Who else experiences this?

[LeftyFingerPop]

I think this happens to most people, yet it is rarely spoken about for some reason.

You lay down to go to sleep, your eyes are closed, you are relaxed, but not even to that "halfway" asleep state yet.

Do you ever literally see random detailed images appear against the blackness of your closed eyes?

They are colorful, entirely random, and beautifully detailed.

Does anyone know what the hell I mean LOL.

And no, I am not a drug user :evilgrin:

[Connonym]

1. and if you keep watching

it's like a kaleidoscope and the images swirl into something else? That happens to me.

[LeftyFingerPop]

3. yes, but the images are of common things, like human faces

that you may not recognize, a fire alarm box on a telephone pole that you can literally see the rust spots on, etc.

[MsKandice01]

2. Happens to me occasionally...

It just started within the last couple years actually.

[LeftyFingerPop]

4. Has happened to me almost every night since....

I was a kid. I love it, I try to will the images to happen.

[AlienGirl]

15. Phosphemes!!

Those are pretty cool. If you practice you can "make" stuff with them as a beginning to lucid dreaming...

Tucker

[KitchenWitch]

5. I get that - and I am not a drug user either

although back in the day...

[LeftyFingerPop]

6. Do you like them? n/t

[KitchenWitch]

7. Yes, I think they are cool!

[Nikia]

8. That happened to me when I was a child

Now I choose not to see them because they are distracting to me in trying to get to sleep.

[LeftyFingerPop]

9. Can you make them go away? n/t

[Nikia]

19. I can

I ignore them by concentrating on my thoughts rather than on the closed eye visuals.

[wildhorses]

10. yes

also a white light appears sometimes in the shape of buddha.

[LeftyFingerPop]

11. Does that happen randomly, or do you will it to appear? n/t

[wildhorses]

12. both.

since a young child. i can control more as i have aged. like the above poster i have willed a lot of it to go away. sometimes, i go with the flow -- depends:shrug:

[idgiehkt]

13. yes

I spent loads of time hanging out behind my eyelids when I was a child, I loved it. I made myself see weird things with my eyes open too.

[Lars39]

14. I went digging for info....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-eye_hallucination

Kinda interesting. :)

[LeftyFingerPop]

16. Thanks Lars...will look at it right now. n/t

[LeftyFingerPop]

18. Sheds some light on it indeed...

I seem to be in Level 4 quite a bit, have never been level 5 as it is written.

Thanks for the link.

[darkstar]

17. FWIW, I get them too

and I've noticed that they are really enhanced on those occasions I take an Ambien. Or half of one, as that does the trick.

My theory is that Ambien kind of forces you into a hypnagogic state, that zone between waking and sleep, and that it make you more aware--while being very close to dream state--than is otherwise possible.

It's all a dream we dreamed one afternoon long ago anyhow....

[AlienGirl]

20. Ambien is a mild hallucinogen

If you've ever taken Ambien and *still* been unable to fall asleep and instead you sat up reading DU, you might have noticed everything around you going kinda soft and squishy-like, and maybe curving on the sides like a tunnel, and you might have noticed a tremendously comforting sense-of-presence hallucination that felt like a trusted grown-up reading you a bedtime story.

I can't wait till I can afford prescriptions again. Till then, I'm stuck with valerian and diphenhydramine, and neither works all that well.

Tucker

[LeftyFingerPop]

21. here;s what blows me away....

the DETAIL.

For example, I may see a homeless man's face, his 4 day beard, a cracker crumb in his beard, the shape of the cracker crumb, and the color shades of the crumb. Then after 3 seconds or so, that image will disappear, and another different one may appear, or not.

I have spoken to my wife about this at length, and while she does experience this phenomenon, she does not see the detail that I do.

Nice to see you darkstar. :hi:

[astral]

22. No, I just fall asleep

But when I was a kid I did see, like kinda like stars or galaxies when I looked through my closed eyes. I also tried to lay face down with my eyes closed blocked from the light and concentrated on 'walking' down these pitch-black stairs to the white light which was a 'kitchen' at the bottom of the stairs. Then everything would turn white before my eyes and I would look at the light til it disappeared. Sometimes I could do it, sometimes I couldn't, and it would take awhile. I believe I lost this ability after I was past age four.

I don't recall why I started doing it or what it meant or anything about it. I think I first discovered it on accident.