The Nature of Hypnagogic Imagery

[ebc877]

I just recently experienced another hypnagogic state/partial OBE and wanted to check out if you guys experience this similarly. Anyway i drifted to sleep last night (exhausted from drinking the night before :)), and i awoke (maybe minutes later) in what seemed to be my etheric body. I knew i was conscious and it wasn't a dream and i could see the wall in front of my bed. Although my body was face down with my head turned to one side (physically), i was lying down looking straight ahead and i could feel that my legs were "floating" above my physical legs. I then became aware that i could try to project and in doing so i noticed some very detailed images on the wall in front of me..

The distinct part of these images which make them easily discernible from dream-like hallucinations was their vividness. For some reason, whenever i have hypnagogic images appear in that state, they are etched out in bright-blue neon colors. Its really exciting to watch as i have no control over their content and they play before my "eyes" like a vivid slide show of random images. However last night i saw one clear image being repeated which excited me greatly: A queen was sitting a throne and holding a scepter while staring at me with a blank expression. She appeared in a stance similar to playing card royal figures yet her features/garb looked eastern and foreign to me.

Do you guys think that hypnagogic imagery is something like a random firing of neurons in the brain to produce "dream-like" images or do these scenes actually have some relation to a higher meaning in the astral realm? Anyway, during this time i tried to continue "floating" out of my body through my already elevated legs but i couldn't and just drifted off to sleep. I'm pretty sure i was in the RTZ for a couple seconds which is where i saw the queen. Although this experience may seem tame compared to some others on this forum, it was like watching a single frame movie that was more captivating than any other film i've ever seen! lol

[Sinera]

....that hypnagogic imagery is something like a random firing of neurons in the brain to produce "dream-like" images or do these scenes actually have some relation to a higher meaning in the astral realm?....
It always shivers me when I read of the "random firing of neurons in the brain", since this being given as a cause for ANY experience in altered state (hypnagogics, dream, etc.) is a purely hypothetical assumption based on materialism and 'scientism' (not science!). You should not fall into this trap.

I am convinced that there is no such thing as a 'random' firing of neurons. And yes, there is a different cause and a substantial 'reality' behind every experience that mainstream (science? / opinion) labels 'hallucination', 'delusion', 'illusion' or whatever. As an experiencer of AP you might already know that "Thought" is something real. Though forms are real. There is nothing "UN"-real. However, there might be MIS-interpretations of data we receive and this might be a way to still justify the term 'hallucination', although I do not use it anymore.

For me, the brain is a filter that limits our range of electromagnetical "input" and only downloads the information and/or accesses non-local memory which is to our availabilty here. But even that is not stored locally in the brain, it is just access to the part which is 'accessible' to us (call it in 'fields' or 'non-local continuum' or whatever). But I am convinced that nothing of this is purely random. Randomness just appears to be what we do not understand on our lower level but which makes probably perfect sense on a higher being level (of our(higher)selves). Just my 2 cents on this.

[Zethor]

Hi Ebc 877,

Sounds like a nice experience :)

There might be a meaning behind it that might not always stand out..When I think of a Queen a few items come to mind.
A queen is a higher position than a normal person, more resp
could be something to do with your higher self perhaps?


Regards,


Zethor

[CFTraveler]

A couple of comments- hypnagogic experiences are created in one part of the brain (I think it's the hypothalamus) and hypnopompic images are created in the prefrontal cortex, showing that they have different functions. They happen every time you're either going to sleep or waking up (and you catch them if you become conscious at the right time). So no, there's nothing random about them. What their purpose is may be a mystery, but that's not the same as saying it's a random thing.

I can't say what hypnagogics (or hypnopomps) mean for others, but I've had precog hypnagogics in the past, so I know it's not just neurons firing away for no reason.

[GRANT]

Yes, they have a meaning, but, as RB teachings say, they're symbolized, because our base level of consciousness is not up to the level of the hypnogogics.

Grant

[CFTraveler]

Taking aside what Robert says, in my experience the hypnopomps tend to be symbolic, while the hypnagogics tend to be pictorial representations of things I either have seen or will see- literally, or pictorially.
Sure, anything that is subconscious will have a symbolic component, but it's not a 'rule'.

[iadnon]

I've read they are the result of the rearrangement of the information inside the brain.

[CFTraveler]

Sure. After all, our brain processes reality holographically, so when you have an experience (such as walking into a room and picking up an apple) the information gets processed in chunks of data- how it felt, what you saw (all of it, not just what you can think of) how you felt, and all the associations that exist for you for the expeirence. Then it gets indexed and processed for storage.
Whether you believe that storage itself is in the cells of out of, is almost besides the point- that the processing itself is extremely complex is- so that simple act (walking into a room) takes a lot of indexing, that goes on day and night, even when we sleep.
So yes, some of this indexing may be experienced as hypnagogics or hypnopomps, even old fashioned dreams.

[ebc877]

thanks for the info, you guys bring up a lot of interesting points. To be more specific, this "image" was one i've never seen before and seemed completely unfamiliar yet it felt/looked important. I'm new to these type of experiences but the scene was as much felt as it was visual.
@CFTraveler My question is, can this truly be memories/thoughts being stored even if the thought was never one i was consciously aware of?

[sono2]

Not that I disagree with what others have said, but I do think that it (hypnogics) can also be a mixture of clairvoyant visions & lower astral scenery. Strangely, I also often see what I would call depictions of the archetypes of Tarot cards, so perhaps that is what they often are - archetypes, available to all consciousnesses when in a state bordering sleep & waking?

[CFTraveler]

@CFTraveler My question is, can this truly be memories/thoughts being stored even if the thought was never one i was consciously aware of? Absolutely. In fact, in my opinion it is exactly what they are. But as sono aptly put, I believe that we perceive much more than we remember, with our physical senses and with our energy bodies- so when you get precog visions or 'AR info', you are also drawing from memory- memory of nonphysical events as much as physical ones.
I have had hypnagogics of what I read in the forums the day before, or the commercial I saw a month ago, and also had hypnagogics of what I was going to see later on that day.
IMO, they're all just indexing of experiences-memories. But the information gathering apparatus isn't always the physical, IMO.

[GRANT]

Our DNA stores memories from the Morphogenetic Field (in which I believe); as well as our phyical and other realms. (Most of our "memories" are not consciously remembered; but, they are still stored) The memories come from our very beginnings.(even before our "human" form and/or Earthly existance) I guess hypno's can be from anywhere, anytime, any place; but, they are a real thing. They're multi-dimentional, albeit memories or messages or a tuning in. However, they just start and I'm sure they have a meaning to us, even if our understanding of them is not apparent; they may be being recognized by our deeper sub sub consciousness or coming to use through our superconsciousness. As a tangent, perhaps at times, I'm only guessing, that's one way the Akasic Pulse updates us.

Grant

[Jake]

There may be something to be said about the state of mind that precedes the Hypnogogic or Hypnopompic states. When going from wakefulness to a sleeping state, our 'waking minds' are trying to figure out and interpret the abstract ways in which the 'dreaming mind' thinks and interprets.. In this sense, the hypnogogic imagery will be different than Hypnopompic... As we transition into a WAKING state from sleep,,, it is reverse, now our DREAMING mind is trying to make sense of the linear way in which our waking minds process information... It has been said that one process is simply the reverse of the other,, but they are very different experiences as the two states of mind are integrated, but not completely...

Jake.

[CFTraveler]

I agree with you, and I remember reading about great differences in brain biology to support it. The last time I looked it up, all my sources seemed to have disappeared, as if scientists changed their minds about it-but I think the difference is there.