Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Apollo on December 21, 2012, 02:32:10 pm
-
OK, so on Wednesday I was taking a Spanish exam. Me and everyone else in the class finished in about forty-five minutes, and we were left with over an hour until the next class. I wasn't tired, but since it was the quickest way to pass time I decided to go to sleep.
I was partially awake for a long time, and I'm not sure if I ever fully went to sleep. After a while, I was dreaming while still having a faint hold on consciousness. I clearly saw other places and felt (to a limited extent) physical sensations like I would in a regular dream--although this one was extremely disorganized, possibly more than most (I don't remember most of my dreams, so I'm not sure). At one point I physically felt myself typing on a keyboard (though in a faint, imaginative way) while being aware that it wasn't real and dimly recognizing that I was still in Spanish class. I also saw various other things (at one point I was staring at a country road, for example). And all throughout this period I was aware I was dreaming (time also seemed to pass much faster), although I had some difficulty remembering this at times. At one point I woke up briefly, and by the end of the class I felt like I'd just had a very poor night's sleep (that feeling passed fairly quickly, which is fortunate because I soon had another exam).
I'm not sure if it's technically accurate to say I was dreaming, as I was still in between sleep and consciousness when it happened. Still, this experience interested me. I also wonder if extended periods of half-sleep could be restful, considering that it has some of the same effects.
-
In the long run you need REM for sleep to count.
-
In that case what would happen if I was half-asleep for eight hours (just hypothetically, I know that's almost impossible).
-
I don't know! I do know that 'microsleep' and weird alternative sleep schedules involving numerous very brief naps can work out.
-
Uberman sleep schedule! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep)
-
Interesting. I wonder how you'd prevent yourself from sleeping longer than intended, considering that alarm clocks have little effect on some people.
-
Extreme amounts of self control and self discipline
-
Or you just wouldn't if you were one of those people not affected by alarm clocks.
-
I think I've had more than a couple of experiences like you described, about 2 years ago. It was a Polish language lesson, with a boring teacher, at 7:00 (essentially requiring me to get up at 4:30, I live far away from the school) and I'm not a morning person. Not to mention I was much more active in various FS projects back then, so I often stayed up late to catch people from different time zones on IRC. When I usually didn't remember a thing from those (in most cases I took notes somehow, but if I didn't, it was awkward asking my classmates for the info I should have), few times I was more awake than usual (the usual being, IIRC, passing out into black for a short time, not long enough to get dreams) I remember it being pretty much like you described. It was like the real life was running fullscreen in the background, with something else (in most cases more interesting) running windowed on top of it. Sometimes it was difficult to tell the dream from reality.
It's a bit of a fuzzy memory, because by the end the 1st year at high school I felt like I'd end up hospitalized if this continued for much longer (well, that, and there was this time I almost walked in front of a car when crossing the street on my way to school. I started skipping that blasted lesson after that), so my parents made arrangements so I won't have to get up this early anymore. I don't know about the others (it's different for every person, some of my classmates didn't had problems getting up that early), but this kind of "sleep" hardly provided me any rest, or at least not enough of it to make me feel comfortable for the rest of the day.
-
@Apollo
Yes, you were in a dream/REM state, and to anyone watching you'd appear to be in a daze or just 'not there'. Sounds like you may have been making up for lost sleep from the preceding night(s), as that makes it easy to pass into REM very quickly; almost the instant you put your head down and close your eyes.
Reminds me of similar thing that happened to me during a summer calculus course, where I had fallen behind on my sleep for a week and so at the end of it I found myself passing out repeatedly with my head up, even though I had gotten almost a full 8 hours the night before. I'd close my eyes and instantly go into a dream were I was sitting there paying attention as normal. Then I'd open my eyes and everything would be exactly the same -- dream and reality were totally indistinguishable. Quite surreal.
-
@Apollo
Yes, you were in a dream/REM state, and to anyone watching you'd appear to be in a daze or just 'not there'. Sounds like you may have been making up for lost sleep from the preceding night(s), as that makes it easy to pass into REM very quickly; almost the instant you put your head down and close your eyes.
Reminds me of similar thing that happened to me during a summer calculus course, where I had fallen behind on my sleep for a week and so at the end of it I found myself passing out repeatedly with my head up, even though I had gotten almost a full 8 hours the night before. I'd close my eyes and instantly go into a dream were I was sitting there paying attention as normal. Then I'd open my eyes and everything would be exactly the same -- dream and reality were totally indistinguishable. Quite surreal.
My experience was a little different than that. It took me a couple of minutes to enter that state, and while I was dreaming I still retained a very limited ability to perceive the real world.
