Hypnogogic vs Hypnopompic

[Xanth]

I'd like to start a discussion regarding this particular phenomenon.

I had one of my "usual" Hypnopompic experiences last night as I awoke in the middle of the night.
I'll share what my experience was in a bit after I've read some responses.

I'm just curious what other people's opinions are on these particular events.

[Pauli2]

I had a hypnopompic experience before I knew what it was. I had it entered in a thread titled: "Symbol matrix visual overlay at wake-up". Here is the text that was save after the recent server crash:

I've searched through the forum and found nothing like this. I also had a hard time deciding what forum to put this question in.

I went to bed 22.00 o'clock and woke up 22.50, having only slept 50 minutes. When I woke up I saw a kind "symbol matrix" which overlay my regular eye sight. The symbol matrix didn't have any grids, and looked very much like a unicode character set matrix. I estimate the matrix to amount to 2000 - 2500 symbol.

The symbols were in light blue color, arial font style and the background was kind of white. The symbol table moved with my eyes as I look around as if they were glued to a "glass" visor in front of my face. Normally I use glasses so my room looked fuzzy but the symbols looked quite clear. The symbols consisted of unknown letter lots of different arrow like symbols (pointing in different directions). I could easily see the room at the same time, as having some kind of double exposed view.

I stayed half a minutes in bed until the symbol matrix had disappeared and then went up and turned on the light (!). When I went back to to bed 10 minutes later I noticed how dark it was in my room, which it had _not_ been when I woke up and saw the symbol matrix!

----

One more thing. Before waking up I had a strange dream.

I dreamed that I was at my old place where I slept 10 years ago. I got a kundalini rise in my bed. An "electric" flash went up my spine, diverted in my head, gave my eyes a bright flash and the kundalini in my head went out of the crown. I was kind of shocked so I went up and tried to turn on the light. The first light switch I tried didn't work, neither did the second light switch. Went I went for the third light switch I realized that I had OBEd. I said to myself "Body, body!"

I immediately was inside my body and I went up "for real". Then I woke up and realized I had had a false OBE. Then I wrote down my dream.

It almost seemed that there was some kind of ambient light in my room, lighting up everything in my room, the same time as I saw the overlay of the symbol matrix.

...

Has anyone had this symbol table experience? Was I using my astral sight, seeing something from the astral plane (the akashic)?

I haven't managed to consciously OBE so far, this is probably the closest I've got to have an super natural experience.

And later I wrote:

Thanks for your answers.

I've been thinking... Perhaps the phenomenon where I saw the symbol matrix was some kind of initial step to process what I had experienced through the day. The matrix being the result of some kind of dream state preparation?

While doing my (so far failed) OBE attempts, I've sometimes seen for my inner eye, minds eye in the darkness, a pattern that looks like a "finger print", elongated left-to-right.

Yesterday I was tired, but could not fall asleep. I lay in bed in darkness and opened my eyes. I suddenly saw several concentric circles overlayed on my regular eye sight (I could see my room at the same time). When I closed my eyes the circles disappeared. When I looked again the one circular center had become four or five centers of concentric circles.  When I closed my eyes again I also started seeing patterns, very complicated and chaotic to some part, but also to some part like mandalas. But these mandalas seemed twisted and mixed with strange patterns like you get when mix paint in different colors in a bucket and throw in some pieces of wood or debris.

-..-

A few days ago I got Bruce Moen's first book "Voyages into the unknown". Moen describes something he calls The Disc, which I feel is some part of Robert Monroe's I-There cluster. While reading Moen's book I realized that my "finger prints" and "concentric circles" could be some kind of image like Moen's Disc!

Or maybe some Helper is just trying to show me something funny and I'm a little clueless...

Do any of you know in what Monroe Focus the I-Theres reside?

I then later got other hypnopompic views, but it was only the symbol matrix that was stable. All other hypnopompic images has fluctuated and constantly changed like drawings in a cartoon, without me being able to control them. The interesting thing is that the "finger print", the so called concentric circles reoccur, sometimes in the hypnagogic state.

My hypnopompic images has always been monochrome, like light blue/blue, yellow/light yellow or gray/dark gray.

