# Sleep and Dreams > Sleep and Health >  >  Hypnopompic Hallucinations

## tree spirit

New to the forum...have read some of the few discussions on hypnopompic hallucinations, but decided to weigh in on this since having no one to talk to who has experienced what I&#39;m going through. It&#39;s not so common as are hypnogogic hallucinations (those encountered on first falling asleep or from a morning awakening). Most folks have experienced hypnogogics at least once in their lives, but the "other" is rarer.

   Have had hypnopompic hallucinations since early childhood, which profoundly accelerated in my twenties (for some unknown reason) and now on rare occasion I still have them (am in my mid-40s now). These extremely vivid hallucinations or pseudo-hallucinations  always occur within the first 2 hours of sleep. Always, with no exceptions.  I don&#39;t experience any sleep paralysis. 

This is the typical  &#39;script&#39;: 

I "wake" and either bolt upright or just lie still. The bedroom looks perfectly normal; in fact my horrible eyesight is suddenly 20/20, then immediately, some object like a machine (train, helicopter etc.) or crustacean or spider springs silently out of the wall or above my head. There is _ usually_ no auditory component to these "visions". They are incredibly realistic looking except that they might be somewhat psychedelic in color but mostly they adopt the color they would have in nature. It&#39;s pretty rare to see "people" and when I do so, they&#39;re lilliputians or not terribly realistic-looking (thank God).  Most of these "visions" are scary while some are amusing.

These "visions" only last a few seconds (thankfully). Anyway, was a heavy sleepwalker in my youth (and talker), but fortunately mostly outgrew that phase. Don&#39;t know if there&#39;s a connection between the sleepwalking/hypnopompic things, but would love to take this natural &#39;ability&#39; of mine (let&#39;s call it something aside from brain damage), and harness it into a creative mode that I can control. Also, have suffered a trigeminal neuralgia type pain in the left cheek since early childhood. Never consulted an M.D. on this since they&#39;re typically clueless or just damned dismissive. Am not sure if this little neuralgia is related to my sleep weirdness either. None of this seems to run in the family nor do I suspect a tumor etc. of any sort. I&#39;m right-handed but several folks have commented that my writing appears to be that of a left-hander. Other than my tendency to be analytical-minded and scientific, nothing unusual here.

   Anyone having similarities to the above or someone who&#39;s studied this phenom, go ahead and weigh-in on this.

 ::wink::

----------


## italianmonkey

i&#39;m not a moderator but i think this topic would better fit the sleep and healt or general dream discussion...
here there&#39;s less people to read it

----------


## Faithless

i had a hallucination (delusion?) that my door was kicked in at around 4am one morning.  i was totally utterly convincing. i saw a flashlight being waved around too.  i sat in bed scared out of my mind for 10 minutes before i got the courage to get up and check everything was alright (it was of course).   i knew at the time it *might* be my imagination, but i really wasn&#39;t sure.

the wierd thing, is that i&#39;m pretty sure i was awake when this happened, and i never woke up afterwards.  and i posted to the internet to make sure that me getting up and checking wasn&#39;t a dream.

this episode made me have serious doubts about my sanity. truly.

----------


## tree spirit

The 4 am awakening might have been a hypnopompic hall. or maybe just a little mescaline  :;-):

----------


## Faithless

> The 4 am awakening might have been a hypnopompic hall. or maybe just a little mescaline 
> [/b]



i blame having too much copper in my diet at the time ( http://www.drlwilson.com/articles/copper_t...ty_syndrome.htm )

----------


## luna47

I've been having these middle of the night realistic hallucinations too for some time, more and more lately.  

I see realistic looking things in the room around me, usually on the wall or ceiling.  Usually I always just "saw" spiders lurking above me or coming down toward me on a web from the ceiling.  I attributed this to just an over-active fear of creepy crawlies.  However NOW it's not just spiders, it's hoardes of crawling cockroaches above my head on the ceiling (which for some reason didn't scare me), a twirling luminescent purple/silver butterfly, a window with brownie aliens looking down at me from high up on the wall, a black life-sized skeleton twirling on the wall, black fungus quickly growing all over a light fixture, and  hairy black crabs that I called "funky monkeys" for some reason, ha.

