vulturine

Hi guys. I've been experiencing a lot of hypnogogic jerks and shocks while falling asleep lately. It makes it difficult to sleep and sometimes both my arms actually fly up. I know that's because I went on a really dumb 2 week bender and my neurons are trying to reset, but with that behind me, I'm interested in if anyone has had any cool visions or sensations while in the state between waking and sleeping. Apparently many of these are documented and common phenomena often attributed to paranormal events.

I've had the one where I heard someone call my name, crinkling bags, sleep paralysis where I saw a dark figure in a wide-brimmed hat and cloak walk (hat man) across the room, another one where I saw a little creature of ash and burning embers at the foot of my bed, one where I floated out of my body into my room such that I could see myself sleeping, and the falling one. I generally see a checker pattern before I float off to dreamland though. I found out hat man was a pretty common one while listening to the paranormal and conspiracy theory radio station one night, and there's an actual thehatmanproject.com website. That's such a specific hallucination, so I find it interesting we can share common themes in dreams and in this case, hallucinations.

"The hypnagogic state can provide insight into a problem, the best-known example being August Kekulé’s realization that the structure of benzene was a closed ring while half-asleep in front of a fire and seeing molecules forming into snakes, one of which grabbed its tail in its mouth." That's so interesting. Benzene is an important molecule within organic chemistry.

Anyway, I'm just curious to hear if anyone else has had any hypnagogic experiences. Very tired from this currently. It's pretty bad.

Bunting23

Universal dreams can be cool but hypnic jerks are not.

I experienced the hypnic jerk many years ago. I researched it because it baffled me so. At the time, I was drinking regular, but was "content"and not experiencing any anxiety until I tried to go to sleep. Every time I would be on the verge of falling to sleep.. boom! I felt like someone/thing punched me in the face. I could not sleep because everytime I tried to.. Pow!

The good news is that it only lasted about 2 weeks and went away when I moved from the environment I was in. True story!

I wish you all the best, because I vividly remember that time. No fun at all! Take care of yourself!

Red78

I used to have sleep paralysis all the time, not drink associated but from being run down.. Everytime i fell asleep I would enter this nightmarish state of feeling like there was this dark entity standing in the corner & I would know i was paralysed, brain awake but body not.. Freaky freaky ****.. I hate it!!!! The last time a few months ago I had an inception type situation where I had to wake myself up out of a dream ( somehow I knew i was in one) only to find myself in another dream & then finslly wake myself up from that dream... It was so strange.. As for these jerks, I only experience them when i fall or trip in my dream..

Aellyce

Yes, lots of it during alcohol withdrawal: the hypnagogia stuff, sleep paralysis, drifting from one lucid dream into the other all night with half-awake auditory and sometimes visual illusions in between... They were definitely dreams as I did not have any awake hallucinations. I am somewhat prone to these nighttime experiences by default, have had countless lucid dreams since childhood and occasional sleep paralyses but during withdrawal it was a whole different level.

I don't care about the paranormal but was very into exploring my dreams and these other associated phenomena when younger for a while. I still do sometimes for fun. As for the "pretty bad" stuff, for me lasted only for a week or so.

Leonidas

I'm on day 8 and still having massively intense dreams and nightmares but don't seem to have the jerks anymore. They were super bad in my first 3-4 days though.

vulturine

Oooh people are awake. I watched inception a few days ago for the first time, so I became interested in trying to control my dreamscape again. I had this one where I had a Y-incision for some reason, but the stitches tore, so my guts fell out. Then I tried shoving the guts back in. Haha brutal!

jessie65

I've experienced a lot of what you described, still do occasionally and I am over a year sober.

The crinkling bag noise, wow, thought I was nuts, I've heard that strange sound since I was a little girl, maybe 5-6 years old and it still occurs sometimes, never did figure it out. It seems I am awake when it happens too. When I was little I would just lay there terrified that somebody was in my room and I would hide under the blanket
(violent alcoholic home life)

I experienced sleep paralysis also, it is horrifying, and I still get the hypnic jerks, Hate them!

I hope it gets better for you, if not maybe a visit to your doctor for a sleep analysis?