Reaching the ceiling in my sleep!

When I was a child, I used to have weird experiences that I have always wondered about.. I would estimate that this experience which happened multiple times was when I was 5 years of age..

In the middle of sleep I would sort of wake up 10% with eyes slightly open, and my awareness is almost all asleep.. I would see myself very close to the ceiling, my nose would be only a few inches close to the ceiling tiles, that would be for a split second while feeling like falling down slowly to my bed..

It was like my body would be levitating up to the ceiling!! It was a scary feeling, but also special.. I would wake up with slight anxiety, but it happened multiple times which is why it stayed in my head..

What are your thoughts about this?

Sounds like astral projection to me.

I wish to offer that it happened all the time with me when I was very young. Actually it happened for the first time in decades last night and in that it is strange synchronicity that you posted this.

Most of the time though I used to simply wake up and slam back into my body from really far away with all the requisite thunderous rumbling. Gently floating to the ceiling was unusual.

Last night it just sounded like Darth Vader's helmet being attached with vacuum noises when coming back-- almost like there is a tighter fit now.

I would need more control to really say more about it in detail.

I had very similar experiences when I was young. In this dream state "I", or my mental-physical projection, would be floating at a very high altitude. What differed with my experience was that "I" would slam back down to my bed with great force at the end of it, which then caused me to wake up. More likely, though, the onset of my imminent "waking up" caused the slamming experience itself.

It would be interesting to discover if there are in fact any psychological analyses of such experiences. It seems fairly common. Whenever I had brought the subject up, I found at least a few of the people I had mentioned this to also had similar experiences. I wonder if the age at which we experienced these events is relevant. I had these from about the age of five to seven, if I recall correctly. Of course, I basically have a photographic memory.

Very cool experiences and stories guys.

About two years ago my experience like this was after a hard day of work I decided to nap right after. Also I was into lucid dreamin and was readin a book on it. I just layed on top of my sheets and slowly was fallin asleep but I concentrated on not going to deep into sleep. Then I realized I was floating towards the ceiling and seeing it up close in detail I was amazed. Unfortunately I want to roll over and look at my body and as I was rolling over right before I could glimps myself I shot back in my body. It was one of the coolest things I have ever experienced in my life.

I tend to lucid dream alot but haven't had on OBE or Astral projection other than this.

I love the brain lol.

reply to post by EnlightenUp


You haven't noticed the synchronicity yet? The earths pattern?

reply to post by Mr. Secret


Misidentified natural phenomenon. There are any number of rational, non-sleep-flying explanations for this. Dreaming is a good one.

NEXT!

ive had this experience as a child but i thought it was a dream.
i would sort of wake up and then have this sensation of floating up to the ceiling, sometimes id freak out and try and wave my arms around trying to stop me getting to close to the ceiling but as soon as as it hapened id wake up

reply to post by dave420


Dave 420 why so sleptical, did you get too baked and smash your face into the ceiling?

Originally posted by RagenCajun
reply to post by EnlightenUp

 

You haven't noticed the synchronicity yet? The earths pattern?

I have noticed alot-- the preponderance of it just goes into the mental notebook for later, almost forgotten until it is relevant. This one was worth a comment on however.

To those who would say it is "just this or that", it has properties that are peculiar beyond dreaming and worth looking into.

One would be if, it is just a dream, why is the room so perfectly duplicated? Is the memory really that perfect? I have had enough lucidity to compare images during the transition from the "hypnogogic" state to the waking the same way one would compare two drawings by flipping the pages and looking for minute differences.

Next, if it you are viewing the room because your eyes are even partially opened, why does the brain appear to have a zoom function (if looking straight up)? What would normally take up a small portion of the field now takes up a larger one. However, I have noticed that perspective changes just as if you were actually floating higher-- of course it helps not to be looking straight ahead at the ceiling during the event to see it.

The dreamlike states really tend to lack image stability or show inaccuracies to the surroundings.

The main difficulty is being unable to carry a recording device. On that same note, I cannot prove that I have phenominal consciousness to another since that report is merely anecdotal.