Subsequent hypnopompic images have fluctuated heavily once I've closed my eyes and watched them, images changing from concentric circles with several centers, to drawings of statues, Indian Hindu figures, drawings of fishes, Olmec symbols, Mayan heads, languages signs (?). They are just drawings, sometimes with "underlines" separating each "row" of drawings as lines of text are separated on a paper.

Sometimes when I didn't want to see the images, they transformed into something that looked like water partly wiped from the front window of a car driving i heavy rain, with asymmetric spots of "water".

The hypnopompic (hypnagogic) images have always been 2 dimensional to me. The images lasts for a few seconds up to half a minute and then fades away. I'm often able to see both my bedroom and the drawings/images at the same time, with the images superimposed over my view.

The images are most visible if I'm very tired and have only slept for an hour. When I'm fresh the images don't seem to appear.

[Xanth]

Oh, so you see 2D shapes and images?

Interesting.

That's upon waking up, right?  Since you're using the word "Hypnopompic", which happens upon waking.

Do you ever get these images while falling asleep (Hypnogogic)?

[Pauli2]

Yes it is mostly upon wakening and yes they are 2D only, like simple drawings, where the lines have a deeper color and the surrounding background fades over into a lighter shade of the same (kind of monochrome) color. Sometimes I get the impression of an even lighter almost with shade very close to each line, as if there were a glow or duplicate of "white" lines below the darker ones in the drawings.

I see the hypnagogic images only when I do my OBE attempts and almost fall asleep. And it is usually the concentric circles that appear.

(Edit) Someone mentioned in the now lost (on server crash) thread that those images could look like mandalas. And I think I've had the mandala like hypnopompic images at least twice, mixed with images of humanoid figures, constantly changing in front of my closed eyes.

[Xanth]

http://unlimitedboundaries.ca/2010/09/13/my-lifelong-hypnopompic-images/

So, all through my life, I've been waking up in the middle of the night seeing, what I can only describe as "something" standing in my room, seemingly 'observing' me.  I've never felt anything bad about it being there, it was always just startling when I was younger.  I remember more than once I'd jump out of bed attacking whatever it was that was there... only to flick a light on quickly and see that nothing solid was there.

I used to believe that it was just something in my head... until the penny started to drop and astral projection came into my life.  Then I started to put two and two together regarding the non-physical.  Over the last 10ish years, I've become rather accustomed to "seeing things" in my room in the middle of the night when I wake up... so it rarely startles me too much.  I simply lie down and go back to sleep.

I'm realizing now that over the course of my life, this "thing" has slowly become more and more clear to me... until last night, when I believe I got a real good look at "him".  Yes, "him"... a male spirit/entity.  I just remember a slender face, with a goatee, medium height, medium build.

I remember, last night, sitting up slightly and staring this entity right in the eyes, my heart beating a little faster.  Then I watched as it walked past the foot of my bed, at which point, I laid back down and tried to go back to sleep... a few minutes passed and I went to the bathroom instead, THEN went back to bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

So I'm now armed with an image... and a desire to stare this thing down and hopefully get some answers to some very old questions.

[catmeow]

I have had numerous hypnogogic (falling asleep) and hypnopompic (waking up) experiences though none really as spooky as yours Xanth (if you don't mind me calling it spooky).

When I was first interested in AP I would get quite a few hypnogogic experiences. These were just noises like somebody talking quite loudly and very clearly.  I would hear rapping noises above my headboard.  Once I felt a rope being pulled across my throat (yes sounds frightening but it actually wasn't). I immediately recognised the rope thing as an hallucination and it didn't bother me.

Hypnopompia is difficult to distinguish from the False Awakening.  Often I wake up slowly and can hear the radio playing, when I know it isn't actually on. Other times I hear noises around the house, as if someone is walking around, or as if there are burglars in the house!

The False Awakening is fun because I can use it as a launch pad for AP.  If I simply roll out of bed in this state I can initiate an AP.  Sometimes I do this and then check out the house for burglars. Invariably I find no one.

All hypnopompic/gogic sounds and sensations are EXTREMELY realistic. They are just like the real thing and yet I know they are hallucinations (or astral sensations if you wish to think of them that way). So they don't bother me too much. 

Sometimes, in the morning I can have deliberately induced hypnogogic hallucinations. By this I mean that I wake up after a fairly good night's sleep and then drift off back to sleep, but just keep myself in the borderline state. In this state I don't hear noises, but instead I see clear images of either geometric shapes moving and swirling around, changing colours etc, or otherwise I will see scenery.  So in either case (geometric shapes or scenery) I can lie there for quite some time just watching these things unfold.

