Well, im new as you can tell and I wasn’t really sure where to put this but I just had to ask.
About a year ago almost every night as I was falling asleep I started hearing voices saying the most random and creepy things like “Are you using blood?” The voice would actually just interrupt my other thoughts so they were almost overlapping each other and it sounded soooo incredibly real to the point I thought there was actually somebody next to my bed. The next time I went to my psychiatrist I asked him if I could be schizophrenic, he immediately said no then he started telling me it was a hypnogocic experience and said its essentially your brain going into REM before you fall asleep. I found the experience extremely fascinating once I was done being scared of it, but now it hasn’t happened in over 8 months. He did say however what could bring it about: high stress and sleep deprivation. So I was wondering if anybody else here has experienced this and if there are any methods other than depriving myself of sleep to develope and have more intense experiences. Also could this mean I am a good candidate for a LD? In the past I have had semi lucid dreams where I recognized I was dreaming and had a slight bit of control in a dream without trying or anything.
Curiously your psychiatrist gave you a good answer. What he was describing is called SOREM sleep. I don’t think a lot of psychiatrists know this.
People who can fall asleep easily and commonly experience hypnagogic hallucinations are said to have abilities for WILD. Through WILD exercices, even if you don’t manage to get a LD, you’re likely to enter the hypnagogic state thus experience these HH.
yes, the hard part is trying to keep your mind awake and aware as your body falls asleep but once you start experiencing the HH you can mold the images and sounds into a scenario with your mind sort of like creating the dream yourself, then stepping into it.
Well, I tried it last night and had a mild hynogocic experience, It sounded like a crowd of people just mumbling. It was weird though because every time I got close to sleep these euphoric shivers went through me then I was jolted back awake. This was followed by 3 different dreams, none of which were lucid
wow, you’ve gone farther with WILD in one night than me in one month. Those euphoric shivers are sleep paralysis, your body paralizes so you don’t act out your dreams. just ignore the paralysis (or enjoy it if you can and want) and you should mainly focus on the images you see.
I love how you can go so deeply into the hypnogagia, I’m almost too aware in that I can be in it but can’t seem to loose myself in it. In other words, my mind may be in hypnogagia but my body is still “awake.”
My first ld was the best example of this; I would feel my physical body move or twitch whenever the dream seemed to fade. I couldn’t rub my hands or spin around becaue my real body kept moving. I did, however, with some good focus, keep the dream going even after it happened several times. It was like being in two bodies at once (so much for the old “you can’t be in two places at once” HA!)
thing is the opposite; shouldn’t sleep paralysis kick in and stop that? how do you go so deeply into your sleep (and stay lucid)?
Hey I’ve had the same situation happen to me - the voices that is… mind you I was actually trying to induce a LD through the WILD technique. It was the voice of my father, and of course… that tricked me into turning around and waking up.
My advice to you is… unless what they are saying is along the lines of “the house is burning down! get up!” - ignore them and keep going because you will enter a very enjoyable lucid dream! Congrats on your rather awesome natural ability
I believe once you in sleep paralysis you can more easily focus your mind as by this point it will be pretty hard for you to worry about moving your body and waking up… thus you can be lucid much easier… personally I have yet to experience sleep paralysis (only partial paralysis-multiple times, in my arms due to lying on them and then I can literally slap myself and its like someone else was doing it because I cannot feel my hand - its hilarious, however silly it might be )
The problem is, most often auditory HH is useless to WILD. You hear them and it’s such surprising that it makes you leave the hypnagogic state.
To make a long story short, there are two kinds of people, those who experience HI and those who experience cenesthetic HH (vibrations, floating feeling, etc.) and/or auditory HH. If you experience auditory HH, it may mean that you’re of the second type. Then the principle is to use a WILD method to reach the hypnagogic state, and once you feel you’re strongly floating or such, try to get “out of your body”, for instance by rolling (mentally) out of your bed, spin on your axis, etc.
The only method I know which directly makes use of auditory HH is the following. Repeatedly count from 1 to 10 (in your mind). When 5 out the 10 numbers are said by an external voice, it means you’re in the dream. Then you have to try and roll out of your bed, or get up, etc. I don’t know if this method is easy to use, I only know one people who used it in the past (an experienced french LD’er).
It’s not because you practice WILD that you’ll get DILD’s. Moreover, you often don’t get DILD’s immediatly, the induction methods generally take days or weeks to work. You should read the LD4all LD’ing guide to have a good summary of LD’ing and its methods.
I did it!!! It was in the afternoon and I had the food network on fairly loud in the background and I was counting 1-10 then I started dreaming I was in a restaurant that had an all you can eat steak buffet, so im sitting there plowing through steak after steak then I look at the clock and its 8 pm, then I think to myself “oh the buffets probably closing at 8 I should get 1 more!” then I thought “Wait, this is just a dream im not going to get full anyways” then woke up. Thank you guys for the advice, I appreciate it so much.
By the way, my hypnogocic auditory hallucinations occur when im very much still aware that im awake, is that normal?
What you say is curious and interesting. I’m sorry, I can’t answer your question cause I’ve quite no experience of auditory HH. In the few experiences I’ve had, I remember I was closer to sleep than to the waking state. Now it’s often difficult while WILD’ing to distinguish between the waking state and the dreaming state and most often, during the hypnagogic state people think they are completely awake. I’ve read some statistics in which it was said that 50% (I don’t remember the precise percent, it was something like that) of the people who were woken up during stage 2 of sleep thought they were still awake.
Strange…well when it happens im like trying to fall asleep just laying there barely tired not even close to sleep then one will fire off, thats why I thought I was schizophrenic because I was very conscious during them and thats what made it scary.
I cant wait to go to sleep tonight and try again Im gonna be addicted to naps now haha.
Congrats twoAMnny!
nice job on the lucidity; next time you can probably do more than plow through steak; Anything is possible! But you’re well on your way-nothing but your imagination to set the limits. You’re fast. and ya, the nap addiction can be nice!
Neo Marine:
are you saying theres a way to induce that sleep paralysis or do I just have to wait for it to happen?
Well if you had Narcolepsy then sleep paralysis would be easy for you… but your goal shouldn’t be to be in sleep paralysis, but rather the Lucid Dream… the more you relax and the better your knowledge of the WILD process, as well as experience in it, the more easier you can induce the WILD lucid dreams. That said, I haven’t achieved a lucid dream through WILD technique yet - but now that I think of it I MAY have done so with a combination of WBTB and WILD… I would wake up, imagine something and I could physically see it in my mind and I could literally feel myself “step into” the lucid dream. Pretty cool stuff.
this topic is about hypnagogic images and sounds, it is now turning into a topic on WILD … for further WILD discussion please post in a relevant topic in quest or pathways. thank you
welcome to LD4all 
What he was describing is called SOREM sleep. I don’t think a lot of psychiatrists know this. 
You hear them and it’s such surprising that it makes you leave the hypnagogic state.
It was in the afternoon and I had the food network on fairly loud in the background and I was counting 1-10 then I started dreaming I was in a restaurant that had an all you can eat steak buffet, so im sitting there plowing through steak after steak then I look at the clock and its 8 pm, then I think to myself “oh the buffets probably closing at 8 I should get 1 more!” then I thought “Wait, this is just a dream im not going to get full anyways” then woke up. Thank you guys for the advice, I appreciate it so much.
Im gonna be addicted to naps now haha.