For me too, my poor vision is mysteriously perfect and I see the room as-is except for the very realistic sighting of the strange items.  I believe it's real each time, even after I'm fully awake from all the commotion.  It takes a few minutes for me to accept the fact that what I saw wasn't "real."

Trying to find out more about this out of curiosity.  It's not a problem and it doesn't scare me, I'd just like to know more about what's happening.  I'd love to develop lucid dreaming skills and am interested (as of late) in other dimensions and ETs.

----------


## topten35

I've only had 2 hypnogogic images, once in 2006 after i finished watching a program about bigfoot.  I closed my eyes as i was trying to sleep and all of a sudden i see this image of bigfoot in my mind, the bigfoot had a white glow around his body and black fur, he was flexing his muscles.  Then about a month or so ago i had another one, as i woke up i still had my eyes closed and there was a picture of a cartoon character of a man in my head.  That lasted less than 10 seconds.

----------


## lily

Hypnagogic and Hypnapopic hallucinations are more common in people who have a sleep disorder. If you are also feeling tired or fall asleep when you shouldn't then it's something to take seriously and have tested, if not then not to worry. Enjoy these dream-like sequences. I have many myself, but most are before sleep sometimes they are afterwards. Wish I could give you a better answer but I know of no cause other than the sleep disorders or abnormalities (such as sleep deprivation), yet those need not be present at all for it to occur.

----------


## Pirius

Hey all, first post here -- I've had these hypnopompic "hallucinations" as well.

I have seen black fungus/mildew all over the ceiling, spiders drop down from above, what look like black houseflies across the room just sitting on the wall, and a blue, writhing, spaghetti-ball thing that was floating before me. Also saw a large red and black wasp crawl up the drapes. These things were all lit in accordance with the lighting of the room, as though they were actually there.

What I've seen is very similar to what luna47 described. You gotta wonder, if our dreams are so different, how is it that our hypnopompic imagery can be so similar if both are just products of the mind? 

Some acquaintances of mine have mentioned seeing crabs, spiders, dwarf/leprechaun type figures. They never mention seeing "typical" things like coke bottles, bananas, squirrels, bicycles, or co-worker in the room. It's always bugs, arachnoids, fungus, and weird humanoids.

I suspect maybe they're not strictly hallucinations  :wink2:

----------


## The Cusp

Wow, I'm glad I don't get the creepy crawly things.  I just get shadow people of various compositions, all black.  Sometimes they are solid, sometimes they look like a swarm of black silk scarves that swirl around in the general shape of a person.

I hope I never get crabs!

----------


## Timothy Paradox

> Hey all, first post here -- I've had these hypnopompic "hallucinations" as well.
> 
> I have seen black fungus/mildew all over the ceiling, spiders drop down from above, what look like black houseflies across the room just sitting on the wall, and a blue, writhing, spaghetti-ball thing that was floating before me. Also saw a large red and black wasp crawl up the drapes. These things were all lit in accordance with the lighting of the room, as though they were actually there.
> 
> What I've seen is very similar to what luna47 described. You gotta wonder, if our dreams are so different, how is it that our hypnopompic imagery can be so similar if both are just products of the mind? 
> 
> Some acquaintances of mine have mentioned seeing crabs, spiders, dwarf/leprechaun type figures. They never mention seeing "typical" things like coke bottles, bananas, squirrels, bicycles, or co-worker in the room. It's always bugs, arachnoids, fungus, and weird humanoids.
> 
> I suspect maybe they're not strictly hallucinations



You know where to find "beyond dreaming".

----------


## MagicMatt

I had one of these last year for the first time I think. It was around mid afternoon and I was quite tired so thought I'd take a little nap on the couch (lazy, I know). I had the TV on and decided to put on an Attenborough (he has that sort of voice which sends you to sleep), I think it was a really long one of all the best bits of his Planet Earth series. Anyway, I don't think I had been asleep long before I woke up and there in front of me was an oversized arachnid (I despise spiders) with unnatuarally long and spindley legs sort of clinging to the wall (there was no web). As it hung there it appeared to be...Well, I would say maybe flickering, dancing, or vibrating even. 

