I noticed something which is happening sometimes when I’m laying in bed and almost fall asleep.
Before I fall asleep I always think about a lot of things (from things that happened that day, to memories from the past, to my hobbies, to random things, basically everything that comes to my mind but I feel relaxed).
Now I noticed that at this point (when I almost fell asleep but just not yet) my thoughts change to false memories or assumptions.
For example, I suddenly think about something that has never happened but it feels like it happened the day before and then I believe for several seconds that it actually happened until I wake up and realize “What is this? This never happened!”.
Sometimes this false memories/assumptions are very illogical, for example yesterday night when I almost fell asleep I was thinking something like “My mother told me that the staff of my assisted living facility will not take an air raid siren seriously…” and then a few seconds later I woke up and I think “What? My mother didn’t say this and why am I even thinking about an air raid siren?”
I’m very curious what this is.
I thought that it were probably hypnagogic hallucinations but I don’t see imagery with it, it are pure “thoughts/memories/assumptions” so I think I cannot call it an hallucination.
It’s something illogical (a false memory or assumption) that come up to my mind when I almost fall asleep, and then I believe for a few seconds that this illogical thing is true and after that I woke up and I realize that my thoughts where non-sense, not true and never happened.
I’m now calling it “hypnagogic delusions” for myself but I don’t yet know the actual meaning and reason of it.
Does anyone have a similar experience or explanation?
That is interesting. I think it comes and goes but sometimes I get a sort of mental gibberish before falling asleep. I don’t think I have ever recalled the actual words or made an effort to write them down. It’s not just racing thoughts but something more like you describe. You seem to be able to tap into that state a little better and recall it. Surely there is a link between that and hypnagogic imagery though I would assume hypnagogic imagery takes more focus and practice to notice and recall. I know if I decide on a random night to watch for the HI I rarely succeed. It seems to take practice and a more disciplined mind than mine lol. Though I have seen it when I was younger and more dedicated to this kind of stuff.
I love the hypnagogic space! I look for it every time I close my eyes. Soooo many interesting things…images, voices, sounds, feelings emerge in that twilight.
Typically, after close my eyes and gently relax the body…I look into the darkness behind closed eyes until the darkness deepens or gains depth. And then, I’ll see what looks like these very fine rippling/scintillating lines deep in the darkness….very faint to start. At that point it’s kind of like very gently coaxing a fire from faint embers. If I drift into thoughts, they go away. If can hold onto that delicate balance between waking and sleeping, the scintillating lines start to flourish and their light gets brighter. It’s like their brightening gains momentum. After that different things can happen…flame fractal-like abstractions or dream images evolve.
Have had experiences coming out of this state startled and confused. Having just left a different whole reality/life/situation. Thinking why am I here for a second and then remembering everything about my life. Then I feel good and realize that we are more than what we have going on here.
I think it’s a result of being in a near-sleep state. The brain can come up with nonsense and accept it without question during hypnagogia because it’s more or less operating on dream logic.
I can’t think of any cases off the top of my head where it’s happened to me falling asleep (though I’m sure it has), but I had a similar false memory experience waking up last night. I woke up startled and felt like I couldn’t breathe. I freaked out for a moment before I realized I could still breathe and reminded myself it’s normal and it happens sometimes (and then lamented that).
If you’re wondering if I have sleep apnea, I don’t (at least, not to my knowledge). I have woken up like that before, usually from a nightmare, but it’s VERY rare. But for a good several seconds at least, my half-asleep mind believed this was something I experienced on the regular.
There have also been times when I’ve woken from a dream and had to question whether some detail (like a memory or fact) is real or was made up in the dream. They tend to be obvious nonsense, but nonsense isn’t always obvious in the post-sleep haze.
Oooh, this is an interesting topic! I get something similar to this sometimes, though I’m not sure it’s exactly the same! It usually manifests as my brain obsessing something all night as I’m falling asleep so any moment not spent in REM sleep is filled with a bunch of noise in my brain about the thing. It usually happens after binge watching a show, as my brain has to process all the content I watched in such a short amount of time. And like you describe, it’s usually somewhat nonsensical and aimless.
I remember once I spent a good chunk of the night trying to figure out how to write in a non-existent programming language while tossing and turning in bed. Usually in the binge-watching scenario it manifests as me trying to solve some additional unsolved lore mystery, regardless of whether it’s unsolved or exists in the first place. When the thing I binge-watched also happens to be horror-adjacent it gets pretty bad, because the thoughts are usually scary.
I’ve called them “thought dreams” in the past because while I do think I am either in a light sleep phase or hypnagogia during this, it does feel like I’m just thinking thoughts the whole night. Though these days I think maybe a better term is “information hangover”… it kinda reminds me of being hungover but the only substance I’ve consumed is information! These days I mainly manage to avoid it by not doing things like binge-watching shows at all.
