The hypnagogic state. Update to visual weirdness.

I have written a couple of posts on 'visual weirdness', I would like to post another update in case someone else is experiencing the same symptoms.

I have PCS after a bang to the back of the head in an RTA. I have a very strong visual element to my condition.

I have had optometry treatment, coloured lenses, to correct moving visual patterns (pattern glare), horizontal line movement and fluorescing colours in daylight. It has worked after a year.

The lenses do not work in LED or fluorescent lights. It seems that this is a completely different type of light sensitivity altogether. It causes my body to go into a state of physical panic ending in a fainting episode, this is the sympathetic response and is controlled by the brain. I am currently trying to approach it with an allergy method of treatment. Limited exposure over periods of time etc. I can get 55 minutes now before fainting compared to 20 minutes a few months ago. I am lucky to have been screened by a specialist in Gobowen Hospital who have come up with a plan for when I have hospital treatment, basically I don't queue, as soon as I arrive I'm seen by the doctor. If I am going to stay for more than half an hour I am sedated. This now seems to be the norm in any hospital environment, there's a note in my records. This is something others should try to get if they have trouble with lighting.

Now for the main topic, the hypnagogic state. The place between the conscious and unconscious dream state. This is internal visual rather than external as mentioned above, there is no connection. It seems that it has nothing to do directly with vision at all but with brain chemistry instead.

My first experience was the feeling that the front of my head was full of lead and I was pulled into a dark tunnel with yellow plasma clouds dragging me into a tunnel to be pushed into a pure black eternal space with geometric patterns and stunning colours. I thought I had just died and felt happy with the experience, so there is another side after all. It was a feeling of pure elation.

This happened multiple times a day for months with a different experience each time.

It went away after six months or so and reappeared during a meditation session over a year later, after being told to practice by my neuro-psychologist. I mentioned the experience had returned during meditation but for some reason she would not talk about it. Why??

I have been trying to learn what this experience is ever since. It is described, the same state, in many different areas.

Carl Jung vividly describes it in his work 'The Red Book'.

It is called psychosis in psychiatry

It is called Kundalini in meditative yogic practice.

It is called the astral plane by the occultists.

DMT users describe the same condition.

It is also thought to be a sleep disorder.

So what is going on, all the descriptions are the same in essence. The similarities are that the frontal cortex, the logical filter, is shut down to varying degrees. There are varying states of sleep paralysis of the body, some describe there is no body anymore only consciousness. Areas of the brain other than the frontal cortex become hyper producing visual and other experiences.

Brain scans from people in a state of REM sleep, meditative trance, psychosis, psilocybin and LSD dose and DMT use show very similar patterns.

The dream state is thought to be when your brain is repairing damage and sorting information. The states above are the experiencing of the unconscious dream state while still conscious to varying degrees.

The connection here is that brain chemistry molecules such as melatonin involved in sleep regulation, seratonin good feeling, psilocybin and DMT and many others are all tryptamine molecules with different side chains. They compete for the same sites on receptors in the brain producing similar effects.

It's fascinating that currently psilocybin (magic mushrooms) and DMT are being used to help change the behaviour of chronic depressants and alcohol users among others. They are basically rewiring the neurons via trippy chemicals.

This gets me thinking that there is scope here for some kind of treatment to speed up or repair brain damage or brain function.

Mindfulness based cognitive therapy is big where I live and I am starting a course next week. I think meditative practice helps stimulate tryptamine molecules in the brain that enables the repair or generation of new neural pathways as I describe above. Mindfulness is the shutting down of most of your thought and the concentration of a specific thought or action that needs to be addressed and enables behaviour change.

I will let you know how it goes and if there is an improvement or not.

I would love to hear any comments from people thinking anything similar.

[Elenor3]

Hi

I have suffered in varying degrees from brain sensations/ sounds / feelings (particularly on waking and before sleep). Nothing quite as you describe but along those lines. It was interesting to read all the information you posted.

