What do I do exactly?
and what exactly do you see?
does it look… like… real?
The Hypnagogic stage is the period between being awake and falling asleep. It is common to experience imagery and hallucinations during this stage.
Personally I have been conscious of my hypnagogic state whenever I attempt to do a WILD. At first it is just images flashing before my closed eyes but it later develops into actual sequels of events, just like a dream except no where near as real. The imagery sometimes for me become very vivid, just like a dream, except I do not feel anything, in terms of my senses.
There is also the hypnopompic state which is the period between sleeping and awakening. I don’t know what you experience in this stage, as I have never experienced it personally and from what I’ve read it’s similar to the experience of the hypnagogic state where you would experience imagery.
~ceavou~
There is a possibility you will never see hypnagogics same way like others.You might be able to see blurry shapes,puddles of colours and such but like in my case it never gets into anything else(proper objects or visions).I dont know why,it just varies from person to person.
Easiest way to see them is to stay without sleep for some time…like 24 hrs or so.You should be able to see them right off when u close your eyes then.
If during your sleepless time you do any activity which makes your eyes tired(i.e play on computer)it more likely to see those images.
good luck
For every person, it has different flaws and cases of how you see things. In my case, stress, reminding thoughts(what i have to do the next day), nightmarish awakens(like missing work the next morning), and fantasy all create my hypnagogic images, but after that, i fail to create my lucid dream. But i still have crazy dreams, that i recall during the next day. I have the images, i just have to learn how to use them for my sake of making lucid dreaming easier. Seeing images kinda of just pop up when i lay in my bed at night, i guess i can conclude by saying everybody has there own strategy of how their images come.
According to a study I read a while ago, everyone experiences Hypnagogic imagery each time they fall asleep. However, it’s at this stage that your memory is at it’s worst, and rarely do you actually remember it.
These images are not necessarily realistic. Apparently some people see nothing more than swirling colours and shapes, though I tend to see clearly definable floating objects, often heads of various people and creatures.
If you are attemping a WILD, then it’s more likely that you will encounter these images for a longer period of time before you lose consciousness. Well, if you are at all sucessful anyway.
It’s not really anything special, (compared to Lucid Dreams anyway) and as far as I can tell it’s just the first stages of your subconscious mind generating images from random thoughts and memories. If you have already been sleeping for a few hours before you try the WILD (which is the entire point) then this usually leads directly into a dream.
Sounds like a really cool process. If i look back of how i fall asleep, that sounds about right, how it happens. The hardest part is remembering such information or feeling, the reason why(i think) b/c you are so vulnerable, comfortable, and seems like you understand the situation in its entire whole to begin with. IRL you might remember some parts or clues that you can relate to, but its still very hard to put the picture together, b/c you can not remember some distinctive detail that seem important, but netherless more things that are describe to remember are not even important itself. Thats why lucid is the way to go. Every thing is clear!
This all comes back to habbits and natural instincts. I wrote about this in a previous post, but I’ll explain it again.
Basically, during the first few years of your life you build a very strong sleeping routine. You get used to falling asleep, experiencing all of the strange hypnagogic images and sensations, and dreams.
This is why it’s not easy to get into a habbit of Lucid Dreaming. You are just so used to sleeping and dreaming normally.