Wow, I have this exact same experience before falling asleep. It feels like a direct shift in the thought processes, and as you described it, it feels as though you have become a passive observer of your own thoughts. The images are sometimes so absurd and creative that I almost laugh to myself. But I also, don't KNOW if the images are creative or absurd, but just my brain believing it so -- is there even a difference? If anyone has ever had a "genius" idea while high, written it down, and read it the next day, you know what I mean...
Just as you mentioned, this switch lets me know, I'm gonna be asleep in the next few seconds. I also often listen to audiobooks or ASMR while lying down to sleep, and just as this state kicks in, I know its time to flick out my earbuds just before I lose consciousness. However, sometimes I'm even able to ride this wave right into sleep -- as in, from weird observer state right into the dream world. I was actually thinking about this a few days ago, and did some very quick searching, but couldn't find anything -- I wonder if we are observing the switching of our own brainwaves from alpha to theta?
I'd like to ask other people that experience this: do you also have high rates of sleep paralysis? I get it almost nightly. My dreams are also very vivid, and I remember about 80% of them. Also, if I wake up during a dream, upon falling back asleep, I'm able to "continue" them. Maybe I'll try this Dali method a bit, who knows!
It feels like a direct shift in the thought processes, and as you described it, it feels as though you have become a passive observer of your own thoughts
Because it is, according to my doc. You’re looking directly at your inner thinking machinery, and moreso you can interact with it by simply asking yourself a question just before this state kicks in.
I have a little success story of using it. Previously I’ve had a fear of being late, with a heavy protective behavior, almost OCD-like. Doc wanted me to answer when and how did I get the idea that being late is so terrible. I tried hard to recall, but only simple reinforcement events came up to mind. Then he said that I should either fall asleep in that session (failed it), or repeat the question before I go to sleep at home. Just in few seconds my subconscious presented me the correct event from my childhood in full detail. One session later I was free of that fear, and now can easily plan 4-5 meetings in a row in different parts of the city, an unimaginable thing for me before.
Lucid dreamer here. I often feel the "switch" the same way you do, and I ride through it as the images transistion into the "dream world". Through this I can directly enter into a lucid dream if I choose to keep my conscious mind slightly active, else it becomes a passive dream (though sometimes I do discover that I'm dreaming and it then becomes lucid once more). I have to be cautious here though, as if I start thinking too hard I snap out of it and return to consciousness.
During this time sleep paralysis is almost always in effect. Basically I can listen and think, but there is a gate on my muscles - small motions like twitching my fingers won't work, strong motions cut through (and immediately stops the paralysis). To me it generally happens when my mind is about to switch off and I am on the verge of falling asleep.
I have this also. So many things to say I don't know where to begin. I feel like there is a distinct difference between the experiences of seeing the images when you are falling asleep vs seeing the images when you have recently come out of sleep. And then there is a third state where you have recently come out of sleep but you aren't done sleeping yet so you are also falling back to sleep. This last one often allows me to start having a lucid dream.
1) Weird things like this happen to me most often in the early morning hours when I'm still drowsy but I've woken up for a few minutes.
2) It is sometimes accompanied by a "whooshing" sensation that used to frighten me and usually caused me to "back out" into normal consciousness. Eventually I learned how to relax and let it unfold without panicking. Quite often I have the sensation of rolling out of my body, off the bed and onto the floor.
3) I am paralyzed when it happens, in the sense that if I move my hand, the hand that moves is a dream hand. My real hand of course doesn't move. It doesn't feel like paralysis because I can "move" in my dream. But I am consciously aware that my real body is lying still in bed.
4) I have to be very careful not to wake myself especially at the beginning (edit: and being careful is paradoxical because if I am too careful then that will wake me too, sort of like the paradox of needing to be both loose and tight in sports). I am also aware that if my wife coughs or makes some kind of noise, I might wake up. I have discovered an odd remedy for this however: if I make "dream noise" - for instance, if I shuffle my feet loudly in the dream - I am less likely to be woken by real noise from the real world.
> Also, if I wake up during a dream, upon falling back asleep, I'm able to "continue" them.