Recently I’ve used a lot of mindfulness technique and find it really helpful with staying in bed and trying to continue sleeping when I wake in the night. I look forward to hearing your future updates

[Hidden in reply to Elenor3]

Hi Elenor, thanks for your comment, I will indeed keep this subject updated. I find the subject area fascinating. I do have a biochemistry background though, however from a couple of decades ago. This is an interesting puzzle in brain chemistry.

Another interesting area is resonance, I found that when my heating boiler kicks in for a short burst the sound vibration affects my state of mind and triggers some of the events described in the main topic. So as an experiment I listened to different frequencies of resonance on youtube and hey presto they do influence a state of mind. If you think about is bad noise annoys, pleasant noise is relaxing, dance music makes you want to dance etc, so it only makes sense that if you have a brain injury sound resonance can affect you in a different way to the 'norm'.

[Nackapan in reply to Hidden]

I've had that with sound. My boiler was very old and the sound of the pump becomes part of my illness. I still hear it now. I've replaced the boiler.

A fan I had on in the hot weather stays with me too. What I call my 'sizzling head continues with different degrees. I collected my new tinted gkasses on Tuesday. No eureka moment but my head went quiet . Felt very odd at first. Haven't tested them properly in artificial light yet. Did turn the TV on for the first time since February. 4 mins only with glasses on. Felt weak an hour after? But I had it on !@ I think I'm having to get used to the different chrmicsk make uo of them too. I've been prescribed grey/green.

Told to wear them indoors only.

Last time I was in a hospital for an appointment I suf feted really badly in the night with head pain I never want to have again.

The brain mri was done in an annex. So although was affretted not as bad.

There is someone else on this forum who had their windscreen of their car colour tinted. Csnt remember user name

[Hidden in reply to Nackapan]

Hi I think the 'my head went quiet' is the most important aspect. From what I have gathered reducing visual stress is the most important part of the recovery stage. This is due to the fact that visual processing uses most of the brain's energy. A peaceful mind must be a good thing, I remember that feeling, it was such a relief and my recovery really started at that point. I read a bit about the subject before trying it and it was suggested that you should do logic problems ie sudoku and card arranging games like solitaire etc when you start using the glasses. I think it helps to order the mind after all the visual chaos that shatters the normal thinking process.

The glasses I used (they don't work any more, but my pattern glare and fluorescing colours has gone, so job done on that level I think) never worked in artificial lighting. I think there are multiple facets to 'light sensitivity' and you have to deal with each separately. Take the worse aspect out first and proceed from there.

I'd like to get retested and have new lenses if needed to deal with what I have left with visual issues, horizontal movement and the artificial light problem.

From what I remember about the test the light value that they test you in is as strong as bright sunlight, I have been led to understand that many of the lights used in shops, offices and hospitals etc are actually brighter than a sunlit room so the lenses are not able to deal with it. That makes sense to me.

I am however trying out a different strategy for dealing with artificial lighting and that is treating it like an allergy, building up exposure time over time. I don't know exactly how it is going yet but I think I am improving because I can last up to 55 minutes now before the fainting trigger starts. I'll keep you informed.

I'm only starting on the sound aspect of the BI. It's not a problem that bothers me but is linked to the weird internal imagery that I think is due to the hypnagogic state. I was having a bit of a 'trip' earlier but my thought processes kept interupting so I gave up.

Anyway I'm glad you have a quiet mind and if you can keep it that way I'm sure it will be really beneficial for recovery. I basically avoided as much bad light environments that gave me trouble.

There could be a solution to watching the TV, modern screens are LED in general, see if you can get hold of a different type of screen like they have on the old style CRT computers, (I think that's what they are called).

Good luck, it took about a year for the nasties to get out of my vision.

[Nackapan in reply to Hidden]

Thanks for reply a d your progress report. The prof. Did say theses gkasses won't work in shops or outside . For uses at home to try and read, watch a bit of TV and get around on low wattage lighting.

Yes quiet head lovey at times

T C