Until now I never knew that there was a name for "hypnagogia". For most of my life, I was never able to remember this period of sleep, but over the last few years that has changed (not intentionally, so I don't know what changed in my body to cause the difference). I've developed some level of awareness during it and can wake myself up from it, then remember at least some of it. If you've never experienced it, it's like every part of your brain is talking to every other part of your brain, and you have many bizarre connections of thoughts happening in parallel. It's different than a normal dream, where it seems there is only one "thread" running at a time.
These have happened intermittently through my life when my stress is high. This is only personal clue I can give to you "why" otherwise maybe you're just getting good at it.
In my last episode, I was floating toward a wall and all these thoughts were firing, "you're in a dream", "you'll go through the wall", "don't be afraid" but the rational side that felt like I was going to slam into a wall freaked out just at the wall & I woke. I still wish I just let myself slip through the wall..
Generally in a dream state like that, I find that what you believe & intend will happen will happen whether it makes sense or not. You knew you were dreaming and that the wall was immaterial, but you didn’t accept it in time. That’s one of the basic skills involved in lucid dreaming, really, influencing the dream by thinking “Oh, of course this is what will happen next” without pushing it too hard and waking yourself up (or getting stuck in sleep paralysis, in my case).
If you have nightmares, lucid dreaming techniques can be helpful for overcoming them. People often make stressful dreams worse on themselves by worrying “What if the monster catches up to me?” or “What if my weapon doesn’t do anything to it?”—you’ve got to follow it up with “Nah, I think it’s friendly and I can ride it” or “Of course my attack will work”.
I reliably have dreams that involve flooding when I am stressed or frustrated. I'm not particularly good at remembering dreams, don't try, but after one dream that seemed particularly 'symbolic,' I read some Jung and now I recognize that, in almost every dream I do remember, there are archetypes and symbols that he mentions. Jung wasn't really 'systematic,' but there are on order of 10-100 sub/objects in dreams that he emphasizes quite a bit and I see these in mine. Also, I tend to only remember a dream at times when my 'subconscious is [probably] trying to tell me something'
Yep, I see dreams same way and enjoyed reading Jung a lot in college. It makes sense that stress would induce more dreams if you saw dreams as mechanisms to heal your own mind, or at very least, point out the problem. I have read in other texts that we live out our ego fantasies in dreams (both scary & exhilarating) because otherwise it's a "pain" we can't handle until we get a taste for it.
You might find the dream dictionary[1] interesting.
>"I don't know what changed in my body to cause the difference"
For me it was gaining a better understanding of basic physics. Something I was never taught at an early age due to a cult like upbringing. Now questioning all I have ever been taught is second nature in my waking life. Even basic things like was that shadow normal? "Oh right, nothing divine there." So now that has leaked into my dream state, whenever physics goes weird (mostly water not flowing right or objects that don't respond in a proper manner) I instantly question it and then become aware of my dream state.
Did you have a kid or start traveling more? I noticed that when I am on a plane (usually very sleepy b/c I can only afford red eyes), I drift off a lot, but get woken up a lot too (PA announcement, food cart to the knee, etc.)
I had something like what you're describing as I was developing mild sleep apnea. Starting using those nasal separator strips religiously and got back to having consistently deep "dreamless" sleep ... but no lucid dreams.
I read somewhere that Thomas Edison used to take naps with ball bearings in his hands. At the instant he fell asleep, the bearings rolled out of his hands and hit the floor and woke him up during this transition state.
My farmer friends call it a "spoon nap" sit in a chair holding a spoon, as soon as you fall asleep the spoon drops and you can get back to work. Typically taken directly after a big lunch.