The scenery one is really fun, because I can often just step into the scene and start an AP. I don't actually "step in" as such, but rather I transition from "observer" to "participant" in the scene; one moment I am watching a remote scene and the next moment I am actually "in" the scene.

Hypnogogic/pompic hallucinations are well known to the medical community. As far as they are concerned these are just culture-based hallucinations.  So when people wake up in the middle of the night, see an "alien" and get abducted, the medical community would say that person simply had an hallucination.  Maybe these are hallucinations, or maybe they are glimpses of alternate realities.

[The_One]

I once woke up with a hand sticking out the wall, which rushed towards me. Scared me half to death. And I've also woke up with a Tarantula, about a foot in diameter walking up the wall. it was all in 3D.

[Re]

I experience hypnogogic sounds and images every time I go to sleep, every day of my life.

This hypnopompic thing (I didn't know it had a name), happened to me once, I woke up and there were several gremlin-like creatures in my room. All around the furniture, and even one on my bed. I was a kid, and was terrified. I rushed my hand to the light switch beside my bed and turned it on. When I looked again they were gone.

[Xanth]

How do you all feel about them?
Do you think that they're just "something you're imagining"?  Or are they something "astral-real"?

I mean... I'm slowly learning and piecing together the information I have on the astral (aka subconscious)... and I'm starting to believe that Hypnogogic (pompic) images and sounds are more real than people believe them to be.
The non-physical realities are VERY much real...

What's everyone's opinion?

Oh and yeah... I've seen lots of spiders crawling on me before.  LoL
It makes me wonder if they're actually always there.  hehe

And yes, catmeow, you can call that spooky.    I sure do!  hehe

[Re]

It's complicated. I'm very skeptic about all this being real, but not by choice. I actually like to think everything about the astral is real, I like to think God or some kind of god-like entity exists too (slightly off-topic, sorry), and I go with it as far as I can, but it ultimately crumbles. I'm an atheist, and very skeptic, but not by choice. The thing is, I believe your mind can make you feel anything is real when it is not, so how would you know? Actually, I think I may be an agnostic! I've never thought about it...

I some way (and excuse me for doing this banal simile) it's like being in the Matrix. As long as you are inside it (your mind), you can't tell what is real and what is not. Unlike the Matrix, you can't be taken out of your prison (the mind) to tell the difference. Or can you? How would you know you are really "outside" and it's not your mind constructing it?

All in all, I can identify myself with what you say about "piecing together the information", and starting to doubt about what you "know" about things. But I will always doubt about my own doubts and end up not being able to reach a verdict.

[catmeow]

Re, as soon as I read your post where you said "I'm an atheist" I thought "no you're not, you're an agnostic". An atheist denies the possible existence of God. This is an irrational position, just as absolute belief in God is irrational.  An agnostic on the other hand retains an open mind, open to either possibility. I'm agnostic, and I think you are too.

Also regarding the Matrix thing, philosophically we can not know for sure whether the whole world/universe is a real objective "physical" thing, whether it's imagined, whether it's a computer program etc.  There is no way of knowing for sure.

That's why I assume that the whole universe is a concensus hallucination. This is the simplest explanation (imo) because we don't need matter, energy, laws of physics, a "place" for the universe to exist etc etc. All we need is consciousnesses connected together and agreeing on a concensus universe.  So I think Occam's Razor says we live in a concensus illusion.

[Xanth]

Re, as soon as I read your post where you said "I'm an atheist" I thought "no you're not, you're an agnostic". An atheist denies the possible existence of God. This is an irrational position, just as absolute belief in God is irrational.  An agnostic on the other hand retains an open mind, open to either possibility. I'm agnostic, and I think you are too.

I'm atheist and I don't think it's irrational.
Quite the contrary really... I think it's the only rational position one could have.  But I guess I'm biased.  LoL 
Sadly, this is outside the scope of this discussion... I think.  hehe

Also regarding the Matrix thing, philosophically we can not know for sure whether the whole world/universe is a real objective "physical" thing, whether it's imagined, whether it's a computer program etc.  There is no way of knowing for sure.

