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I dream, therefore I am: Hypnagogia and the Brain

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alexandra mnuskin's picture

Ay me, for pity! what a dream was here!
Lysander, look how I do quake with fear
William Shakespeare
Midsummer Nights Dream, Act II, scene 2

Dreams are the answers to questions that we haven't yet figured out how to ask.
Fox Mulder, The X-Files

For centuries human beings have experienced the impossible through dreams. In particular, the murky boundary between sleep and waking known as sleep paralysis has allowed us to create in our minds the stuff of fairy tales. Drifting off to sleep one often experiences curious dreams of a nightmarish quality as well as highly unusual bodily sensations. Both during hypnagogia, the period of time just before sleep, and hypnopompia, a similar state just before waking, our minds create hideous hags and ghouls, terrible enitities, the experience of alien abductions, sensations of non-existent pain and the incomparable feeling of flight [1].
Beginning with Aristotle, philosophers and scientists throughout history have been fascinated by the half-dream, half-waking state of hypnagogia. In the third century A.D. the philosopher Iamblichus described the “voices and bright and tranquil light in the condition between sleeping and waking” which he attributed to a divine force. The lurid and eerie illustrations of alchemical manuscripts suggest that alchemists in the Middle Ages may have been inspired by hypnagogiac states during their distillations. In fact, many thinkers and artists including William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edgar Allen Poe, Havelock Ellis and Carl Jung were known to make use of the creativity induced by the trance-like state and sensations of hypnagogia[1].
The early 20th century Russian journalist and philosopher P.D. Ouspensky believed that by studying hypnagogia he could come closer to understanding the unconscious mind. Ouspensky studied what are called lucid dreams, a kind of hypnagogia during which the individual retains some awareness and control over his unconscious dream state. He discovered that during hypnagogia he was actually able to exert influence over dreams and alter them at will. Ouspensky famously stated that “we have dreams continuously, both in sleep and in waking state” a statement that was later to be proved true by the discovery that the brain’s neurons are as active during Rapid Eye Movement or REM stage of sleep as when a person is awake[1].
The phenomenon of Sleep-Paralysis occurs just after or before REM sleep the dreaming part of sleep when the brain’s neurons are as active as during waking hours. People reporting Sleep-Paralysis, are aware of the inability to move while drifting off to sleep or waking up. Quite often, the paralysis is accompanied by hypnagogic hallucinations. Possible physiological causes for Sleep-Paralysis may involve the post-synaptic inhibition of motor neurons in the pons region of the brain, possibly due to low levels of melatonin. This depolarization of motor neurons during REM sleep is in fact useful as it prevents people from physically doing what they are dreaming about [2].
Hypnagogic and Hypnopompic experiences can be classified into a three-factor model. The first factor, termed the Intruder factor is characterized by the sensation of fear accompanied by auditory and visual hallucinations that may originate with the hyper-vigilant state initiated by the midbrain. The second factor, Incubus, consists of the pain, pressure of the chest and possible difficulty breathing. Incubus is generally attributed to the hyperpolarization of motoneurons. Vestibular-Motor hallucinations, the final factor of hypnagogia is comprised of seemingly impossible experiences such as floating, flying, general feelings of euphoria and sometimes even sexual pleasure. While the first two factors are clearly associated with threat and assault the last is more autonomous. What is certain however is the link between the hypnagogic state and REM sleep [3], [4].
A study on the memories that create dreams called Replaying the Game: Hypnagogioc Images in Normals and Amnesiacs indicates that during hypnagogic sleep people do not actually dream about events stored in their declarative or episodic memories, the memories that allow one to process and retain newly learned information. The study compared the dreams of people with amnesia and control subjects who were both taught to play a computer game which involved arranging colored blocks. The study showed that people with amnesia, despite the damage to their hippocampus that prevented them from storing new information were able to dream about the images they had been exposed to in the game during their hypnagogic state although they could not actually remember playing it before they went to sleep. These results indicate that memory of the event is not necessary to dream. It is therefore possible to dream of things we have never experienced or known merely by using our semantic knowledge which involves general and abstract concepts [5].
What does all of this mean in terms of our understanding of the brain? Agent Fox Mulder may be a fictional character; nevertheless his statement about dreaming attests to his, or rather his creators’ perspicacity. Dreams may well be the answers to those essential questions that we cannot yet formulate. In his book The Natural Depth of Man, the psychologist William Van Dusen wrote “much of the hypnagogic area looks simply like cute images and odd sentences being tossed around one’s head until one asks precisely what the individual was thinking of at that same moment. Then it begins to look like either a representation of the person’s state or an answer to his query” [1].They are the answers to our deepest fears and our greatest pleasures. When we dream we are able to create creatures we have never seen or heard of, to experience sensations we have never done. Like phantom-pain and placebo effects, the dreams of people experiencing hypnagogia show that the brain is able to produce output with no external input, to truly create something. To me it is this ability to create that validates my perception of myself. Descartes wrote Cogito Ergo Sum, I think therefore I am. We know this to be in part false…lots of things are without any thought. However to me, the statement describes my own unique human experience: not just that I think and can process information like a computer or machine but that I can create and imagine things I have never seen before, if only in my dreams.

