THE WORLD DREAM BANK: TOPIC: HYPNOGOGIC DREAMS

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Hypnogogic Dreams

Hypnogogic dreams and visions (or hypnagogic, the spelling varies) are the images you get while waking or falling asleep. Their brainwave pattern is distinct from REM, non-REM dreams, and the waking state. They feel different, too: kinetic, rushed as a video full of vivid images but without much continuity, unlike REM-dreams with their emotionally engaging characters and consistent if strange worlds and plots. Surreal is the word for it--in fact, the Surrealists mostly drew hypnogogic images, not REM dreams. Their collages in particular catch the quilty, disjunctive flavor of the state. (Sorry. I can see the chewing gum ads already--"The fresh new taste of Quilty! It's disjunctive!") I prefer REM to the hypnogogic state, because I like stories, characters, creatures--hence the brevity of this list. Strictly my taste, though--many dreamworkers, from the Surrealists onward, find the hypnogogic state fascinating. My friend Mark almost lives there.

This list has shortened. It once contained waking hallucinations, but those now have their own dedicated list.

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	BETTY STOPS BY: by a Kentucky woman before 1961, a farewell visitation dream? I was moved that Betty came to see my two babies despite her illness, but shocked when her father wrote to tell me...
	CREEPINESS: by Scottopic; 2001/11/30. A hypnogogic nightmare. I'm in bed sleepily petting my cat, when I see my cat across the room! What's on my legs? It's big. My cat chases it off... through the wall? My room is sealed. Where did it come from, where did it go?...
	CRYPTOMNESIC TROLLEY: by Wayan; 1991/4/22, a lucid dream of suicide. To prove I really am lucid-dreaming, I let a streetcar run me over. Mm, crunchy! Then I find out... CAUTION: DON'T TRY THIS AT OM...
	DREAM CLARITY, or, the Field of Psychotherapy: by Wayan; 1996/11/27, a dream on dreams While we're making crop-circles in the field of psychotherapy, my hypnotist and I start to argue...
	FALL FROM A STAR: by Edwin Muir; 1920, a hypnogogic shamanic initiation Escaping the tiny red plush room inside a star, I dive back to earth. Oops. A beast eats my broken body. My soul waits...
	F.I.P: by Dr A (c.1947), a Cambridge man (1960?), a London girl (c.1916) and a Midlands mum (July 1958) Examples of inexplicable moods that appear (after the fact) to be reactions to future events...
	HYPNOGOGIC ASSAULT: by Dr Simon Forman; 1559-63, recurring hypnogogic images. From age six on, Simon nightly climbs mountains and faces roaring floods in a sort of naptime bootcamp...
	THE KEY IS HERE, BUT BEWARE; 2012/3/8 by Eleanor; nested nightmares of enlightenment The moment I find the Key, I'm possessed! I wake to find it's just a nightmare. Only someone's broken into my house... CAUTION: DEMONIC POSSESSION & EVERYDAY PSYCHOPATHS
	LONG ROAD TO HEAVEN: by Edwin Muir; 1920, an epic hypnogogic shamanic initiation Creatures in the primal sea touch my third eye, dragons cry their eyes out, I fight the Sphinx, and arrive at last in...
	ORB: by Walter de la Mare; before 1939; a feverdream image I held the strangest and most entrancing object I have ever seen: the very citadel of life itself!...
	PETE: by Norman, a soldier on Guam; 1944, either a ghost or hallucination with a lifesaving warning. Pete warned me not to take the shortcut. Only after I'd turned the truck around did I realize Pete had died weeks ago...
	PRIMAVERA: by Walter de la Mare; 1920s, a dream persisting into day I dreamt the Goddess of Spring paraded by my house. I woke and leapt to my bedroom window, and there she was...
	THE SHOP SPILLED OVER: by AE (George Russell); early 1890s, a telepathic vision I closed my eyes at work and saw an old man and a red-haired girl in a shop. My workmate was writing a letter home, and I asked...

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