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.

This is the typical 'script':

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's pretty rare to see "people" and when I do so, they'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't know if there's a connection between the sleepwalking/hypnopompic things, but would love to take this natural 'ability' of mine (let'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'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'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's studied this phenom, go ahead and weigh-in on this.