Works Cited
[1] www.forteantimes.com/articles/163_hypnagogia.shtml Waking Sleep
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis Sleep Paralysis symptoms and causes
[3] Cheyne et al. Hypnagogic and Hypnopompic Hallucinations during Sleep Paralysis: Neurological and Cultural Construction of the Night Mare Consciousness and Cognition, vol 8, 319-337, 1999. available at: http://portal.isiknowledge.com/portal.cgi?DestApp=WOS&Func=Frame&Init=Yes&SID=H21L3nli6D5BjCmBNea
[4] http://www.springerlink.com/content/n70183m218027533/ J. A. Cheyne, Sleep Paralysis and the Structure of Waking-Nightmare Hallucinations
[5] www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077505/ How the Brain Turns Reality into Dreams, Kathleen Wren

Comments

Serendip Visitor's picture

thick and thin

Hey,i get these dreams too..it all started when I was a child and still experience the unpleasant feeling.i get these dreams when I'm ill.but the last time I dreamt of it was few months ago..when I just went to sleep after watching the entire "spud series"..then I dreamt of buying the book amd it was so thin and flat as a paper,then water boiling in a vessel that was so huge,even bigger than me.holding my hair and feeling how thin it is and stuff! This is so unpleasant!I told about them to my parents but they never seem to understand or care about it.. please help...I want to know why they occur!

michele's picture

I've had the "thick and thin"

I've had the "thick and thin" experience, too--but it was far from unpleasant! Rather, it was euphoric. I would feel like all was good and all was love. It came as part of a hypnopompic hallucination several times a year for many years, starting in childhood and ending at age 43. When I was little, I was sure it had something to do with God. I would wake up, but still have my eyes closed, and would feel paralyzed. I would see something I thought of as the "wheels of heaven." They were circular patterns like gears, with holes through them, and through that two-dimensional layer of spinning gears, I could see outer space, unbelievably black, and I was moving forward through it, toward something. Sometimes I'd start off seeing a pattern, different everytime, drawn with the thinnest lines, getting thinner and thinner--so impossibly thin. Or other times thick. Also had feelings of enormousness, or saw things that became tinier than tiny. Then this was overlaid with the "wheels of heaven" and I would still see it for a while back there, beyond the spinning gears. I'm sad that it doesn't happen anymore. When people tell of positive near-death experiences, I wonder if their brains are doing something similar to this.

Anonymous's picture

Quite often as I am drifting

Quite often as I am drifting off to sleep I begin to dream... but sort of remain conscious. It's certainly bizarre, and whilst I am in this state I often 'hear' nonsensical words or phrases. On some rare occasions I become aware of these phrases and write them down, here are a few:

-'Mygyptis.'
-'Adam Jaysolini.'
-'Sons of Bison!'
-'Clarence!'
-'Is Bandsworth even a flood warnworth?'
-'Is a quick hachester even enough?'
-'Seventeen, eventeen.'
-'On my face!'

Ratatata's picture

"Thick and Thin" - childhood hypnagogic experience

When I was a child, I would often get a hypnagogic state of something I call 'thick and thin', which is really hard to explain with words but is a semi-conscious experience when falling asleep of perhaps an object (person, arbitrary scene, of just blackness) oscillating between being 'infinitely thick' and 'infinitely thin' - sometimes was quite disturbing as it was like getting lost in infinity at times, it almost felt like my mind was actually oscillating. It happened lots of times around the age of perhaps 7 to 13 and ranged from mildly disturbing (at times) to plesantly relaxing.

Anyway the years went by and I never gave it much thought until very recently when my good friend said "Did you ever get 'thick and thin' when you were dropping off to sleep as a child". I knew straight away what he was talking about and we compared notes to discover it was exactly the same experience.

I'd like to know if anyone else has experienced this and if it has a specific name/cause or anything (hopefully not madness or some kind of mental issue).

