When you close your eyes, what do you see?

Who me? Not much... a fast dissolving afterimage and a dark-red gloom. Nothing special really.

Now let's talk about a friend of mine. Whenever he closes his eyes (while being awake) he sees hypnagogic images. Animals on a field, a chair 'just standing there', a changing afterimage... anything. He has little to no control over them. Sometimes he closes his eyes to see 'what's next', just to be surprised by the images. When he has trouble sleeping he starts paying attention to them and he's gone in no time.

It's been like this for as long as he can remember, so to him it is as normal as seeing with his eyes open. You can imagine the surprise when he found out other people see 'nothing at all'!

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How is it possible to see hypnagogic imagery while you're wide awake? Is anyone familiar with this phenomenon? Do you have it yourself or do you know someone who does? Please let me know!

hmm. I do not have that now. But I swaer to you when I was younger when I closed my eyes I saw this spiraly gray moving portal thingy that just used to maze through itslef liek as if i was on a ride. And if i looked up at a light when i closed my eyes i saw the same thing only orange. I have been trying to do ti again, btu tis not working.

I see stuff that remindes me of a lava lamp 0_0

I see a dark, almost black background, with lots of tiny red, green and blue specks on it, and some lava-lamp-like moving patterns of faint colors (which, for some reason, are never orange or yellow). The color patterns get rather more interesting when I'm really stoned, however.

I usually see a black backround (or reddish if there is bright light nearby), with faint colors over it. Sometimes they're like streams of colors, waving about, sometimes a vortex pattern, and sometimes random dots. Occasionally, I get more complex shapes. The colors are basically like an after image, but they aren't. When I'm falling asleep, these colors will usually get brighter and more solid (they seem translucent most of the time), and form more complex images.

I have never, ever experienced HI of any kind. I really wish I could, though...

It would certainly make WILD easier!

I've had these weird experiences that were more common when I was younger, but seem to have faded away. When I was looking into darkness, or with my eyes closed, I could suddenly (to use my own terminology) hit a 'source of roundness' where I suddenly saw an image of an object (usually a face) that was round and blown up to the maximum, like a balloon. Then, after disappearing shortly, the opposite happened, and the face took on a sort of broken appearance, not blown up but stretched out (in one direction, no round 'pancake' faces), with cracks and wrinkles in it. Then, the image dissappeared.
What's even more interesting is the way I saw it. I wasn't really seeing it, but more like, knowing you saw it. It's kind of hard to describe. It's like you are imagining the image to be there, but you're not really doing it, it just looks that way. I also think I had a small field of vision, I could only see a tenth of the face/object clearly at any time.

If anyone has any idea about... uhm, well, anything about this, say it, because I'm at a loss. :P It seems so random, yet it happened so often and was always like I describe it now. Was this hypnagogic imagery? No idea, to be frank.

I don't want to sound like a nitpicker or something, but the poll question "Do you see hypnagogic imagery whenever you close your eyes?" doesn't make much sense. To quote Wikipedia on hypnagogia:

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Hypnagogia (also spelled hypnogogia) and hypnopompia are the names of experiences a person can go through when falling asleep in the case of hypnagogia, or waking up, in the case of hypnopompia.[/b]

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If you are not falling asleep, any images you may see can't be hypnagogic, IMHO hypnagogic images are more like photographies, random images appearing before you, not just flashing dots like when you press your fingers against your eyes, those would be phosphenes, which is probably what you meant.

Jalexxi: That sounds more like hallucinations, but surely not hypnagogic, as explained above :). Why did they appear would be a question for psychologist.

I see blackness, but there's a kind of white... I don't know, film? there as well. Like some kind of bizzare internal light source.

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Originally posted by jhk+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jhk)</div>

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I don't want to sound like a nitpicker[/b]

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Don't worry about that. :D

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Originally posted by jhk@
If you are not falling asleep, any images you may see can't be hypnagogic

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It is indeed a contradiction, but it comes closest to describing my friend's experiences.

<!--QuoteBegin-jhk
flashing dots like when you press your fingers against your eyes. those would be phosphenes, which is probably what you meant.

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No, that's not what I mean.