-
this kind of thing happens to me on a regular basis. usually in situations where i'm trying to fall asleep or fighting to stay awake not entirely succeeding at either. most commonly while studying intensely boring material while already tired for the latter, and the 30 minute snooze after a first alarm or going back to sleep after having woken up early on a weekend for the former.
these occurrences are not restful at all for me, since the resulting dream-esqe state is horrifyingly convoluted and even more nonsensical than normal, and the awake part of me knows this and is actively fighting it. it's REALLY disconcerting when the piping systems of a reactor start drawing themselves out in your head like that old screen saver. and then one of the teenage mutant ninja turtles wanders into the scene and starts talking to you. and then you start to mentally correct the errors in the pipe maze in your head. no, that's a diverting valve there, not a t-junction. o.0
however, the best restful period i've ever had was after an about 36 hour day, where i just collapsed on my bed and stared at the ceiling for about 3 hours completely awake, not moving a muscle. i think dinner is what made me get up, and when i did i felt like i had slept for a week and felt awesome. if i had an exam to take or a soccer game to play i would have owned that ****. i think i probably blacked out and got my real sleep in later that night, but i don't remember.
-
What you experienced is called lucid dreaming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_Dreaming). You can get yourself to do it regularly with practice. First time I managed to do it I flew a Jeep around a coal tipple near a lake. I managed to realize I was dreaming when I moved both hands in opposite directions on the steering wheel, and the wheel "turned" both ways. The sleep you get while lucid dreaming doesn't count for much though.
-
I disagree; some of my most restful sleeps included long lucid dreams. It's the bad sleep scheduling that's the problem.
-
I disagree; some of my most restful sleeps included long lucid dreams. It's the bad sleep scheduling that's the problem.
Well I tend to feel less rested when I experience it. The people I've talked to that do it lots say it makes sleep less restful, but it is highly dependent on the person I would guess.
-
lucid dreaming and semi-consciousness aren't really the same thing.
-
Exactly. I had a few experiences with lucid dreaming. While I never bothered training myself to do that all the time though, I think I could do that with a bit of practice. One thing's for sure, it was restful, though hard to wake up from. Semi-consciousness happened to me on a regular basis (I described the usual situation when I've gotten this) and the only thing I got from this was just enough rest to somehow make it to the end of the school, travel back and fall asleep the moment I got home.
-
It seems no one here knows a lot about sleep. I wonder why.
Apollo, what you experienced is hypnagogia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia). Everyone experiences hypnagogia during the onset of sleep, though in bed, with its lack of sensory input, it's less likely to include interesting "effects" like you describe than when active during the day.
-
*reads page*
So I was actually hallucinating while at the edge of sleep.
I've often had minor tactile hallucinations like feeling my skin crawl, but not this horribly disorganized mess--maybe my very thin hold on consciousness explains that?
-
*reads page*
So I was actually hallucinating while at the edge of sleep.
I've often had minor tactile hallucinations like feeling my skin crawl, but not this horribly disorganized mess--maybe my very thin hold on consciousness explains that?
Yes. Hypnagogia is generally the borderline between conscious and unconscious, where sensory input is still accepted and processed, even when only simulated by the brain waves associated with sleep. Your senses start out as nervous signals, which are then passed on to specialized centers of the brain to be turned into patterns that your frontal lobe (and other parts of the brain) can process. During the onset of sleep, those specialized centers can still accept input from your nerves and generate semi-random patterns themselves. Your Spanish class probably provided enough input for your conscious mind to remain active, your frontal lobe continuing to process both genuine sensory input and the semi-random patterns together. When your frontal lobe tries to make sense of mixed up data like that, the result is usually confusing hallucinations.
Okay, I'm making this **** up, but to someone who has a vague, but accurate, impression of how the brain works, it makes sense, doesn't it?
-
I've never experienced lucid dreaming as far as I know, but I do tend to have really trippy normal dreams on a regular basis, which seem to have been exacerbated by the medication I'm on now. The really weird thing with me and sleep, besides the fact I practically stay up the whole night and randomly pass out in the afternoon/early evening, is the fact that I can never remember the exact moment when I'm actually falling asleep. I usually wind up rolling around in my bed for at least 20 minutes, and at some undefined point, I guess I finally conk out.
-
One thing that really freaks me out sometimes are microsleep (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsleep) episodes.
-
Yeah, they're creepy. You're listening to somebody talking and suddenly realize that you didn't hear the last sentence (or several, it's hard to tell). This usually happens to me at the end of the school day when I'm tired and somewhat sleepy. If the classroom is warm and humid, it's practically guaranteed to happen. It's particularily annoying when I'm taking notes and I notice that my hand slipped, drawing an ugly scrawl halfway down the sentence.
