From: gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us (Gary S. Trujillo)
Subject: hypnagogia & OBEs (was Re: I SEE LIGHTS...)
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 08:24:50 GMT

I think folks will find this article interesting (if I do say so myself! :-)
since it's mostly quotes from a book that seem to suggest strong links between
hypnagogic visions and OBE experiences:

[ Please note that this article is cross-posted between alt.dreams and alt.
  out-of-body.  New readers of alt.dreams may want to check out alt.out-of-
  body itself.  If you can't find it on your system, please get in touch
  with me, and I can put your name onto a mailing list and I can give you
  an address for posting articles to alt.out-of-body.  --Gary ]

In <1992Nov6.215120.6792@m.cs.uiuc.edu> (of alt.dreams) mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
	(Robert McGrath) writes:

> In article <1992Nov5.183358.18050@gnosys.svle.ma.us>,
	gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us (Gary S. Trujillo) writes:

>> In <002369c.39.720913401@ace.acadiau.ca> 002369c@ace.acadiau.ca
>> 	(WILLIAM FREDERICK CUSTANCE) writes:
>>
>>> Have you ever had the experience of closeing your eyes at night or whenever
>>> you go to sleep and see patterns form?
>>
>> Yes.  The experience is called "hypnagogia."  There's a good book on the
>> subject by Andreas Mavromatis called simply _Hypnagogia: the Unique State
>> of Consciousness Between Wakefulness and Sleep_ (Routledge & Kegan Paul,
>> London & New York, paperback edition published 1991, ISBN 0-415-05794-9).
>>
>> I don't think this subject is relevant to our discussion, though, and suggest
>> followups be posted to alt.dreams.

> Hey, who made you the net cop!  :-)  (Just joking.  Really.)

Well...

I only meant to say that a question about hypnagogia does not seem related
to the subject matter of alt.out-of-body unless it attempts to make a
specific connection, as Robert's own comment does:

> Actually, some reports of OBEs may well be hypnogogic/hypnopompic
> (one is falling asleep, the other waking up, and don't ask me which
> is which) illusions.  And whatever physiological mechanisms that
> cause these sleep-related hallucinations might be related to some
> of the experices of OBEs.  Thus, while not OBEs, they may shed
> light on OBEs.

I'm just hoping that alt.out-of-body doesn't become a dumping ground for
lots of interesting but unrelated discussion - such as some of the Eckankar
postings of Robert McElwaine that make no explicit reference to the OBE
experience and other religious or spiritual topics that don't refer to OBEs.

Just a note on terminology, it's hypnAgogic and hypnOpompic.  The first
one refers to the state between waking and sleeping, and the second occurs
just after awakening.  However in common usage, hypnagogia can refer to
either state.

Anyway, actually, Mavromatis does talk quite a bit about OBEs in the book
I cited.  Here's one example (p. 98):

    A phenomenon related to hypnagogia and to the three types of dream
    discussed above, and which further strengthens the relationships
    and similarities of these experiences, is what is known in the
    parapsychological literature as an out-of-the-body experience (OBE).
    This is the experience of finding, or projecting 'oneself' outside
    one's body.  That is, the person becomes 'aware' that his
    consciousness and his physical body are not spatially coincident
    and that 'he' can move around outside his physical body ... Tart,
    for example, found that his OBE laboratory subjects tended to
    spend a great deal of time in a 'borderland state.'  He reports
    that the OBEs of one of his two subjects seemed to have occurred
    in conjunction with stage 1 sleep.  Yet this subject sharply
    distinguished his OBEs from his dreams.  In addition, there were
    no clearly developed delta waves in any of the subject's EEG
    patterns.  Tart concludes that such experiences appear to be a
    mixture of dreaming and 'something else.'  This 'something else'
    is subjectively expressed as the awareness (false or otherwise)
    that one is awake in one's dream or dreamlike state.

I find it interesting to note, BTW, that this author classifies the OBE
experience under "psi" (p. 131):

    The word 'psi' is commonly employed as an umbrella term to
    encompass all kinds of so-called paranormal phenomena.  It is used
    in this chapter, and throughout the book, in reference only to
    telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience, psychometry, out-of-the-
    body experiences (OBEs), and some forms of trance, as a term of
    convenience...

Fascinating!  It appears that for Mavromatis, the hypnagogic state not only
bears a strong relationship to OBEs, but he reports that some feel they can
be used as a means of inducement (p. 145ff):

    The psi-conduciveness of hypnagogia is further evidenced by the
    tendency of ecsomatic experiences (OBEs, ecsomatoses, exteriori-
    zations, astral projections) to occur spontaneously at sleep onset
    and at waking from sleep, and by the fact that subjects with long
    experience in ecsomatosis not only report having had most of their
    experiences at such times but also advocate the induction of hyp-
    nagogia as a necessary step to the achievement of such events...

    Instructions on how to induce exteriorization encountered in the
    occult and psychic literature explicitly recommend hypnagogia as a
    state highly conducive to the induction of such experiences.
    Monroe, for instance, says of exteriorization in hypnagogia that
    'this is perhaps the easiest and most natural method and usually
    ensures relaxation of both body and mind simultaneously.  Muldoon
    writes, 'I would awaken between one and four o'clock in the morning,
    usually, and the astral body would begin to "rise," as I entered
    sleep again; but, on other occasions . . . the projection would
    begin in the hypnagogic state when emerging from sleep.'  He
    instructs that if a subject wants to achieve an OBE the easiest
    way to effect it is

	in the hypnagogic state, when going to sleep - if he will
	but concentrate his attention upon himself and try to see
	what is really happening, as he enters sleep.  In other
	words, if he will but train himself to keep the balance
	between consciousness and unconsciousness - while slightly
	favouring the former - without tension in mind - and will
	maintain this well into the hypnagogic state, he will feel
	the discoincidence, as the phantom [psychic 'double'] enters
	the zone of quietude, usually as a falling sensation.

    Similar instructions are given by numerous other investigators,
    some of whom have also offered detailed lists of hypnagogic
    phenomena occurring during ecsomatosis.  These include: the seeing
    of lights, images, figures, landscapes, the hearing of various
    sounds all the way from inarticulate noises to beautiful strains of
    music, the hearing of one's name being called, the feeling of being
    touched...

Well, I think that's enough for now.  I'm glad this subject came up,
actually.  I had very regular and very fantastic hypnagogic experiences as
a child, and have managed in recent years to at least partly recapture the
experience.  Perhaps it represents an avenue for the production of OBE
experiences in myself.  Time will tell...

Gary
--
    Gary S. Trujillo                            gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts              {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst