Fast Flashing Hypnopompic Dream Still Images

the Stuff Dreams are made of...
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Hey I would like to ask if there is anyone here who has a similar experience to this, which I have been getting quite often lately.

As I am beginning to wake up I get a myriad of fast images flashing before my eyes, through my mind. I can often remember a lot of them, but can’t seem to find any special meanings. This can go of for quite some time. This morning it went on for nearly an hour and a half, intermittently between drifting in and out of regular non REM sleep.

When this happens I really can’t wake up properly, my head is still thick with sleepiness and it feels that I should sleep it off, although to be honest when I do come round I am usually left with a headache for several hours and it takes me half the day to be properly awake.

This often happens if I have woken early, lay awake for an hour or so and then drifted back off to sleep.

I have good dream recall and have kept diaries for many years, but this kind of thing is quite wearying. I know it is dream imagery as one part of my mind is awake, but the more somatic part of me is still asleep and wants to remain asleep and sleep off the tiredness and drowsiness.

I have had M.E. for quite a few years and this seems to be related to it, although I have always had a need for a lot of sleep. It seems to have been exacerbated this week because I had some kind of minor bug and felt rather unwell at times.

I have wondered whether I should get up when I wake early and not aim to go back to sleep, but say it is five a.m. I don’t feel I have the energy to do this, although I am beginning to consider it as this fast flashing image thing is a bit of a drag and definitely not pleasant like regular dreaming. One way to describe it is like I am channel hopping at a rate of knots, even flipping between multiple different dimensions.

I do holosync every night when I go to bed, I had some sleep trouble a couple of years ago when I had a stressful situation in my life. It has really helped with that, and I get off to sleep much better. Usually when I sleep through till morning I just have regular dreams, but it seems to be if I get early waking that when I go back to sleep this flashing images thing happens and the subsequent drowsiness after. It is a little like migraines, but not the classic form.

I wonder if anyone on LD4all has any experience like this and maybe has any advice on how to get a better handle on it and feel better and more awake afterwards?

Thanks!

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hmmm, when I saw the title I thought “OMG!” because I’ve had this fast image things a few times and was actually thinking about posting a topic. But after I read your post I think it’s a bit different… :sad:

What I got (twice, I think) was at the end of a dream, many still images flashing one after the other really fast. No headache or drowsiness though :neutral: What I really find interesting is the speed, it seems like something around 7 images per second, maybe more. And I feel like I “register” all of them (although I can’t remember them), differently than if I saw something like that on tv, for example, where it would just seems like random flashes…

Sorry I can’t really help though :eh: These two things might be related though, I’ll pay attention if it happens again.

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Hey Mattias,

Thanks for your comments. Well I don’t know if they are entirely different, the fast flashing images sound very similar. I don’t think it was as fast as 7 a second maybe a little slower but it could have been, hard to tell when you are in that kind of state! Also I don’t think the headache and drowsiness is necessarily a part of it, at least not the headache, that is more like I just can’t wake up.

I’ve tried doing a search for something on this but there is virtually nothing on hypnopompic dreams that I can find anyway.

There are two ways of looking at this, one is medical the other psycho spiritual, they could overlap. I am inclined to believe that there is some kind of meaning to my personal path here, and that it may just be triggered by medical/somatic issues I have.

I have gone through a tremendous learning and personal growth curve over the last year or so, really related to doing the Holosync, and I don’t think I have had this fast flashing thing before, only in the last few months or year. It is like I am reviewing all kinds of information that I have previously experienced. Also it reminds me of quantum reality where we are connected to everything in the entire universe/ multiverse and it is like I have gone beyond the veil which keeps it all apart as separate things.

Well I will keep on thinking about this!

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I wanted to reply to share a “similar” experience, though it has only happened once and may be unrelated. One of the dreams I had last night was basically just me recognizing a set of random images one after another in a serial fashion (though much slower than you two are describing). There didn’t seem to be any normal dream sequences or activities. It was basically as exciting as sitting back and watching flashcards of different pictures and saying the name outloud…I don’t even know if I would classify it as a dream. Anyway, just came across this topic and found it interesting since I just woke up from this experience a few hours ago.

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yeah, exaclty :tongue: I’m guessing here, trying to remember how it was.

And I find your interpretation pretty interesting.

For some reason this reminds me now of another recurring hypnagogic (or hypnopompic) experience, where I see random text and my eyes move fast left to right reading it… sort of. It’s like I read it without understanding. The randomness is the same as the images, I believe.