-
Yeah, they're creepy. You're listening to somebody talking and suddenly realize that you didn't hear the last sentence (or several, it's hard to tell). This usually happens to me at the end of the school day when I'm tired and somewhat sleepy. If the classroom is warm and humid, it's practically guaranteed to happen. It's particularily annoying when I'm taking notes and I notice that my hand slipped, drawing an ugly scrawl halfway down the sentence.
... followed by your teacher yelling: Good Morning Dragon! :)
-
For those interested in lucid dreaming, this freely-available book (http://users.telenet.be/sterf/texts/other/exploring_the_world_of_lucid_dreaming.pdf) is a fantastic read and had some strategies for how to start having them. Basically it's just a skill like any other; start with learning to remember your dreams (keep a dream journal), then practice some 'reality checks' to see if you're dreaming or not. Yeah, that sounds dumb, but if you never ask if you're dreaming when you're awake, it's not very likely that you'll do it when you're asleep, either.
My reality-check of choice is to pinch my nose closed while simultaneously trying to breathe through it. If you can still breathe, you're dreaming. (And it feels freaking freaky, too).
Nowadays I generally use the WILD technique (http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/wake-induced-lucid-dreams.html) to initiate lucid dreams -- it is very fast and effective once you get the hang of it, and as a bonus you get to experience (and remember) the hypnagogic state / dream transition in its full glory.
-
Nowadays I generally use the WILD technique (http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/wake-induced-lucid-dreams.html) to initiate lucid dreams -- it is very fast and effective once you get the hang of it, and as a bonus you get to experience (and remember) the hypnagogic state / dream transition in its full glory.
Doesn't that carry a small risk of sleep paralysis?
-
... followed by your teacher yelling: Good Morning Dragon! :)
You bet. Usually followed by "You really have to do something about your sleep". They're actually genuinely worried about my health when it keeps happening on almost daily basis. It's really frustrating when the lesson is actually interesting, but I just can't keep my eyes open.
The WILD technique seems interesting, but I'll have to stabilize my sleep cycle first. Right now, without any external modifiers, I fall asleep around 4:00 and wake up around 14:00. When I do have alarm set, it's so inconsistent that I sometimes don't even notice when I fall asleep in the middle of the day. Needless to say, this causes a lot of problems.
-
Yeah, they're creepy. You're listening to somebody talking and suddenly realize that you didn't hear the last sentence (or several, it's hard to tell). This usually happens to me at the end of the school day when I'm tired and somewhat sleepy. If the classroom is warm and humid, it's practically guaranteed to happen. It's particularily annoying when I'm taking notes and I notice that my hand slipped, drawing an ugly scrawl halfway down the sentence.
Oh maaan, this used to happen to me all the time in college. It'd royally piss me off when I had to write the same word four different times, because I kept drifting off in the middle of it. :lol:
-
Nowadays I generally use the WILD technique (http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/wake-induced-lucid-dreams.html) to initiate lucid dreams -- it is very fast and effective once you get the hang of it, and as a bonus you get to experience (and remember) the hypnagogic state / dream transition in its full glory.
Doesn't that carry a small risk of sleep paralysis?
It's a risk only if you find sleep paralysis frightening, and I'll admit it can certainly be very freaky. However, it is not dangerous, and you go through it every time you sleep as a protective mechanism to prevent injury from whatever movements you're doing in the dreamstate. Generally you're unaware of it taking hold (or is it that you just don't remember it?), but with WILD you have a good chance of being conscious during the process.
Basically if you ever wake up and can't move, it's a good bet that either you're not actually awake (sleep paralysis just kicked in too early and you were still conscious), or you woke up before it shut off. In either case, it's only temporary. :)
-
Basically if you ever wake up and can't move, it's a good bet that either you're not actually awake (sleep paralysis just kicked in too early and you were still conscious), or you woke up before it shut off. In either case, it's only temporary. :)
Just make sure the shadow people don't eat you and you will be fine.... ;) LOL.
(A number of "alien visitation" and "haunted house" stories have been connected with people waking up in sleep paralysis and dreaming/halucinating that someone else is in the room while they can not move hehe.)
-
I wish I could be visited by alien ghosts. In my hypnagogia / sleep-paralysis I usually just get electrocuted and torn apart at the atomic level. Which is still fun, don't get me wrong! I promise! :V
-
Nowadays I generally use the WILD technique (http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/wake-induced-lucid-dreams.html) to initiate lucid dreams -- it is very fast and effective once you get the hang of it, and as a bonus you get to experience (and remember) the hypnagogic state / dream transition in its full glory.
Doesn't that carry a small risk of sleep paralysis?
