InPresence 0103: The Hypnogogic Transition

InPresence host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in "parapsychology" ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). For many years he served as president of the non-profit Intuition Network, an organization dedicated to creating a world in which all people were supported and encouraged in developing inner intuitive abilities.

Here he reflects on the process of transitioning from normal waking consciousness to a dream state. He notes that the state just prior to sleeping and dreaming is known as the "hypnogogic" state. He describes several stages of this process in his own experience, suggesting that viewers pay attention to the shifts in consciousness that they experience throughout the day. He also refers to Tibetan dream yoga practice as well as to research on deathbed visions.

(Recorded on June 4, 2018)

[cosmicsoul]

Thank you. Such a great understanding to learn.

[seanparnelleverett]

I started with the dream yoga around 6 months. Some defo permanently fixed landmarks along the drift to sleep have appeared.

Some nights I actually have a coffee before bed now.

One trick I've learned is to practice shifting between the states .. A-b-c-d-c-b-a

One night tell yourself I'm gonna open my eyes, hit the hypnogagia, reach the. Thin veil of.clouds, hit the starfields then go back down to open eyes 20x... Or whatever # of times you want.. I got good results with this one. It made me truly belive these states existed.

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Then dwell in the certain states and what lies in between them.

Feel free to.send me any top tips...

Thumbs up

[simongravel]

Great episode! In my experience, this practice of remaining conscious for as long as possible as you slowly fall asleep is by default a very good way of facilitating lucid dreams.

[UnderTheNorthStar]

One interesting trick I've found whilst exploring this area is to NOT focus on the images which emerge on the back of your eyelids/third eye (however you experience it). If you focus on the images and symbols, they will become more real and become people and objects on what is like an internal TV screen. If you continue you can 'pop' into the screen, and you can gain control of the dream, at least for a short while, and you can experience literally anything you can imagine. This is great fun, but usually I find I become distracted by something and fall into usual sleep. Not a huge problem but annoying if you're trying to study it. Lying on your back or trying to sleep sitting up appears to help.

However, if you ignore the images and focus on bodily sensations (heart beat, breathing, sense of your muscles and limbs) something quite different occurs. You keep your mind on the physical side of that barrier as you drop to sleep. If you do this, you bypass the usual 'dream state' as described above and very odd things start to occur. You can feel your heartbeat in all corners of your body once your muscles are relaxed. You feel 'harmonics' of your heartbeat forming, like a vibration. You can feel the sleep paralysis take hold as your limbs begin to feel ill defined and 'blurry', like a halo around your body rather than your usual kinaesthetic sense of your body. You can then experience a strange energy racing around your body, it feels like swirling warm electricity, and sensations of sudden movement like you're being accelerated. Sometimes you feel as though you open your eyes and can just 'see' the world, even though you're lying there with your eyes closed. Unlike the above, you can't change anything in this state, and but it doesn't appear to be 'this' world either. Things are in the wrong place and so on, it's not direct reality as such. It does feel, however, to be a 'physical' experience rather than a dream related experience. I recommend trying it for anyone curious.

Anyway, just sharing should anyone else be investigating this. The two states seem very different to me. Not quite sure what to make of it at this point. Obviously it appears this is a way to achieve lucid dream or reaching the 'astral' state directly from the waking state. I'm still working on it to see if such a thing is regularly possible. I presume so but I haven't mastered it yet.

[semichiganandy]

Decades ago I went through a period of very unwelcome (morons making noise for the sake of making noise) sleep interruptions. Frequently I could remember a sleep state in which I felt extreme calm, with no real thought but in which there was some very beautiful, peaceful music in the background while experiencing a faint purple light. It was a really nice state to be in.

[ShooopWhooDa]

Hey Jeff! Great video as always you are heartwarming and a shining light.
I have found that when talking to someone or even to myself my thoughts flow free and creative and profound so I might start recording monologue

[skyblue-lbkr]

Awakened today thinking of this very topic!
Hmm, I recall many great writers, authors, scientists reportedly napped throughout the day and night....

