There’s a doorway into lucid dreaming we can enter every night.
The doorway opens when we’re lying in bed, eyes closed, deeply relaxed, just drifting slightly. This is the moment when, if we remain mentally alert, we might notice dots of light like distant stars, or wriggly, unfathomable shapes which disappear the moment we pay attention to them. We may hear noises or have a sensation of movement. If we manage to keep the balance right (not too awake, not too asleep), we will start to see bizarre, static images flash on and off the screen of our mind’s eye. These images may start to move – just slightly at first, and then more as they become moving films.
We need to stay aware! At this point it’s all too easy to get sucked into the hypnagogic images and fall asleep. If we can retain conscious awareness, these mind-films will take a leap into three-dimensionality. We’ll suddenly find ourselves no longer observing them from a distance, but surrounded by them on all sides, as if we just jumped into a cinema screen.
This is the beginning of dreaming.
Anyone who has managed to hold their attention this far has entered a lucid dream from the waking state (often known as a WILD or Wake-Induced Lucid Dream).
Typical Hypnagogic Images, Sounds and Sensations
“A sea monster rising from a lake”
“Drum beats, echoing all around”
“Shoe-trees, a whole forest of them”
“Faces in the sky”
“Falling
towards
a red-brick wall”
Notice and record your hypnagogic imagery. What is it like? All sorts of creative ideas can be found in this half-awake, half-asleep state. Ideas for poems, pictures, fictional characters, music. The more you notice your own pre-sleep imagery, the more likely you are to be able to carry lucid awareness right through the dream-building process and have a WILD.
Although I feel largely indifferent to the inner workings of machines, my hypnagogic imagery often features the most complex machinery I’ve ever seen and which I don’t have the technical vocabulary to describe. Cogs, pistons, and other unnameable mechanical parts are all assembled by some technological wizard (my dreaming mind?) into intricate movements. Whenever I see one of these monstrous machines, I know I’m about to have a WILD.
Hypnagogic imagery is known for its weird, random nature. With practice, the bizarreness of pre-sleep images will trigger lucidity as we realise: “Hey, wait, skunks don’t fly. I’m starting to dream!”
Returning through the Doorway
There’s another easy entry point into lucid dreaming. Every night, each of us have brief awakenings, whether we notice them or not. If you want to learn to lucid dream, you need to start noticing these awakenings.
As we wake up from a dream in the middle of the night, we can sometimes still see the dream hanging in the air, superimposed onto our bedroom, or present as vivid imagery in our mind’s eye. This is called hypnopompia and it happens when we return through the doorway from dreaming to waking.
If you notice hypnopompic imagery, you can stay with the dream that’s just finishing (dream re-entry) or go into a new lucid dream (WILD). Remind yourself: ‘I’ve been dreaming and now I will dream again, this time lucidly.’ Or think of something shorter if that works better for you: Simply repeating ‘I’m lucid, I’m lucid,’ works well for me.
Playing with Hypnagogia to Get Lucid
- Practise observing your hypnagogic images: the Surrealists had fun with this. Try dozing in an armchair with a pen and paper to hand, and write down the imagery as it arises.
- Get to know your own style of weirdness: are there any recurring themes in your hypnagogic imagery? At first it may all seem too random to tell, but as you pay attention you’ll gradually notice that you tend to see flying animals, or wide-open landscapes, or fire. You may hear camera shutters or explosions. You may tend to experience falling sensations. Once you’ve identified your own hypnagogic tendencies, these can then be used as triggers to help you to stay lucid as you fall asleep.
- Landing in the void: Sometimes focusing on pre-sleep images until you enter a WILD does not lead into an imagery-rich lucid dream, but into the blackness of the void, or into sleep paralysis. From here you can enter a lucid dream by freeing yourself from fear and relaxing, before imagining a vivid scene that you’d like to enter. Practical tips in this video chat I did with Dr Rory MacSweeney: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSsQc3R6ikE
- Dream re-entry: Whenever you wake up in the night, immediately recall your intention to have a lucid dream. Look for hypnopompic imagery or just remember the last dream you had. Then focus intently on those images until they sweep you back up into the dream again; this time, stay lucid.