PS I've never taken legal/illegal drugs or alchohol, but my friend has and he said it can really play havok with hypnagogic states - to the point of insanity -where he starts to blur the distinction between reality and the 'images in his head'.

catherine's picture

'Thick and Thin' dream

Hi, i have just been reading your post on the thick and thin dream with total amazement as both my mum and myself have experienced the same thing!

I agree it is really hard to put into words as for me it more the sensation, the way i describe it is to imagine you are trying to rip a normal piece of paper but it has the thickness of telephone directory and is impossible to rip!

I find these dreams very very unplesant and unsettling for some reason. I used to get them all the time as a child especially if i was unwell or had a temprature. These days not that much, only if im ill.

I would love to know if this has a name or what it is, i guess up until now i thought it was just a weird thing that me and my mum both had!

Catherine x

Serendip Visitor's picture

Thick and Thin dream

This discussion is a year or so old but I'll reply in case any one else comes across this (as I did).

I'm fascinated to find out that other people have had the thick and thin dream. Some of the descriptions above correspond exactly with my experience; I used to get it at the same age, possibly younger (5 years). I remember having it awake in bed but in retrospect it was likely a hypnogogic state. I was also able to 'trigger' it in a normal waking state by thinking of thick and thin things, such as sewing needles and thumbs. For me it wasn't so much an oscillation but a feeling of something having both qualities at the same time and those coexisting opposite qualities zooming off towards infinity. It was fascinating and often a little frightening as a child.

I'd forgotten about it for so long (I'm 37 now), but after not sleeping well for a couple of nights, I've experienced it again. It might have something to do with spending last weekend visiting places I lived when I was very young.

Duncan

Ishita's picture

Amazed to know that it's not just me!

I'm fully aware that no one might read this since this was last discussed five years ago on this website, but I'll post it anyway. I used to have these thick and thin feelings, too, when I was little, especially when I had fever. I used to fall sick very often as a kid, and my temperatures would go way up to 105° F. As no one in my family could understand what I was talking about, I thought it was only me who had these feelings. I recently read about lilliputian hallucinations, which I frequently have and also thought was a condition unique to me. I was very surprised to know that there existed a medical name for it. So, when the thick and thin feeling happened again today, I was intrigued to know whether other people also experience this. I don't know what it's called, but I'm grateful to know it's not only me. I find these experiences deeply disturbing, though.

Serendip Visitor's picture

Yesterday I told a friend of

Yesterday I told a friend of mine that I often had this 'feeling' in my dreams, and it turned out she knew exactly what I was talking about. My sister as well knew exactly what I was talking about. In the case of all three of us the object has the texture of very fine sand and a sort of beige color. I don't know about you guys, but it seems the dentist seems to be a recurring factor here. We all three described the texture as that of the tongs the dentist use to get in those rings around your teeth when you have to have braces. Cause he cannot apply enough force in the back of your mouth, you have to bite the tongs to push the ring up, and that feeling on your teeth is exactly what this object feels like.
I am btw sometimes also able to generate this object at will.
I'd like to know if more people decribe the texture like this, cause it really fascinates me that there are more people from all over having the same feeling/image/object in their thoughts.

Paul

Anonymous's picture

sleep disorder?

I've found that these kinds of unpleasant experiences often happen to me, but that when I found a way to treat my sleep apnea, that the frequency and intensity decreased greatly. What this means is that these states can be induced in people not getting enough quality sleep, because they are spending more time in these in-between phases of sleep. Check with your doctor if you often have sleep terrors or paralysis, especially if you also feel tired during the day often and like you want to nap. Yes, there's something you can do. I also recommend people try Breathe-Right strips if they feel their sleep is not restful. They are cheap to try and improve breathing during sleep, which can help some people. It does amazing things for me, but results would definitely vary. Still, for a couple of $ at the store, trying it out for a week can't hurt. I tried a few different kinds, I recommend the brand name but not their clear strips, I found these tend to fall off quickly.

Remmie's picture

What is happening!?

I thought they were, what is called, night tremors. But after further research, I have come to discover the phenomenon of hypnogogia. I could not have described, what I found through my research endeavors, more accurately in considering what I experience on a nightly basis. I have become afraid to fall asleep. If there is any input that ANYONE could offer, it would be greatly appreciated...thank you! Can I make it stop? Can I pursue the fear further? What does all of this mean? Please offer insight if able...

Anonymous's picture

I know that it's part of

I know that it's part of sleep paralyze so that means you can't move during the event. I experience it almost every night. But I can snap out of it by raising my head. It's not easy to raise your head during the event but try it out.