An odd visitation - please advise

I originally posted this as a response to Mertez's thread on communicating with his shadow people (after hearing it mentioned on the Mysterious Universe podcast), but think starting my own thread might get more views and input from the community:

Years ago, probably when I was 22 (so 9 years), I was lying down on a couch in my basement in the early afternoon. Dark, cozy, and quiet.

Not sure how long I had been resting there, but out of nowhere my hands and face got very hot and started to tingle, and a pressure & rumble built up in my ears/head. In the rumbling, there was also what I can only describe as a chant or invocation of some sort, in a language I've never heard before (my thought is that it wasn't a human language).

This went on probably only for about 30 seconds or so, after which I of course continued to lay there silently with my eyes closed to avoid possibly stirring back up whatever just reached out to me. Finally cracked one eye open to look around, and decided was time to get up and find something else to do. Very disturbing.

Anyone have any input on this? I don't remember an outright injection of fear or malevolence, just what I take as a very scary communication or visitation of some sort. I am a christian but this didn't have any clear spiritual overtones one way or the other.

Opinions, etc., would be appreciated.
Steve

reply to post by Praetorius


Perhaps you were dreaming?

reply to post by Praetorius


Sounds like hypnagogic imagery and/or hallucination.

It happens sometimes when you are falling asleep and in between wakefulness and dreaming or whatever. I guess its more common in lucid dreamers or people who are into the whole OOBE thing.

Sights
Among the more commonly reported and more thoroughly researched, sensory features of hypnagogia are phosphenes which can manifest as seemingly random speckles, lines or geometrical patterns, including form constants, or as figurative (representational) images. They may be monochromatic or richly colored, still or moving, flat or three-dimensional (offering an impression of perspective). Imagery representing movement through tunnels of light is also reported. Individual images are typically fleeting and given to very rapid changes.

Sounds
Hypnagogic imagery is often auditory or has an auditory component. Like the visuals, hypnagogic sounds vary in intensity from faint impressions to loud noises, such as crashes and bangs (exploding head syndrome). People may imagine their own name called or a doorbell ringing. Snatches of imagined speech are common. While typically nonsensical and fragmented, these speech events can occasionally strike the individual as apt comments on—or summations of—their thoughts at the time. They often contain word play, neologisms and made-up names. Hypnagogic speech may manifest as the subject's own "inner voice", or as the voices of others: familiar people or strangers. More rarely, poetry or music is heard.

Other sensations
Gustatory, olfactory and thermal sensations in hypnagogia have all been reported, as well as tactile sensations (including those kinds classed as paresthesia or formication). Sometimes there is synesthesia; many people report seeing a flash of light or some other visual image in response to a real sound. Proprioceptive effects may be noticed, with numbness and changes in perceived body size and proportions, feelings of floating or bobbing, and out-of-body experiences. Perhaps the most common experience of this kind is the falling sensation, and associated hypnic jerk, encountered by many people, at least occasionally, while drifting off to sleep.

Hypnagogia

It happens to me all the time. Sometimes if you go with it you can have a lucid dream. Its actually pretty fun.

reply to post by Toromos


Possible, granted. Never lost this like I do with pretty much all of my dreams, though, and I know this is purely subjective on my part, but there was no move from awake to asleep and then back awake - I wasn't asleep when it started, just relaxing on the couch with my arms folded on my chest, but awake doing so.

No paralysis as associated with hypnagogic state, just me not wanting to move for some time afterwards because I was a bit freaked out. Have had nightmares before, I have late-term insomnia and a high stress level so tend to wake up sweating frequently, but this was a unique experience for me.

Am definitely willing to say it MIGHT have just been a dream, but my personal feeling is that it wasn't, so would like some thoughts or experiences from others on the view that this might have been an actual experience of some sort.

Thanks for the input, though.

Maybe a dream, but sounds very wierd :S

reply to post by SNeaKyTiKi


Hmmm. I wasn't aware of the whole range with hypnogagia. Very possible, then. I always just figured this was something else as I've had a few of the more common hypnogogic type experiences with paralysis and the 'snaps' before (never any audibles, heat or tingling, just the 'presence' and fear type feelings) and this was so different.

OK, if no one has any other thoughts or experiences to present suggesting otherwise, I can go with that then. Thanks for the input.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

This thread covers something similar... maybe?

Wag