July 15 02024
Hypnagogia, in its general sense, refers to a unique state of threshold consciousness achieved through a variety of means, but most commonly to the sensations on the border of wakefulness and sleep. The very subjectivity, amnesia, and fleeting nature of hypnagogia render it difficult to capture by ordinary scientific methods: it cannot be shared firsthand, so our knowledge largely comes from self-reporting - a rather faulty method of data-gathering. Another difficulty is that the experience is rarely remembered, as generally it ends in the subject falling asleep. The experience is understood in a variety of ways, largely corresponding with the subject's culture: perhaps as divine or artistic inspiration, premonition, or mere "flax", forgotten as illogical and pointless.
Then, what is it, exactly? To speak of the mechanism, the ego-conscious becomes relaxed, and therefore the subconscious is free to explore, connect, and create unobstructed. A plethora of reported phenomena appear through this loosening of ego obstructions: a fluidity of ideas, sensations, or new combinations, often marked by free processing. This theory of hypnagogia would also explain children's interest in their "inner visions": as their societal-consciousness is less developed (children, due to their age, are always less shaped by society than adults), they are more likely to give importance to their hypnagogic states, whereas the "usefulness" of the experience is lost in adulthood, and therefore lost overall.
Given that hypnagogia may offer a rare window into our personal subconscious nature, it is important as a method of self-analysis. The most common experience in hypnagogia is internal hallucination. These images may be abstract, geometric, ephemeral, solid, confusing, or rapidly-changing in accordance with or as an analogy to the present thought-stream. They might slowly form into a dreamscape throughout the progression and onset of proper sleep, or they might dissipate completely. Herbert Silberer coined the term autosymbolism, a word meaning that hypnagogic hallucinations serve as the concrete, analogous manifestation of whatever unobstructed thoughts are currently being had. The commonly reported oddities of the images and rapidly-changing nature are both explained by autosymbolism, in that thought-streams are always changing, and the associated images are odd as a result of the oddity and abstractness of egoless thought in general.1
Another commonly reported experience is the Tetris effect: when a subject has recently spent time in a novel or repetitive task, a subject might observe their subconscious "replay" the experience and its related senses as they become drowsy: a person who spent the day on a boat might continue to feel the waves' rhythm or hear ocean sounds, a person who recently began working at McDonald's might hear machine noise or see themselves flipping patties, the new rock-climber might imagine their body in new shapes, the new language learner might hear foreign conversations. In an interesting study, researchers had a group of amnesiacs play Tetris. They later reported having "played Tetris" while falling asleep. They were completely unable to recall having played the game at all, signifying that the conscious declarative memory system is not important or active in "importing" content into hypnagogia. 2
Other sensations have been reported, such as synesthetic associations (a sound from real life is interpreted as a flash of light in the hypnagogic state, or the sensation of a fan blowing on the subject's face is interpreted as a flashing image in their mind), or proprioceptive effects (e.g., the sensation of the body becoming large, filling the room). As previously noted, the data set of hypnagogia is small due to the inherent elusivity of its capture. The previous paragraphs do not claim exhaustion; they only aim to spark consciousness in the reader, such that they may contextualize and understand their own hypnagogic states.
As hypnagogia may provide a rare crystallization or mirror of our subconscious processes, how can we increase the accuracy of our memory and methods of capture?
The habit of self-analysis will continue to have many cascading benefits. The problem-solving and creativity-stimulating effects of hypnagogic experiences have been noted by a diverse number of artists, writers, scientists, and inventors – including Beethoven, Richard Wagner, Walter Scott, Salvador Dalí, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and Isaac Newton.3 Perhaps mainstream psychological studies of hypnagogia will continue to lag, but the potential importance of systemizing and analyzing your own experiences will continue to bear rewards.
Having just completed this article, I went to bed the previous night with the ideas of hypnagogia fresh on my mind. On the verge of sleep, I noticed the process of autosymbolism begin. Then, more interestingly, a new experience took place: noticed that I noticed it. What does autosymbolism about autosymbolism look like, what does it reveal?.
Unfortunately, I can hardly remember - my mind was racing about, (with corresponding fluctuation in the images), and I was only occasionally completely fixated on the meta-realization. During these brief moments, however, I can't recall any specific image. I suppose this makes sense - what color is a mirror?
If I have any further thoughts or experiences, I'll record them here.
I've just been reminded of the concept of Indra's Net4 while finishing Alan Watt's The Way of Zen.
Indra's net is a metaphor / hypothetical object in made up of reflective pearls or jewels: each jewel in the collection reflects every other object. I add this note here to supplement what I recorded in the previous note. It gives me better vocabulary to point at my experience.