[jamestriplett]

we have several spiritual aura bodies and a physical nature. To be aware of our consciousness interactions is what we have not been taught to interact with. Until our soul and spirit are united as one, our understanding will be split.

[Flanalb]

I am loath to bring this up because it has no real relevance to your message, but you have the terminology just backward: "hypnagogic" is the term that refers to falling asleep, and "hypnopompic" refers to coming awake. (I just checked again to make sure, because I have often mixed things up.) Anyway, it doesn't change the meat of your message, but I thought I had better make sure the scientist in you is satisfied that we're paying attention.
Having spent my childhood daydreaming through my days and satisfying my curiosity at night, I can say that the transition for me has often been quite gradual, and I have not experienced a lot of psychedelia passing from one trance to another. Neither have I had a sense of guardians keeping watch over me or directing my attention in any particular direction (I would have appreciated it many times.) On the other hand, I do have the feeling that my life is not completely (or even a little bit, sometimes) in my hands, and that is quite aside from any religious indoctrination I might have had. I guess the experience is best described by the saying, "Man proposes, God disposes" (someone probably knows who said it.) It suggests that even intention has certain limits or degrees of freedom (and that has direct relevance to the issues of dreaming, trance, and connection through consciousness.)

[vicproulx]

At times I have a series of lucid dreams, maybe once every few weeks. They usually occur when I have been awakened and can easily fall asleep, but recall my protocol for lucid dreaming. I have a number of dreams - four or five - each seldom more than ten seconds long. (It seems the awareness of what is happening stops the dream.) Recently, I stood at the bottom of a series of stairs leading to a college campus building, multi storied, built in the manner of Frank Loyd Wright. Thought the dream was in sepia, there was pastel coloring. A woman walked out of the building down the stairs, and a flight above me, stopped and turned to her right. She was dressed in pre-Raphaelite, long sleeves, long skirt, her hair in a bun. She was in thought…(reading something ?) and for an instant I realized her thoughts were so far beyond my thoughts…I was like a dog who got a glimpse at understanding a computer and the internet.

[MrCas-fqkt]

Observing your consciousness by falling asleep may lead you to lucid dreaming or astral projections too. I have a lot of those experiences. It's very fun, sometimes scary. Try it!

[pixpusher]

I have seen "beings" on the way to the sleep state and I have to admit it scared me so I forced myself to "wake up" whenever this happens. I keep thinking that the next time I will have courage to interact with them, but who knows? They seem very "real" as opposed to the beings that you meet when you are dreaming. These dreaming "folks" don't scare me and I am wondering if it is because I have already passed onto the dream state and am already within the same "frequency." I have experienced this phenomenon since childhood. Thanks for sharing.

[feedbackart]

When witnessing my consciousness altering to sleep from the waking state during meditation, I have noticed my thoughts and perceptions become irrational and non-coherent. That is when I know my consciousness has crossed a barrier delineating the waking and sleeping brainwave states.

[Hardcoreforliife]

Some people see a beautiful garden . Some see huge bird-human entities picking up souls with huge red eyes. Very loud vibrational fluttering of wings too. A family friend has had the latter in a NDE. my aunt had the former during one. She was told by jesus her time was not up though

[peggyharris]

You caused me to hear Kenny Rogers playing "Just Dropped In".
"Yeah, yeah, oh yeah. I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in"

[Jerryketel]

Another good video Jeffery! By the way, how many shirts do you own? You seem to have a new one with each video!

[johnpaul]

There was a surrealist poet--I can't recall which one--who used to hang a sign on his door before he went to sleep:
"DO NOT DISTURB/POET AT WORK."

[ThatTaRaGiRL]

Hypnogogic comes first, while falling asleep. You got it backwards 😉

[AnthrYrslf]

to you and you, we Love you. I accidentally died/fainted, partly caused by a revelation of sorts I guess. I don't remember falling down. I just remember how excited my friends/angels were that I "got it". They were just sitting there waiting, expecting me. I was really, really, happy to see them there. We all were! About 5, -7 of em side by side facing me. In chairs? Probably 6 there were, then I woke up. I Love them, very much. I know they do too

[stevestanil]

It's been said the way is shown by the silence within the silence .