I have this too, i asked around and people just found it weird.
Most also don't remember their dream, but i can remember the last one for about 10 minutes before it fogs away.
If i want to continue it. I need to remember the last thing that happened and the first moments i can control what's going to happen until something else takes over. It's the only reason I would go back to sleep again, if the dream was really "nice".
I also think I can control a dream and I mostly realize that I'm dreaming. Then I think about: "hey, this is really weird what's happening here, I'll wake up now. Since this is just a dream. It can't be real."
There's also one time I totally didn't realize it at all. And something embarrassing happened. But I drank alcohol the night before and it must have been related to that.
Sometimes people say they can have conversations with me, while I definitely was sleeping. You could ask any question than and I'd answer ( even the kind that you shouldn't ask)
I, too, rarely have (or remember) dreams – once per month, maybe. But lack of dreams is not a problem for me. What I find annoying (and I'm really curious if you have similar experience) that I don't have feeling of passed time.
My sleep is like blink of an eye. It's night, I close my eyes, then I open them, and there is morning already. I's always the same, no matter how long I have slept, whether I am well rested or tired.
Since the time feels so compressed during my sleep, I can't help but feel that sleep is, kinda, a waste of time.
Usually I have 2-3 coffees per week. I drink a lot of various types of tea daily, though.
Hmm.. I don't really have this problem. When I wake up, I definitely feel like time has passed, but I wonder if it's for different reasons than you're expecting.
For me, I usually will wake up once in the night, and fall back to sleep quickly. This adds to a sense of time. Also, waking up in the morning it's distinctly more cold, I feel distinctly more groggy, etc. I definitely get a sense that time has passed...
But if you're asking if I am ever aware that I'm sleeping and conscious of the minutes passing by? No, never. I fall asleep, time passes, I wake up (but, unlike you, I do feel like time passed...)
You dont even have slight hallucinations while falling to sleep, just like in the linked article? My first sign is I usually start hearing voices which I almost always know are not real.
I think I had them when I was kid, but not anymore.
And just to be clear, I didn't mean that I fall asleep as soon I close my eyes. It's just that there is no "transition" between being conscious and sleeping. And then, suddenly, I'm awake.
I have that idea that my mind suppresses the memories of dreaming and falling asleep, because when I was a kid I had two recurring nightmares that I dreamed of almost every night. Still, never did proper research on this topic.
So if you try to stay awake like Dali you will only skip time intervals without seeing anything? That's interesting. If I am too sleepy but still awake I even start hearing sounds and start seeing vivid images in my head with open eyes.
I'm with you, I fall asleep to blackness and it's instantly morning. When my kids were babies and we were getting up a lot in the night to feed and change diapers I actually had an uptick in awareness of my dreams, but otherwise it is extremely rare for me to be conscious of anything during the night.
I’ve helped a half dozen people with this. One trick is to just keep a notepad by your bed and first, first, first thing try to write down what you remember from your dreams.
My suspicion is eventually the brain says “oh you care about this? Okay cool I’ll hold on to them for longer.”
I consume lotsa caffeine and still have weird, vivid dreams that I remember in the morning. I'd say in my case the caffeine doesn't inhibit any dream capability. I also have small fragments of lucid dreaming, but usually wake up quickly then (because of the excitement mostly).
Ditto on "lotsa". To the point caffeine no longer amps me up but rather just keeps the migraines at bay. Pondering my addiction many years in the past, I decided to try an experiment where I drank a few sips of coffee before going to sleep. It did, and still does, increase my lucidity & retention during/after sleep cycles. I have vivid dreams with self awareness pretty much most nights, and a experience a surprisingly large amount of content during power naps(15-45 minutes). This is still a drop in the bucket compared to my dreams when I was a teen & 20-something, however. I haven't been able to 'fly away' or soar like I did when younger, nowadays I merely wake-up when things start down a dark path(*Covid induced nightmares, were a rare exception; the 1st night terrors I've had in decades).
I don't drink caffeine and I rarely dream, just to chime in. When I dream it's almost always because something is disturbing my sleep. An upset stomach is the most common cause of dreams to me.
