sounds very odd, and the experience is very hard to put into words as it's entirely for me a 'picture' based thing.

 

[Alex11111]

Nobody else has these?

I have noticed this lately, but my question is why so happy? You identified the problem, but its still a problem. Is there any treatment for this, its ridicules to try to fall asleep with this.

Let me know, thanks.

a.

 

[Tregg Smith]

You probably know of the inner alarm clock where in some mysterious way you wake up at just the right time to go somewhere without an actual alarm clock. One time when sleeping I heard a most pure and beautiful single note of what must have been a silver bell and my eyes opened and I was awake. What a wonderful way to wake up I thought. Too bad it can't happen everytime.

 

[Tregg Smith]

Three or four times within the last few years I have been in a store shopping and one time driving when I saw what I thought was an old friend. But then upon getting closer I realized it wasn't that person. Within a minute or so I then encountered that old friend and we had a chat. Bi zzzz ar!

 

[Stephen Tashi]

I've been trying to teach myself Lucid Dreaming, conciously perceiving that you are in a dream. A common way to try to induce a lucid dream is WILD, Waking induction of lucid dreaming. Basically you try to keep your mind awake while your body goes to sleep. The key is the hypnagogic state, which often induces both auditory and visual hallucinations. So no, I don't think you're insane for hearing things before you go to sleep

All you have when dreams are over is a memory of them. I think inducing false memories of dreams is something that's easer to do than having them. Write down your dreams or fragments of them in the morning when you wake up. To fabricate a dream, look back into your records of several weeks ago and pick out some parts of dreams that are interesting. Then imagine a story that incorporates these fragments. Just replay the events that "really" happened in your dreams and add your imagined events into the story. It's best to write down the revised dream. Replay it several times as vividly as you can in your mind. (You don't have to hallucinate the dream. The ordinary way of replaying a memory will do.)

The memory of the false dream will become as "real" as your memory of the actual dream.

 

[RingoStar]

I've been reading some comments about magic mushrooms and would like to add my 2 cents, if it means anything to you scientists.

Taking LSD (Acid) and Magic Mushrooms will alter your mind like nothing else you can imagine.
The best way I can describe my last experience taing Mushrooms, was my entire life flashed before my eyes. Literally.

This effected me in such a way I realized who I really was, a liar, cheat, con artist... is the best way I could put it. This was almost like confession for a Catholic church, whereby you are subjected to realize all your sins and past wrong doings. Even tho I consider myself to be a good person, I spent hours in a way 're-programming' my brain, for the better good of society, myself, my friends and family alike.

Realising that doing things behind my room mates back, such as pinching cigarettes when they weren't looking... is wrong, as it's deceptive. It's their cigarettes, they paid for them and I love my room mates so therefore I would be an idiot not to respect them in the fact where I need to leave their personal items alone.


Drugs have caused many, many hallucinations including anything from where smoke from fire has turned into thousands of birds to the belief that mental telepathy exists, including waking up the next morning and believing I could send and receive messages between people with 'The Third Eye'...

My friend believes she personally met Jesus Christ whilst off guts on heroin, that was the day she decided to quit drugs.

Don't do drugs, and all those dirty tricks you think you can get away with... be prepared to let it all go if you take those magics ;)

 

[olbab]

... This one time I tried to "confront my fear" by walking down a hall to meet whatever might hide in the shadows at the dark end. Even though I was fully aware that it was all just a dream, I simply couldn't do it. I didn't dare walking into the darkness. I still wonder if I would have died of fear if I had done it.

I was in my teens when I finally succeeded in "just falling, no matter" when in a falling-to-my-death dream. Instead of waking in a sweat, I landed softly, the dream continued, and I never had that kind of nightmare again.

Possible connected, soon after that I became able to fly in dreams.

Ol' Bab

Hey, is there a spell check in this forum? Don't want to appear so illiterate.

 

[olbab]

Nobody else has these?

I have noticed this lately, but my question is why so happy? You identified the problem, but its still a problem. Is there any treatment for this, its ridicules to try to fall asleep with this.

Let me know, thanks.

a.

Sorry, I've forgotten just what you are wanting. I posted my own "nutty images" at thread "tiny pictures", references the wiki article, maybe pertinent...
Ol' Bab

Or was it "tiny images"