That's why I assume that the whole universe is a concensus hallucination. This is the simplest explanation (imo) because we don't need matter, energy, laws of physics, a "place" for the universe to exist etc etc. All we need is consciousnesses connected together and agreeing on a concensus universe.  So I think Occam's Razor says we live in a concensus illusion.

I fully believe this is a consensus reality... or as I like to call it a "collective" area of consciousness.
I believe that's really all that exists, collective and personal areas.

To bring this back to the hypnogogic/pompic thing... I'm really believing that they're more along the lines of "imagination", which I know to be something that is very real.

[catmeow]

I'm atheist and I don't think it's irrational.

Perhaps irrational is the wrong word, in that it implies some sort of mental imbalance. So apologies, you can probably construct a rational argument for your belief.  Probably "dogmatic" is a better word in that the position can not be well supported by evidence. When you complain about "dogmatic" I'll let you have the final word!

As for all those gremlins and spiders and hands coming out of the wall well that's quite fascinating. Would love to hear other peep's experiences.  I have occasionally had the feeling of a "presence" in the room although I couldn't see it.  And that was spooky!

[Stookie]

To bring this back to the hypnogogic/pompic thing... I'm really believing that they're more along the lines of "imagination", which I know to be something that is very real.

It seems to me that whatever has been previously stressed on your subconscious tend to come up hypnogogic/pompic. Your awareness is stretched out towards F2. It's not real, it's a projection. It's similar to what sleep-walkers experience, the difference is they tend not to remember it. Hypnogogic/pompic images are normally random and have no meaning except for the meaning you give it, but can be used to get to the next stage, weather it be phasing or a classic OBE or clairvoyance.

When people see entities in their room, you're normally the first person to tell them that it was a projection from their mind. Their expectations and subconscious beliefs and fears.

[Xanth]

When people see entities in their room, you're normally the first person to tell them that it was a projection from their mind. Their expectations and subconscious beliefs and fears.

hehe I had a feeling that would come back and bite me in the butt. 

I'm actually fully prepared to accept that as the reality.
If this wasn't, for me personally, literally, a lifelong thing.
And to realize that over the years, this has become more and more clear... I have to assume it's more than just that.

I don't think that *everything* that people experience are "negs" or "things from their mind"... and I realize that sometimes the line isn't so clear cut between those experiences, but perhaps, using the idea that it's some projection from within myself I can find an answer or two. 

And I'm also curious what everyone else thinks about these experiences... mine and yours.

[Re]

I will continue down the line of the skeptic because it's the only thing I have enough experience with to try and do.

If it has been a lifelong thing, I assume you didn't have a clue at first on how to interpret it. Could it be you have stuck to it during your life, and out of your desire of getting a satisfactory explanation you have perpetuated it? As you learnt about things and could explain it more and more, you have adapted your experience to fit that belief system. As if you were killing an obsession by using all you have to give it an explanation at last.

I don't know if I'm talking nonsense here, and in any case as I don't know the personal details involved I hope I'm not being offensive.

Regarding my gremlin experience. I was a kid, it was the first time I went to the cinema, the movie I saw was Gremlins and it gave me the creeps. I think I can disregard it as a figment of my imagination.

[Naykid]

Regarding my gremlin experience. I was a kid, it was the first time I went to the cinema, the movie I saw was Gremlins and it gave me the creeps. I think I can disregard it as a figment of my imagination.

You should have added that little tid-bit in the original post, I'm sure most would be in agreement with the figment.

Nothing wrong with being a skeptic, in fact I find it healthy. 

[Xanth]

I will continue down the line of the skeptic because it's the only thing I have enough experience with to try and do.

If it has been a lifelong thing, I assume you didn't have a clue at first on how to interpret it. Could it be you have stuck to it during your life, and out of your desire of getting a satisfactory explanation you have perpetuated it? As you learnt about things and could explain it more and more, you have adapted your experience to fit that belief system. As if you were killing an obsession by using all you have to give it an explanation at last.

I don't know if I'm talking nonsense here, and in any case as I don't know the personal details involved I hope I'm not being offensive.

Nope, you're not talking nonsense at all.  That's exactly what Stookie was saying too.
And I'm keeping that door open, always.

I guess I just can't push a lifetime of experiences aside easily right now. 