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Originally posted by jhk
hypnagogic images are more like photographies, random images appearing before you

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That is what I mean. That's exactly what my friend sees while being awake (as stated in the first post)
I'm as puzzled as you are...

I'd say there's some kind of blocking mechanism in the brain that prevents hypnagogic imagery from being processed while we are awake. Your friend is missing that blocking mechanism. Why doesn't he see hypnagogic imagery all the time? Because the actual stimuli are stronger and override the hypnagogic ones, so he only sees them in darkness.
Ofcourse, it could also be that hypnagogic imagery is created by a specific part or process in the brain. In that case, your friend has it always switched on, for some reason. That's the simplest explanation I can come up with.

No, not whenever I close my eyes. Sometimes I purposely acheive HI through meditation. Sometimes I go to sleep so fast that I miss the HI.

The back of my eyelids?

A better term for this is CEV (closed eye visual). I just see random color blobs and dots during the day. At night I often see hypnagogic imagery.

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Originally posted by InTheMoment
The back of my eyelids?

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i was about to say that

It takes me a while, but yes, I do see coherent images.

When I close my eyes, I usually see these undulating wisps of faint grey or greenish white light. Like barely there smoke trails.

Sometimes, just on the verge of sleep, florecent green or yellow geometric shapes appear against a black background. They aren't solid. They look more like stains of light. Like the blind spots you get if you look at a really bright light. They also move in whichever direction my eyeballs turn.

When I'm dead tired and close my eyes, I see these two thin bright green circles. They too move in whatever direction my eyeballs turn. They are so vivid i swear i could reach out and touch them. On rare occasions, if I open my eyes, the circles stay in my field of vision, floating around the room where ever I look. They fade after about 5 seconds or so.

The worst thing I see is a face. It's usually just an illuminated face floating against black. Can't tell if it's male or female. It lasts only a millisecond because it startles me awake each time i see it. I saw it just 2 nights ago...it startled me awake so badly I yelped and nearly rolled off the couch. Thank goodness I only see the face maybe about once a year.

I know, you're probably thinking Im tripping or dt-ing. :roll: But I don't get high. Ever. I value my brain cells to much to get high. I think the images are just signals to myself that my brain is finally winding down to dream. Or are they something else? Does anyone know?

When I was a kid, I used to see (either with my eyes closed or in a very dark room) swirls of tiny red and green lights that sometimes would resolve themselves into 3-dimensional images. Sometimes these images were very stylized and tended to be in the blue/yellow/green color spectrum and sometimes they were full "natural" color. They were always in motion—either a still object moving in space or a continous morphing of images. The kind that morphed were frequently geometric in nature and often included what appeared to be masks or statues. If I had my eyes open, I could put my hand through them and see my hand through them as if they were holograms. Once when very young this happened after an early waking and the swirls turned into a giant lazy susan of dougnuts. I was so pleased by this that when my mom went to wake us up, I ran into the living room and curled up with my hands over my eyes so I could keep it going. Later in childhood I had a traumatic experience with this which—for want of a better explanation—caused me to block this "ability." (I saw these wooden things that reminded me of tiki statues and they were staring at me with considerable and palpable malevolence. Since I wasn't asleep, it was like a nightmare I couldn't awake from and it pretty much made me a wreck in terms of handling bed time for quite a while.) It remained blocked until some friends pysched me into unblocking it in high school so they could bug me about what I was seeing. The experience went away abruptly upon becoming pregnant in my late 20s and I have never had it again, although sometimes when I have my eyes closed before sleeping I get a hint of movement.

I always see blue, sparkling dots when I close my eyes.

I get closed eye visuals too, but they never take the shape of concrete objects or forms. Sometimes they form extremely intricate paterns, like snow flakes, but more curvy and organic.

When I close my eyes, I see geometric patterns, sometimes colored sometimes black and white...

When i close my eyes , if i screw them up really tight I see two black globes next to each other surrounded by white static(maybe the retina somehow seeing my pupils) . Then the two balls combine into one , and slowly a maze like scene appears and envelops my entire FOV , then the central point seems to go bright and i get what i can only describe as "electric images" , or white lines on black backround which form shapes from time to time . It seems to go in phases like that .

if i play a video game for a long time i can usually see it for the rest of the day.