It's a risk only if you find sleep paralysis frightening, and I'll admit it can certainly be very freaky. However, it is not dangerous, and you go through it every time you sleep as a protective mechanism to prevent injury from whatever movements you're doing in the dreamstate. Generally you're unaware of it taking hold (or is it that you just don't remember it?), but with WILD you have a good chance of being conscious during the process.
Basically if you ever wake up and can't move, it's a good bet that either you're not actually awake (sleep paralysis just kicked in too early and you were still conscious), or you woke up before it shut off. In either case, it's only temporary. :)
I know sleep paralysis isn't harmful, but from what I've read it sounds highly disturbing and if Wikipedia is to be believed it can be extremely painful.
-
I know sleep paralysis isn't harmful, but from what I've read it sounds highly disturbing and if Wikipedia is to be believed it can be extremely painful.
Propably less disturbing than lucid dreaming a fullblown nightmare without realizing you are dreaming heh.
-
Nowadays I generally use the WILD technique (http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/wake-induced-lucid-dreams.html) to initiate lucid dreams -- it is very fast and effective once you get the hang of it, and as a bonus you get to experience (and remember) the hypnagogic state / dream transition in its full glory.
Doesn't that carry a small risk of sleep paralysis?
It's a risk only if you find sleep paralysis frightening, and I'll admit it can certainly be very freaky. However, it is not dangerous, and you go through it every time you sleep as a protective mechanism to prevent injury from whatever movements you're doing in the dreamstate. Generally you're unaware of it taking hold (or is it that you just don't remember it?), but with WILD you have a good chance of being conscious during the process.
Basically if you ever wake up and can't move, it's a good bet that either you're not actually awake (sleep paralysis just kicked in too early and you were still conscious), or you woke up before it shut off. In either case, it's only temporary. :)
I know sleep paralysis isn't harmful, but from what I've read it sounds highly disturbing and if Wikipedia is to be believed it can be extremely painful.
:lol: The descriptions certainly sound like they'd be extremely painful (exploding head syndrome, oh god!), but it doesn't actually hurt. It just feels very strange is all.
-
:lol: The descriptions certainly sound like they'd be extremely painful (exploding head syndrome, oh god!), but it doesn't actually hurt. It just feels very strange is all.
Well, that makes it seem a lot more bearable. Still sounds really unpleasant, though.
EDIT: That reminds me, I heard that if you had a nightmare prior to sleep paralysis the monsters from your nightmare can appear as hallucinations. Anybody had that happen?
-
cool story bro(s)!
-
EDIT: That reminds me, I heard that if you had a nightmare prior to sleep paralysis the monsters from your nightmare can appear as hallucinations. Anybody had that happen?
If you stare into perfect darkness long enough you will start to see things even if you are awake.
I'd imagine if you had a nightmare in your head and awoke in perfect darkness... ;)
Perfect darkness that is... without any of the usual background light bleed. Go into a room without windows and try it. ;)
-
I'm talking about detailed visual hallucinations, not a bunch of scary purple shapes.
-
:lol: The descriptions certainly sound like they'd be extremely painful (exploding head syndrome, oh god!), but it doesn't actually hurt. It just feels very strange is all.
Well, that makes it seem a lot more bearable. Still sounds really unpleasant, though.
Depends on the person I guess. For me the onset of sleep paralysis right before a dream takes hold during WILD is like a rite of passage, and I actually think it's a lot of fun. Sometimes it's even euphoric, especially the first time I had it. If it was very unpleasant I wouldn't keep doing it. :)
I do have an affinity for dream exploration though, so I have to remember my mindset may be different from yours. I also don't like to concern myself beforehand if an experience will be good or bad. Allowing fear to get in the way will generally just guarantee an unpleasant outcome anyway.
EDIT: That reminds me, I heard that if you had a nightmare prior to sleep paralysis the monsters from your nightmare can appear as hallucinations. Anybody had that happen?
I don't recall every having sleep paralysis after a dream/nightmare, so I can't say from experience, though it seems intuitive that any hypnagogic hallucinations would carry over the same themes as what you just dreamdt. Thoughts and emotions (both conscious and unconscious!) are strong indicators of the character of hallucinations, whether they be sleep induced or drug induced.
-
That **** happens to me every single time I wake up some ten minutes before I should (almost every single day): it's probably because you are too damned tired.
-
Last night I had a dream that I hired a sleep therapist to help me figure out how to lucid dream. I was almost there and had sleep paralysis while still conscious and was drifting off, but then my dream-brain pulled me out of it because it's a jerk. I was this close to inceptioning myself.
-
You should go back in there and punch your second level dream body in the head!
-
dont worry about sleeping through spanish. its easy just add an "O" to the end of every word