Maybe these both experiences are related to the formation of dreams? The start or end, that is. The little bit of randomness that we have in dreams, like our SC is still putting in meaning to all that… stuff. :eh:

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Hmm… I’ve had a similar experience in a dream once. Images kept flying at a rapid pace, but I felt like I got all the images. Then at the end there was an image of a monster, and I heard a scream.

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this morning as i was waking up, so many images came pouring like, flashing so fast, it was an odd experience. i dont know what any one of those images was about, there was too many. maybe my mind was flushing out past thoughts, or experiences. i have no idea.

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but i do recall an electricity type of feeling as the images was flashing, my body felt like it was being shocked with electricity, and i jumped out of sleep, first time i ever did that, that i can remember.

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This is experience is something I can do during the day… It’s a light meditation phase i can enter, which prompts it to begin. It’s difficult to maintain because i do get slightly dizzy and eventually nauseous, and my vision is blurry when I open my eyes again.

This is something that I’m currently exploring majorly with some other people. Although it is not the same as partial awareness due to dream transition, it has the same tune. If I find anything out about this that may shed some light on what it actually is, I’ll be sure to contribute.

ADD-
I’d like to add that this isn’t something that works all the time. Some days I’m able to, other times it doesn’t work. The images are not vivid at all. It’s as if looking at object, places, or even people in a dark room, with light yellow/white auras outlining most of what I’m seeing. Every once in a while I can capture an image and remember it, but it happens too quickly to recall most of them.

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I made a post about this recently, I think I had the exact same thing! Although, this occurd as I was attempting WILD before bed. It was as if I was scrolling sideways along an image database extremely fast, although it felt as if these were still images from memories that i’ve had because they all seemed to register in my mind, like a sense of “knowing” them.

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I have a really good theory about this. If anyone has these dreams with fast flashing images, we need to talk. If we are looking on this forum already, then we probably know how to have lucid dreams.

Please give me an email, I really think I know what’s going on here, but I need more similar stories. As for myself, I have had this happen to me twice.

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How about sharing your theory here? That’s what this forum and this thread are for :razz:

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I have a theory about this also. I have experienced these quick flash card images upon waking out of a dream state a few times. Different from a mind image- it’s a real physical image. These flash images about as fast as a movie projector and seemingly slow down until each image is within just a few per second and just fade away. I can’t make out these images and I don’t recal feelings. Mostly blurry outline in black and white and grey. But I do see them within a “flash card” style with edges. I can barely make out but each flash card has a completely different blurry image then the one previous. Indicating that each image is totally different from the other. So what I suggest is… that I am experiencing consciously what is occurring in my subconscious. I think dreams may be a series of fast moving frames. Each frame being individual and out of succession or sync with the previous. No two images alike. If this happens while dreaming then what we must be experiencing is split secound visuals that seem to last munites or sometimes hours. Each image is a story all by itself.
Well I tried to explain my theory best I could- I would enjoy some feedback.

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I have been experiencing this for many years, and have wondered about it. For me it happens like this; I am aware of myself dreaming and it seems like I am out of body, when I “re-enter” I get the flashing images. They are very fast and look like the still frames of a movie. Every time I’ve had this happen it feels like I am coming back into my body. At the end of the “movie” reel I am instantly wide awake. It is like being thrown back down.
My theory is; I am either downloading or up loading information while dreaming. It is like I get a “glimps” of the process, a peak behind the curtain. Because I am aware and am coming “back down” the information has to be accelerated to be completed.

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:woo: Son of a seabiscuit. I deleted my whole message accidentally.
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I’ve been dreaming the same way others are talking about for years. My dreams can often seem to be in another time, in the past, and often not my own past but seemingly someone else’s.

My most recent dream was of an ocean side place that seemed similar to a peninsula where two oceans met. It didn’t even seem Earth-like to me. I’ve never been to a place like this. It wasn’t an island, but the housing seemed more like San Francisco which I’ve never been to but am using what I’ve seen on tv as a reference. It also seemed like a different physical time than I am in now, and I don’t think I was even looking through my own eyes as I was there.

Upon becoming more conscious, the fast images started but were gray in color and had lines and such, for what I could make out. The best explanation I’ve come to is climbing a lighthouse staircase backward, or seeing it that way. I was standing still, but the images coming to me were flashing from right to left and seemed similar to stairs and lines that I would equate to a room or seeing the traveling in reverse if that would be possible. So hard to explain, but this is what it felt like or looked like. I’m always wishing that the images would slow down so I could make them out properly. I want to see them and feel agitated that they are moving so fast.

