Hypnagogic State

[Guest]

It wasn't originally anything i expected to happen, only that i figured it could happen, and it definitely happens regularly now.

[Tewi]

That's quite a pattern. I've always been a very dedicated side sleeper. No one in here has challenged that, except to insist I get a thicker pillow (which solved my back pain). I think I would struggle greatly to fall asleep on my back, but then, falling asleep isn't the goal here is it?

 

How do y'all sleep, Tewi?

 

Exclusively side-sleeping, either side. It's nearly impossible for us to fall asleep on our back. Nearly, because it's happened roughly twice ever, both in the last year or so. Happened because we attempted it in the middle of the night while extremely tired. Normally, though, we'll just sit there tired until we roll over.

 

Both lucid dream and astral projection knowledge of ours from a lot of research says sleeping on your back makes "basically everything" more likely. Sleep paralysis, lucid dreams, astral projection, what-the-heck-ever. Now even those two times we did sleep on our backs we experienced no special hypnagogia - the unique part being that if we could do it more it would allow our REM-Dreamer to work unimpeded as it normally pushes against our pillow and misaligns the sensor - so I'm not remotely convinced it's the sole factor that changes all that, rather basic biological differences. But I will admit back-sleeping is a little more associated with random sleep-related stuff than side-sleeping. IIRC it's also slightly worse for your health and is more likely to cause snoring (which is unhealthy) by far.

[Zia]

To explore the hypnagogic state, I can lay on my back, on my side, or even be sitting.

The more challenging is when I want to explore the "voices" state : for me it takes place just before visuals happen and doesn't last long, so when i was trying (a long time ago) to make it last longer and start a dialogue with the voices, I had to wake myself a little to sink back in it multiple times ; it was tiring and made me dizzy. The voices would answer questions asked in mind voice, but the answers were always very silly and lead me nowhere. Visuals, on the other hand, are very insightful for me, and engaging in a dialogue during that state is quite interesting.

[Guest]

The vocal answers for us are usually spot on in any case.

[Breloomancer]

Back sleeping is pretty much as good as side sleeping, except that side sleeping prevents snoring, and back sleeping prevents acid reflux

[Ember.Vesper]

I tried back sleeping last night. It dramatically extended the length of hypnagogia, but not in a good way. The confused, disordered thoughts went on and on and I was just barely aware enough to be distressed that nothing in the world made any sense. But there was still not even the faintest wisp of anything hallucinatory and it was unpleasant enough that I'm disinclined to try again.

 

Hypnagogia, actually, is the reason Vesper avoids fronting to go to sleep and immediately switches out if she wakes up in control during the night. Unpleasant as I find it, she hates it much more. But then, she prides herself on an orderly and disciplined mind.

 

Left side sleeping is also good versus acid reflux, Bre, which is why I always start the night with it, even though I tend to wake up on my right side.

 

-Ember

[Lucilyn]

yeah, sleeping on your left side apparently has all sorts of benefits.. we end up 50/50 either way though

[GrayTheCat]

I prefer sleeping on my left side which is dumb because the windows are to my left. Sometimes if I'm in pain or my knees hurt, I will shift to my back instead.

[Guest]

So, this morning i had what i'll describe as tetris effect but wothout playing tetris. There was for some unknown reason an extra boost to my visualization with no additional effort. I saw and experienced Misha, Dashie and Ashley completely with finer detail than i usually bother to do, through visualization, no imposition, but the quality was 75% reality for sight and touch, where it's typically 50% or so. Right now it's back to 50% but my eyes were focusing and tracking much better images in wonderland than normal, and my memories of it are, as usual, as if it really happened.  

 

I also noticed that with all my visualization practice that now when i read a book, it's markedly more vivid. I noticed it recently and thought, 'cool, another reason to never read Stephen King.'

 

Last night's hypnagogic was pretty cool, mostly voice, but one or two meh visuals, and it took a little longer to tune in. This must have something to do with diet or stress or who knows what. I'm still figuring it out. I'll let everyone know here as it progresses.

[Tewi]

Why would you call it the tetris effect? Because it was very vivid? The tetris effect describes automatically recurring images of things you've been thinking of/seeing a lot, like tetris pieces. We've gotten it pretty seriously three or four times in the last few years, but I wouldn't necessarily associate it with heightened visualization clarity. Maybe a tiny bit, but more striking was less the clarity and more the autonomy with which it happened - simply closing our eyes was all it took to see matches in Pokemon Shuffle