Does anyone get really tired to where you can see a dream forming / random things being pictured? For example, I was watching a movie in my cousins home theater with them and my brother, as I was getting so very tired, I could see images in my head without thinking of them, they kind of just formed there, involuntarily. It looked like I was playing Grand Theft Auto 5 and driving some Formula 1 race car in third person. Does anybody have similar experiences where they’re dreaming, but they’re not?
Yeah this is called hypnagogia. The state between wakefulness and sleep!
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Thanks!!
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If I use my phone/laptop before sleep I tend to see this during hypnagogia - when I close my eyes and try to sleep. Then I realize I already put my phone down and wake up again. These images tend to be really vivid.
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As HeHu mentioned, this sounds a lot like you experienced hypnagogia, which happens at the onset of sleep. Imagine your brain is preparing to fall asleep and loses consciousness but it has not really shut down yet, only partially. So all the neurons are still firing randomly and trigger all kinds of patterns causing sensations. It’s very similar to dreaming in a way.
As for the vividness, many people express that it can be very great. For me though hypnagogia is only very subtle, more like a lingering thought in the back of my head or a vague idea which beckons my mind back to consciousness to explore it in more detail. 
I guess this is why WILD is so difficult for me.
I think the topic title you chose is just a very concise statement of the phenomenon 
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Thanks!
I feel like for me it is in between. Sometimes it feels extremely vivid, and sometimes it is just a lingering thought. Also, I noticed the more I tend to focus on it, the less vivid it feels and will probably go away.
Yes, definitely hypnagogia 
What you pointed out is maybe the biggest difference between dreams and hypnagogia. The latter you just can’t “capture“.
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