In response to: OP, and to an extent: EnlightenUp

Why do you assume your brain has a zoom function? What you saw could have merely been a misinterpretation of your surroundings. You could have as equally likely been lying on the front of your stomach, with a full frontal view of your bedsheets. Does your ceiling have a stucco pattern? Crown moldings, perhaps? The grooves in your sheets could be similar to those patterns in the very corner of the ceiling, or on the wall behind or in front of you. How can you tell your body was parallel with the frame of the bed? Maybe you were looking at the corner of the ceiling or room. How are you certain that you were correctly oriented if you were incapable of seeing the rest of the room, your face being just a few inches from this so-called "ceiling".

Also, this lucidity with which you describe the imagery of your ceiling... can you not clearly recollect when this feeling vanished and when you faded back into dream or sleep? Noting the transition from this phase to the next might be important in understanding how and why you came to see what you saw.

Continuing, I believe there is an extent to which you can almost perfectly imagine the position of things or objects you are very familiar with in a dream state. Examining an account of any person afflicted with blindness, one will determine that they are capable of remembering the situation of mostly stationary objects in rooms they have grown accustomed to within inches of its actual position. From personal dream experiences, I have been able to recreate, to the "touch", objects in my room.

Even further, I was able to create structures that did not exist and interact with them on an unprecedented level of "mental-physical" sensation. One example includes creating a shelf behind my bed, which I reached over to grab my cell phone. Although there is no shelf in my room with such an explicit structure, there is a night table to the right of my bed that serves the same function. In this instance, I have recreated a structure that bares little physical resemblance to the associated "real" object; and create it with so much lucidity that I can actually interact with it via an imagined sensation of "touch".

Forgive me for being overly empirical. I just want to see where this goes; hopefully, in the near future, I will add a purely speculative element to my post


[edit on 2-10-2008 by cognoscente]

Originally posted by cognoscente
In response to: OP, and to an extent: EnlightenUp

Why do you assume your brain has a zoom function?

Why assume that I am assuming? I have empirical observations though unfortunately they cannot also be experience directly by another-- that is their nature. I was attempting to offer a non-OOBE hypothesis but that does not account for everything. I will cover more detail now in order to illustrate that. I will rearrange your post to put similar ideas together.

What you saw could have merely been a misinterpretation of your surroundings.

I am not convinced it is that simple.

You could have as equally likely been lying on the front of your stomach, with a full frontal view of your bedsheets. How can you tell your body was parallel with the frame of the bed? Maybe you were looking at the corner of the ceiling or room. How are you certain that you were correctly oriented if you were incapable of seeing the rest of the room, your face being just a few inches from this so-called "ceiling".

Not if I am lying on my back, no. Those are mutually-exclusive positions. If I were lying on my stomach, I would "awaken" on my stomach.

I can tell if I am parallel same way I can tell it is parallel at any other time. Secondly, being squarely under the sheets limits the possible range for being askew.

I have seen the entirety of the room and/or other distinct objects within it the majority of the times.

I have had instances of just staring at something while being half asleep with my eyes open but I am just there staring at it and nothing interesting is going on. It gets my attention and I wake myself anyway.

Does your ceiling have a stucco pattern? Crown moldings, perhaps? The grooves in your sheets could be similar to those patterns in the very corner of the ceiling, or on the wall behind or in front of you.

When a child, my bed was clear of walls on three sides. The wall by the headboard had a big window and so was unique. Initially, the walls and ceiling were a while paper that has tiny flower-like images about an 3/4-inch apart and in an orthogonal grid pattern.

Later the room was redecorated. There was a divider moulding a couple feet off the floor with a brown/orange vertial patterned wallpaper below it and a tan plaid pattern on the walls above it. The ceiling was painted off-white. My sheets and pillows were much darker than the ceiling. There was a crown moulding installed that was stained dark brown. I had a brass bedpost-- well, posts with smaller vertical brass bars in between-- not quite a headboard and not quite simply a post (what do they call those?).