[The_One]

Well, I've had the hypnogogic thing (when your going into sleep), where I was conscious through the whole process. I remember something being in front of me, to the left of the bed. I actually heard it stumping it's feet as it walked around the bed, to the right. It's face was right next to me, and I could fell the breath of it on my neck.
This happened again a few days ago, but this time it talked!!! The most evil voice I've ever heard. Something along the lines of  "Can you feel my breath!". I told it to "F off!" and tried to swing for it, but I snapped out of it and woke up. It's hard not to panic when you face something like that.
I still think I put it there, and I'd rather avoid RTZ all together.

[Stookie]

Next time you see it, talk to it. And if for some reason you can't, seriously attempt an AP, as that would probably be a good bet at that moment. Any useful information gained is probably more important than the medium transmitting it.

I've never seen stuff intereracting in a physical space, except once when I was a kid and a missile shot through my bedroom door and I had to roll quickly out of bed. Turned out it wasn't real.

But I've never seen anything lurking around my bedroom or anything. Rarely does anything try to communicate with me, and when it does, I distance myself. The last "being" that did kept pointing a finger to it's mouth, then me, then it's mouth, then me... I assumed it wanted me to be it's voice, and I'm not down with that channeling stuff, so I pushed it away and it "blinked" out. It didn't seem like a "neg", it actually seemed kind of naive and maybe a little scared. Past the point though, as it wasn't hypnogogic/pompic either.

I guess what I was saying, I've never had anything of significance during any hypno-ic stuff (that I can think of). It's always random mess. But I guess repeated instances like yours could be from a source of something. Hell, I don't know.

[Pauli2]

Ho-Ho, now I've got one hypnopompic view in multiple colors (the others have all been monochrome in various colors and shades).

I woke up too early and saw several lines in white, with a blue tint, blue small "gem stones" in blue-white, some red gem stones, and some green gemstones almost in the shape of very small Christmas trees. So it was all in color and the gem stones seemed to glow, as if there were small lights behind them, lighting the gems up. The gems were partly overlayed/super-imposed with ordinary physical sight, and it became more visible when I closed my eyes.

Perhaps I should add that these patterns of gem stones were fairly stable and didn't shift in shape as several others of my hypnopompic images. Most of the colorful stones were arranged in a vertical row from above to going down (out of my view) and the white lines were going out to the sides in kind of a wave form. There were less objects in my view compared to the other times I've had full blown super-imposed hypnopompic images.

[personalreality]

Stookie, did you know that doing what you described is a "treatment" that Carl Jung used.  He had another name for it that I don't recall but he also called it like active imagination or something, talking to your hypnagogia.

[Pauli2]

I'm having a theory. The most optimal way to have hypnopompic images is if you wake up, tired, directly from REM sleep/dream sleep. You will be aware and in close contact with the astral. The show will start.

[Pauli2]

This morning I had a small hypnopompic smiley up in the right corner of my view. It looked kind of pixelized like a computer image. The head was like a flower and it opened and closed its mouth as it smiled at me. I include what the smiley looked like with mouth closed and with mouth open. There was only _one_ smile, I only show two smileys in my image to show what it looked like when the smiley had mouth open.

It was tiny, like the size of a coin at arms length, the rest of my view was un-obscured. The image only lasted 15 seconds. The white background in the image below, was actually completely transparent.

[ka0s]

My experiences have been mostly with Hypnopompic hallucinations. They are after I wake up and usually "running" on a flat surface but I have also had them take on 3d shapes. They are usually 3d on the walls as well its just they are often moving around on the wall giving them a 2d look. The first one I had was a odd "golemn" looking creature that I experienced when I was 17 or so. It had red eyes and quickly darted into the sideboard of my bed.

At first I was quite frightened. Several times I had hypnopompic hallucinations of spiders and other bugs....Once I understood what they were (which took several years to get used to), I was no longer frightened by them. The first few times I saw spiders and whatnot they were huge. I actually got up out of my bed and ran after them to confirm if they were real or not.....then as i got closer they would fade away. It was almost as if my brain finally convinced itself it was of my subconcious.

Today I experienced another small spider crawling from my ceiling towards me. I noticed that whatever it is...it usually moves quite fast (the limbs). I've experienced things other then bugs such as 3D maps of different places and objects that look like buildings. Several times i experienced hypnopompic's that looked like words but faded too quick for me to get up and write down.

If I was to rationalize what it was -- I would just venture to say its our subconcious invading our concious mind at an opportune time.