Hypnagogic hallucinations (waking nightmares)

For those who don't know, these are weird hallucination-dream or nightmare type things (lol not good at explaining it) that happen just as you're about to fall asleep...they can be auditory or visual, but for me they're just visual. I often see bugs or spiders - and it's almost hyperrealistic, and I panic, might scream, turn on the light, see that it's not there & I'm shaking for up to 2 hours afterwards and then I have to sleep with the light on all night.

It's terrifying and really inconvenient. I'm starting to think that's why I prefer sleeping during the day, because it's not nearly as intense in daylight. I just want it to stop. I'm wondering if there's anyone out there who has had a problem with these now or in the past, and how I can get rid of them.

I get these sometimes, especially when I come out of an episode of sleep paralysis. Mine are usually flashing lights, but I did once still see a man in black stood at side of me when awake which eventually faded! Bit scary! This morning I woke up from a bad nights sleep and there was a brown shape in front of my bedroom door. My 2 yr old son had woke up crying in the next room, so I just ignored it and walked through it I think you just have to change your mindset and think "I haven't got time for this hallucination"

I usually have those when:
1-I'm not "covered" when I fall asleep
2-go to bed very late (at the stage when it's so late that one ends up feeling wide awake)
3-have trouble falling asleep.

for me it usually involves someone being in room touching me or some sharp noise/light in my room. however I've had some hallucinations of family members (living 100s of miles away) running into my room to ask for something.
at some point, I was afraid of going to bed because of the hallucinations. however, trying to avoid the 3 points mentioned above has reduced the frequency of the hallucinations.

I hope this helps

note: even though I agree that this is a disturbing phenomenon, I believe it would be unnatural if the phenomenon stopped occurring on a permanent basis

I think I just had one of these, it's so creepy and real. I woke up and three people were standing together holding hands dressed in all black saying something I couldn't make out, and I just stared at them for a while freaking out, and after like 20 seconds I looked away and then back and they were gone. My heart is still racing, it's so real.

Usually when this happens, I see thoughts as written words, like in book in front of my eyes, whether they're open or not. It's always gibberish and I can never remember any of it.

I experience vivid sounds just prior to falling asleep. Often they are loud or vivid enough to wake me back up and I find it difficult to calm down enough to sleep . Anyone else have this?

I get this sort of thing during times of stress. I find it disturbing, but probably more due to the involuntary nature of the imagined perception, rather than the content itself.

So, all I can say is to work on reducing your stress levels.

I've hallucinated mainly during hypnopompic states. Those have all been pleasant or just neutral experiences. Can't call them nightmares. So far the most interesting thing I've seen was this brightly shining, golden pyramid shaped drawer that was rotating in the air. Seen huge spider webs and snakes on the walls etc. Most recent hypnopompic hallucination I experienced when I tried to catch a bug… and then I eventually realised there wasn't any bug (maybe after 30 sec or so).

slither wrote:Usually when this happens, I see thoughts as written words, like in book in front of my eyes, whether they're open or not. It's always gibberish and I can never remember any of it.

I had a dream and was able to remember specific details; I was in a store (may hve been goodwill), there was a computer case with 7th gen core i7 written on it. That's relevent because I was lucid and I'm a system builder, that built a system with an i7 950 (I think this cpu's 1st gen core i7).