Or quitting cannabis, in which case I have vivid and wild dreams for a couple weeks and then back to normal.
I’m the same way. I pretty much never have dreams unless I take some supplement like melatonin or valerian and even then it’s hit or miss. While I’m awake I also can’t picture things clearly(without any meaningful details) in my mind. Maybe that’s related.
What I can definitely remember is that before I started being conscious about this transition I started waking up with "mental" shock, like the absolute last part part of sleep were cut of prematurely and you are shunted straight into consciousness, it wasn't physical shock, I might have twitched a bit but it's kind of hard to be sure about it.
Then these shocks also started happening before sleep, before entering or inside this N1 state, basically I would "hard on" consciously notice I am drifting which kind of catapulted me back into full consciousness. Though, it wasn't hard to start slipping back into sleep unless nervous for next day stuff.
I am not a lucid dreamer, I think I experienced that once but it was very ...murky, like a typical dream afterwards. Same for sleep paralysis, happened few times but it's rare and as far as I remember, it wasn't fear inducing.
Also, needs to be noted that my "sleep organization" is pretty fucked up and I often end up sleeping less hours then I would normally need, for days, refilling the deficit thru weekends.
Yes, often toward the end of this near-dreaming state, just before entering deeper sleep. I experience a sensation like entering a free fall and lose the ability to move. It takes quite a lot of energy to climb back out of it and regain the ability to move.
A similar experience occurs with me almost always when jet lagged. After fighting off sleep for much of the day when I finally fall asleep during the later part of the day, it starts off exactly like described - a really dreamy state. Then after I have slept a couple of hours, I enter a state where I am sleeping and also awake at the same time and wanting to wake up but in a state of sleep paralysis where it is a herculean effort to try and shake off sleep and wake up. More often than not, even though I know I am in this state, still a panic sets in me that I am not able to shake off sleep and I wake up after quite some effort. And yes, I have had dreams where I have been able to solve some problems at work even without thinking about them during the day. Its totally fascinating!
How would you describe your sleep hygiene? Do you sleep the same amount every night? Do you fall asleep at the same time? How much sleep do you get? Are you generally very tired when you lay down to sleep?
Just curious as someone who has never had any of these N1 experiences, what might I be missing...
I used to have fairly poor sleep hygiene but am now pretty good about it. I have had this experience in both states. I had night terrors as a child which eventually gave way to curiosity, and I practiced staying self aware while falling asleep. A common trick you can use is to learn to recognize the signs that you are sleeping, for example by checking your phone. Digital screens will have garbled symbols in a dream. You also might notice altered laws of physics, or suddenly remember that you already went to bed and the dream can't be real. After the first few times, your brain learns how to do it and it happens more and more without effort. Then you can stay self aware while falling asleep, and can start to explore the transition states that you otherwise couldn't see.
> The images are sometimes so absurd and creative that I almost laugh to myself.
For me the images and thoughts are absurd but in a terrifying way. I usually wake up when this happens. I analyze the thoughts and images after waking up and they make absolutely no sense, yet in my sleep they make me very very afraid/upset, disturbing enough to make me get up terrified. I have anxiety disorder, and that's most certainly causing me to feel this way.
I also get voices speaking random gibberish that gets progressively louder which forces me to get up from my sleep. After getting up I'm usually like 'wtf was that' and go back to sleep.
Just as you mentioned, this switch lets me know, I'm gonna be asleep in the next few seconds. I also often listen to audiobooks or ASMR while lying down to sleep, and just as this state kicks in, I know its time to flick out my earbuds just before I lose consciousness. However, sometimes I'm even able to ride this wave right into sleep -- as in, from weird observer state right into the dream world. I was actually thinking about this a few days ago, and did some very quick searching, but couldn't find anything -- I wonder if we are observing the switching of our own brainwaves from alpha to theta?
I'd like to ask other people that experience this: do you also have high rates of sleep paralysis? I get it almost nightly. My dreams are also very vivid, and I remember about 80% of them. Also, if I wake up during a dream, upon falling back asleep, I'm able to "continue" them. Maybe I'll try this Dali method a bit, who knows!