As I’m waking, I feel very groggy and tired and can’t seem to get fully awake. I often wake this way, but the fast images are more rare than the dreams of another time/location. I feel tired a lot and seem to need a lot more sleep/rest (often feeling that I’ve been conscious all night long). My dreams have been very vivid and real to me even as a child, but these fast images are something that I’ve only remembered for the past four years or so. They make me very curious as well as where my dreams take me (wars, houses I’ve never been in before, seeing through a man’s eyes, etc.).

I’m not lucidly dreaming on purpose, but I’m thinking I need to do some more research on this.

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Yeah, I remember this phenomena from some time ago. Almost like a blurring, staccato-fast slide show of still dream images/pictures. This underlying agitation or flickering sensation in my mind seemed to be a part of if, as I remember. Over time, it seems to have slowed and settled down, where I can hone in on one image at least long enough to see what’s what…and sometimes be able see the image unfreeze and start to move, like a small movie clip…and then, other times be able to go into the moving dream scene, briefly, and act upon it…and then, more rarely, other times be able to go fully into a WILD as I step into the dream scene completely.

All this to say, yeah…I’ve been there. And that, for someone who has had some kind underlying mental agitation/disruption for most of my life making things like meditation or slowing down the streaming, chaotic dream images enough to enjoy them seem impossible, it is possible. It just takes time and persistence. I remember hearing or reading something someone said or wrote one time which went something like “Nothing can stand in the face of persistence”. It made an impact on me, given what I have to work with. I’m your classic hard-case. I’m all over the place, mentally…ADD if your looking for a medical classification. I can barely focus on what someone else is saying to me for even a few seconds at a time, much less focus on something like meditation for any reasonable stretch or the intent to have an LD. But, I’ve made progress! I guess what I’m saying is that, if I can do it…hell, ANYone can :happy:

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I experimented this too! :exclamation::no_mouth:

Sometimes, (the last time was like~ 1 week ago!) Im able to see a very fast slide show of still images (about 5/sec) when im awakening from a dream.

But they’re quite random & that’s why I have problems remembering them when I wake up (I use associative memory as a method of dream recalling), since I can only remember one or two and I can’t relate them to all the others when trying to write them in my dream journal.

Now I think that it really sounds like a common thing amongst people! :grinning:

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I joined just because I had the exact description of this. Even down to the grogginess and headaches. Has anyone had any updates? I thought it was an acute seizure of some kind. It’s actually quite painful for me when it happens so I’m really not interested in discovering the “meaning†behind these images. It feels like these are random pictures being ripped from my brain as a small electrical impulse jumps around my memory. I didn’t understand what M.E. is, can anyone update with their thoughts?

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I woke up this morning to this phenomenon that happened to me in the past. I think it might happen every morning when I wake up because this morning I noticed it but decided to pay attention to the images because I was very tired.
I focused my attention to the slideshow like photographs that were running from right to left in my minds eye. I related to the post from Cosmic Clair, I too have found the information for awakening and working on this daily. This information for me being, Wayne Dyer, positive head podcast, Abraham Hicks, Alan Watts, Buddhism style thought. I have the information I need but find myself not actually studying it and being comfortable in my old way of thought. I think this information might be associated with this phenomenon. I see color photographs in square picture form of events, people, people in motion. As if looking through photographs from a magazines archives. The images are running left to right. Flashing just long enough to barely see and then move on. I have often naturally came up with the word download for the experience. It feels to me like a download of past or future events that have happened. The images are neutral. Not sad, happy, mad, etc., just could be as simple as a woman handing a red ballon to a child, next image a doorway with a turquoise door, next and old man smiling while eating icecream., the images all seem to be a scene or pleasant human experience.
I don’t know what it is., I think I’m experiencing all the lives I have lived or all lives lived.
Anyone with help on how to understand this or if there is something I’m supposed to be doing with it? Please comment

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I notice this from time to time when I wake up. Rapid flashing images, for me they are geometric in nature, sometimes a bit more realistic, looked like outline art. For me they flash in place. They exchange so fast that I can’t remember them. Usually I want to shake them off, I am a bit alarmed of them. I had them this morning, next time I’ll try to hold some of these in my mind.

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