Dreaming is not merely a passive act done during sleep, for many, it is literally the solution to many waking problems

Helen Smith

To dream and altogether not to dream. This synthesis is the operation of genius…

Novalis, author and philosopher (1702 – 1801)

Have you ever drifted off to sleep to find yourself conscious – and in a state of paralysis? You can’t speak and it feels as though the life is being sucked out of you. You are trapped - held captive by something inexplicable – are struggling to breathe and have a heavy weight upon your chest. Perhaps you’ve even hallucinated; you’re tucked up in what you think is the safety of your own bed when a sinister person creeps up and stares you in the face or you have felt as though you were levitating or somewhere else in the room. You might have woken up with the solution to a problem that you’ve been seeking for a long time. You may well have had one or more of these experiences, but not know what it’s called. It is a recognised medical phenomenon that is quite common, affecting 30 – 40% of people at least once in their life. It is called hypnogogia. The hypnagogic state or waking dream is characterized by vivid dream-like experiences that occur as one is falling asleep or waking up. It commonly co-exists with sleep paralysis, which can cause terrible nightmares. It is less frequently accompanied by lucid dreaming which can be described as partial consciousness, with dreams being experienced with greater clarity and the possibility of taking control of the events of the dream. Hypnagogia is multifaceted and these experiences vary from person to person. It could be a sign of a sleep disorder, such as narcolepsy and insomnia, or associated with temporal lobe epilepsy but this is not always the case.

The first time I was aware of experiencing hypnagogic sensations was when I was seventeen. I was drifting into sleep and I felt like I was floating on top of my bed, levitating. I was perturbed by this extraordinary event, so I told my best friend about it. He sensibly suggested that I might be possessed by Satan, as the girl in The Exorcist had had similar experiences (I hadn’t seen the film at this stage). Historically such dreams, or more appropriately, nightmares were also put down to supernatural threats, such as the attack of an‘old hag’. It was believed that a witch sat on the chest of the victim who would see the hag’s face before them. Henry Fuseli (1741 – 1825) depicted the phenomenon of the ‘old hag attack’ in his Gothic masterpieces, both entitled The Nightmare.

Although hypnagogic dreams can be terrifying if you don’t understand them, they can also be positive if you embrace them. Many creative people such as artists, writers, architects, engineers and mathematicians have used the hypnagogic state to inspire them in their work. Andreas Mavromatis, author of Hypnagogia: The unique state of consciousness between wakefulness and sleep, argues that ‘When the operation of unconscious or preconscious [Latent parts of the brain that are readily available to the conscious mind, although not currently in use] processes achieves a connection between widely separate matrices, the result is undeniably original’. He argues that creativity is comprised of four qualities: novelty, unpredictability, uniqueness and surprise. In dreams these four factors merge; new connections can be established and ideas conceived with extraordinary results.

Writers have long exploited their hypnagogic dreams or nightmares in order to produce extraordinary results, notably two writers of Gothic novels. Mary Shelley dreamt up the idea for Frankenstein, deemed to be the first science fiction novel, after a waking dream or nightmare during which she saw ‘the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together’. This was to be the story of Victor Frankenstein and the repercussions of his thirst for knowledge. Bram stoker too was to be struck with the idea for his vampire novel, Dracula, whist having a nightmare. Following his nightmare he noted, ‘Young man goes out, sees girls - one tries to kiss him not on the lips but throat. Old Count interferes - rage & fury diabolical - this man belongs to me I want him.’ The idea he conceived in his dream became part of the journal of one of the protagonists of Dracula, Jonathan Harker: ‘I suppose I must have fallen asleep; I hope so, but I fear… I cannot in the least believe that it was all sleep… ‘ It is clear, then, that accessing the subconscious, in hypnagogic dreams has led to the genesis of many wonderful and unique stories and poems.

Painters too have been stimulated by their dreams. The surrealists are particularly well known for this, Dali being the most famous of those. His Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate One Second Before Waking Up is based on his wife, Gala’s, dream and demonstrates the awesome artwork that can be produced by noticing and remembering the imagery of dreams. Hypnagogic sensations that occur immediately before waking up can be extremely lucid and stimulating. One method used by Dali was to nap whilst sitting in an arm chair holding a spoon over a pan so that when his muscles relaxed he’d drop the spoon into the pan which would wake him up and he would have the vivid hypnagogic images fresh in his mind for him to paint.

Sparks of inspiration in the form of solutions of problems are another benefit of hypnagogia. Einstein’s notion of relativity is said to have come to him early one morning as he got out of bed, after having researched the matter for ten years. Thomas Edison is known to have made use of the hypnagogic state to help him formulate ideas for his inventions. The French mathematician, Hadamard, stated, ‘ One phenomenon is certain and I can vouch for its absolute certainty; the sudden and immediate appearance of a solution at the very moment of sudden awakening’. I have experienced this myself; I can be frustrated at my lack of progress on a piece of work and come up with an excellent new take on things in my sleep. When I’ve woken up I’m able to get straight to it and sort the problem out. According to Mavromatis, creativity can spark up unconsciously during sleep and come to the individual on waking. However, some people are able to communicate the problem that needs solving to the unconscious and the problem is solved in hypnagogia. It appears that thinking about the problem before you fall asleep, willing your unconscious to take heed, can help you to gain the solution to the problem you need.

If you aren’t fortunate enough to have hypnagogic dreams, it may be possible for you to train yourself to have lucid dreams like those that sometimes accompany hypnagogia. According to J. Allan Hobson, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, the techniques required to induce lucid dreaming can be acquired by anyone. In his work Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction he instructs that you need to keep a notepad and pen by your bedside to record your dream. Keeping a record when you awake is important because there are so many elements in dreams that are quickly forgotten. Hobson relates that before you go to sleep you should think that, as a human being you are likely to have two hours of ‘absolutely fabulous’ dreaming tonight. You need to tune into some of it by noticing the bizarreness when it occurs. When he wants to dream lucidly he tells himself to notice things that could not happen in waking life but typically happen in dreams, such as ‘the changes of the times, places and people (especially the unusual occurrence of unidentified characters, characters with the qualities of one person who suddenly have those of another, and so on)’. Once you have done this, you should, apparently, find part of your mind waking up and you will recognize that you are dreaming and say this to yourself. The result is that part of your brain is in a waking state and the rest is in a dreaming state. Hobson states that this is where the fun begins it seems and you should be able to do whatever you wish to, such as ‘fly and have whatever sorts of intimate relationships with other chosen dream characters’. Is that not an incentive to try it out?

Whether you feel that you have experienced hypnagogia or not, it seems that too few people utilise their dreams or even pay any attention to them. Dreams can stimulate, inspire and be entertaining as well. They are too often forgotten when it’s clear that they could have a large influence on you in terms of creativity and summoning up original ideas and this could be a devastating waste of potential. When we spend as much as third of our lives in sleep, is it not worth trying to get as much out of these seemingly wasted hours as we can?

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