I see loads of colours when I close my eyes and some patterns, and some simple shapes like eyes. Sometimes when I'm going to bed these get pretty involved and complex though, and before I go to bed I often hear voices of people I know, which talk to me, and I can respond to them, but mostly I don't understand what they're saying.

sometimes i see a building, stairway and such, but not always.....

I do mostly when im trying to WILD, its just like lava lamp goo moving around, sometimes its a brightish colour sometimes its gray and hard to see, Ive only once seen real images there it was like a row of chairs and then it went away.

But do you also see them whenever you're not trying to wild? And with that I mean awake, really awake. When you're working out, writing a letter, having dinner... that kind of awake. Take a pause and close your eyes. Do you see anything? Not the afterimage or those little dots 'n sparks, but something concrete? Like a chair, a person or a garden filled with flowers? I know someone who does...

He just wonders if he's the only one.

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Originally Posted by Wezel

But do you also see them whenever you're not trying to wild? And with that I mean awake, really awake. When you're working out, writing a letter, having dinner... that kind of awake. Take a pause and close your eyes. Do you see anything? Not the afterimage or those little dots 'n sparks, but something concrete? Like a chair, a person or a garden filled with flowers? I know someone who does...

He just wonders if he's the only one.

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So I have been a lucid dreamer most of my life, the Wonders of the Internet finally allowed me to understand that. What I have never been able to get an answer for and finally found talk of it here is this topic.

So here is what happens to me, I can do it any time I like, instantly. While relaxed when I close my eyes I can bring on what I can only describe as dreaming. I see vivid landscapes, vast spaces, rooms, furnishings, aliens, other people, etc. The scenes are mostly coherent, although sometimes strange, again very much like dreams. They are very fast usually. The scenes have a tendency to jump around, not staying on one topic for more than ten to fifteen seconds. In one scene I might be flying in a one man small spacecraft chasing a group of other ships and then suddenly find myself the next second alone next to a deep jungle tranquil pool.

These feel very much like dreams to me, however I have almost no control unlike a LD. A few things to note. This does not happen automatically, I must be relaxed and not be "thinking of anything" I need to be in a state similar to what you recommend For a WILD. I can do it with a tv on in the background or music etc. I just need to tune those things out. Also it will not work if I am remembering something, thinking of anything......bills,what I want for breakfast the next day,what that noise outside is...you get the idea. I need a blank mind, not that hard to do. If my eyes are closed and my mind is calm the dreamlike visions are there, absolutely. I go to sleep with them every night. It is like dreaming before dreaming.

Some other interesting things to note. I said before I have almost no control in these dreamlike visions. I can talk while these are going on. I cannot carry on a conversation, but have often told my wife what I see as it is happening. She can break them by asks nag me a question or otherwise breaking my concentrated state. She has been amazed at this for 20 years and we have never heard of anyone doing this, until now. Another interesting thing to note is that she tells me my eyes twitch and look very similar to REM. My classes send eyes do not twitch while I am recreating in my head the Simpsons episode I hear on TV, nor while I am remembering what my drive home was like, they do though the instant I start my visualizations.

The OP is fairly old, but I am hoping to resurrect this topic and see if someone can help me get to the bottom of this. Is it something of note or just and abstract thought process. I am really hoping someone else knows what I am talking about.


Beppo

I never quite honestly knew that this was a thing. I am shocked to see the mixed results on the poll.
I never get to see images when I close my eyes unless it's shortly after waking up :(

Yes!! I have been looking for others who see these things. The last year or so.. I started to see a purple swirling flame, that if I focused on long enough, would go "into it" like a purple fog and see pictures appear. Now I see it as a small purple spark, even with my eyes open in front of me. It's always there.
Another crazy visual I get when waking up from vivid dreams, are like these groups of portals.. they look like targets, or rings within rings... like sound waves grouped together. Another one I see in the morning upon waking now, is a group of mazes.. labyrinths that all seem connected together. Then I will see flashes of rainbows shooting through them.

I see back and red with lighter after images of what I was just looking at. That's really interesting about your friend. I have a friend who swears she sees all kinds of creatures sort of superimposed over over normal reality. She's a very honest person without any real eccentricities so I tend to believe her.