Great article! I have these hypnagogic images since my childhood, but when I start to be surrounded by these tridimensional, fractal-like moving images I feel a terrible terror like that immersive experience is driving me nuts and wake up immediately. It would be a nice experience, but instead it is frightening to me. What’s your opinion about this? How can I do to remove this fear?
Hi Nadia,
In lucid states, our emotions are reflected in dream imagery/hypnagogic imagery. If you are frightened, the imagery will get more frightening. But if you feel safe within yourself, the imagery will tend to reflect your inner calmness.
I’d suggest working with calming breathing techniques during the day to help you to feel safe and relaxed. If you combine these with an affirmation like “I am safe”, and perhaps visualise yourself surrounded by protective light, then you are building a valuable skill to help you to feel safe and relaxed in the hypnagogic state.
Remember, you will wake up safely from your experiences, so there is no need to feel fearful. Instead, try to cultivate an alert sense of curiosity and relax.
There are so many ways of working in positive and healing ways with inner imagery. My book Dream Therapy: Dream your way to health and happiness, has lots of practical dreamwork techniques that can be used to transform any internal imagery. And my big book that just came out this week, Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Lucid Dreaming, has chapters on hypnagogia, nightmare solutions, and practical exercises for facing scary imagery.
Another thing you can try is to transform the negative hypnagogia by sending it love and light. This can work absolute wonders in sleep/dream states.
Good luck and I’m sure you’ll soon have happier hypnagogic experiences!
Clare
Hi Pegasus, I have seen this ‘static’ or ‘snow’ you mention. Now I’m not sure if it is a random hallucination or actually a side effect of my mental state at the time.
A little background info: I’ve been sectioned on 3 occasions after loosing touch with reality briefly, hearing voices and other psychotic type symptoms. I took a large dose of LSD in my early 20s and things got very strange and scary AFTER my trip ended (the trip was actually rather pleasant). It was drug induced psychosis and I have to take antipsychotic medication to prevent relapses into what I can only describe as temporary madness.
While I am coming out of this state (over the course of weeks or months) I see either black and white dot type fuzziness or shining type distortion. Usually by that time my paranoia has left and I am rather ‘with it’. I’ve described it to doctors and therapists and they said it was most likely the lingering effects of the psychosis.
I believe that because my brain is firing at such a rapid rate and my mind is still not quite right that it has some sort of connection.
I hope that helps with your survey. (Lol) ✌️
Hello, I know this is a survey style question/post but I reassure you that I am an actual person just searching for answers.
1. I was wondering if anyone’s hypnopompic imagery look like tv static fuzz when you wake up your eyes closed and/or with your eyes open in a somewhat lighted room and it looks like this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Red-blue-noise.gif
2. If so, Is it persistent or lasting throughout your day or life such as walking into a dark room or looking into the dark and still seeing the static described here or shown in the .gif or in other words,do you have visual snow?
Here is a link to visual snow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_snow
Visual snow is basically seeing the static everywhere you go and on everything you look at.
3. If you don’t have visual snow but the tv static fuzz when you wake up your eyes closed and/or open, how many years have you been able to see the static fuzz when waking up.
4. Have you taken drugs or any medication
Many thanks, everyone.
When I was about to begin dreaming last second before I got swept into dreaming I had screamed in my mind that I was dreaming and then an old movie count down started started and once it counted down to zero a computer appeared before me . I cant be exactly sure I was experiencing Hypnagogic imagery because it was only thirty minutes into my sleep.
I think I experienced this, as I was normally dreaming, in my dream I had turned around and as I turned around its like a tv show from the old time opened and I just see pictures of me throughout my years go by fast, like a fast flipagram, but as this was going on I see comments saying “Where is sister xx” I know it sounds weird, but I got frightened so I woke myself up but as I wake myself up I hear static like electricity.