I wasn't aware that I was awake yet, my first feelings were of curiosity and fear. I quickly turned away and hid under my duvet with no more idea of what was occurring. As I was under there I became more aware of my surroundings but even less knowledgable of what was happening and what I was going to do about it.

I was just thinking that this thing was completely 100% real and in my living room, I mean it's just so real, as real as checking the time on your watch is or reading a magazine in the doctor's waiting room. I slowly peered out of my sanctuary and as I did I fully expected it to still be there, but it wasn't. 

I was still reluctant to move in case it popped up somewhere else but when I finally plucked up the courage I began searching everywhere and looking in between all the little places a thing like that could be hiding all the while thinking as to where the bloody hell it had dissapeared to. I thought it maybe was something I could have seen on the TV but that showed only Polar Bears.

I came to the conlusion that I had experienced one of those fancy hallucinations that all the people on the dream forums talk so much of, and do you know whatm It was pretty damn cool.

----------


## O'nus

> New to the forum...have read some of the few discussions on hypnopompic hallucinations, but decided to weigh in on this since having no one to talk to who has experienced what I'm going through. It's not so common as are hypnogogic hallucinations (those encountered on first falling asleep or from a morning awakening). Most folks have experienced hypnogogics at least once in their lives, but the "other" is rarer.
> 
>    Have had hypnopompic hallucinations since early childhood, which profoundly accelerated in my twenties (for some unknown reason) and now on rare occasion I still have them (am in my mid-40s now). These extremely vivid hallucinations or pseudo-hallucinations  always occur within the first 2 hours of sleep. Always, with no exceptions.  I don't experience any sleep paralysis. 
> 
>    Anyone having similarities to the above or someone who's studied this phenom, go ahead and weigh-in on this.



I will try to help out here and contribute to this matter.





> *Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations are common in narcolepsy. However, the prevalence of these phenomena in the general population is uncertain.* METHOD: A representative community sample of 4972 people in the UK, aged 15-100, was interviewed by telephone (79.6% of those contacted). Interviews were performed by lay interviewers using a computerised system that guided the interviewer through the interview process. RESULTS: *Thirty-seven per cent of the sample reported experiencing hypnagogic hallucinations and 12.5% reported hypnopompic hallucinations.* Both types of hallucinations were significantly more common among subjects with symptoms of insomnia, excessive daytime sleepiness or mental disorders. According to this study, the prevalence of narcolepsy in the UK is 0.04%. CONCLUSIONS: Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations were much more common than expected, with a prevalence that far exceeds that which can be explained by the association with narcolepsy. Hypnopompic hallucinations may be a better indicator of narcolepsy than hypnagogic hallucinations in subjects reporting excessive daytime sleepiness.







> *Hypnagogic and hypnopompic experiences (HHEs) accompanying sleep paralysis (SP) are often cited as sources of accounts of supernatural nocturnal assaults and paranormal experiences.Descriptions of such experiences are remarkably consistent across time and cultures and consistent also with known mechanisms of REM states.* A three-factor structural model of HHEs based on their relations both to cultural narratives and REM neurophysiology is developed and tested with several large samples. *One factor, labeled Intruder, consisting of sensed presence, fear, and auditory and visual hallucinations, is conjectured to originate in a hypervigilant state initiated in the midbrain.* Another factor, Incubus, comprising pressure on the chest, breathing difficulties, and pain, is attributed to effects of hyperpolarization of motoneurons on perceptions of respiration. These two factors have in common an implied alien other consistent with occult narratives identified in numerous contemporary and historical cultures. A third factor, labeled Unusual Bodily Experiences, consisting of floating/flying sensations, out-of-body experiences, and feelings of bliss, is related to physically impossible experiences generated by conflicts of endogenous and exogenous activation related to body position, orientation, and movement. Implications of this last factor for understanding of orientational primacy in self-consciousness are considered. Central features of the model developed here are consistent with recent work on hallucinations associated with hypnosis and schizophrenia.



I hope this has been enlightening.

~

----------