Today, in a different house, the only wall near my bed is on the right (it is squarely against it) and there is a large piece of artwork nailed to it. I have no such artwork printed on my sheets and my comforter is dark blue. There is no wall by my head, the wall towards my feet has a bookshelf speaker attached, to my left is the computer, door and closet. The headboard is actually sort of a combo shelf/drawer gizmo that stands on its own. On that is a TV, cable box, and DVD.

My face can be right up against the right wall if I want but since I could see the artwork, that defintely wasn't the case in the last instance. I haven't had one of these experiences in this house before.

Attempting to see much of anything behind me would be and would have been impossible without contortion. Any of that would have been distorted badly by perspective rather than a clean, straight-on view.

Also, this lucidity with which you describe the imagery of your ceiling... can you not clearly recollect when this feeling vanished and when you faded back into dream or sleep? Noting the transition from this phase to the next might be important in understanding how and why you came to see what you saw.

When younger, I would simply have it occur while partly conscious and trying to sleep. It was strange enough that I would fully awaken myself to think about it.

The most recent incident was upon waking and thus I was fully conscious to reflect on it afterwards. I got up to think about it for awhile. I was not so close to the ceiling but perhaps watching myself sink down from a foot or so above my body. I was facing upwards and happened to be looking at the artwork on the wall to the right.

If I had simply fallen into sleep until morning then I doubt I would recall such an incident.

Continuing, I believe there is an extent to which you can almost perfectly imagine the position of things or objects you are very familiar with in a dream state. Examining an account of any person afflicted with blindness, one will determine that they are capable of remembering the situation of mostly stationary objects in rooms they have grown accustomed to within inches of its actual position.

This is something precise and photographically accurate. What I am talking about is an element in addition this sort of phenomenon. Additionally, there is the rumbling noise that the more dreamlike experiences lack when "coming back" or "leaving".

What you are talking about has happened and is less stable and detailed. Sometimes the room furnishings were from the past; sometimes objects were repositioned; different objects existed or some objects were absent. My own experiences that mirror yours lack something and are more dreamlike and surreal.

What sets apart the "float" experience from the "zoom" experience is that of the perspective in the room being from my position on the bed and changing accurately as a view from a camera in the position of my "eyes" would. The "zoom" and "float" may be the same but zooming is how it appears when fixated on the ceiling alone. The movement from bed to a more elevated perspective and vice-versa is gradual instead of finding one's self either there or not (i.e. travel instead of jump).

When younger, getting a glimpse of my own body from outside did happen a few times. The perspective change and what is visible is definitely not sheets or corners. One thing I will mention is that there has never been an instance that I recall where I have any sort of "astral body" that is a duplicate wearing the clothes I went to bed with even though most having similar experiences seem to describe one. It is simply as though awareness is somewhere else.

Continued...

From personal dream experiences, I have been able to recreate, to the "touch", objects in my room.

Even further, I was able to create structures that did not exist and interact with them on an unprecedented level of "mental-physical" sensation. One example includes creating a shelf behind my bed, which I reached over to grab my cell phone. Although there is no shelf in my room with such an explicit structure, there is a night table to the right of my bed that serves the same function. In this instance, I have recreated a structure that bares little physical resemblance to the associated "real" object; and create it with so much lucidity that I can actually interact with it via an imagined sensation of "touch".

I suppose I covered that in some detail just prior.

The most common event like this that I experience is in the aural sense. I may incorporate external audio into the dialogue that "characters" speak or alter the quality of sounds such as turning an alarm clock into a siren. The strange thing here is that the aural sense has an amplifying quality where the audio from a television or a person speaking outside, for example, may be rather faint but is very loud and clear from a hypnogogic state down. Some audio from TV has been repeated later to help verify that it was accurately received even though not consciously discernable while awake. Waking up in the middle of the sentence being spoken allows the level to be accurately guaged.

Forgive me for being overly empirical. I just want to see where this goes; hopefully, in the near future, I will add a purely speculative element to my post

Your post was rather speculative since it was reaching for explanations based upon a set of assumed conditions, most of which did not apply to my situation. If I had control of when these atypical events occured, then I could bring back more information. I have tried to observe as closely as possible when the opportunity arose.

ive had something similar happen to me. I often have "dreams" where im lying in bed and then just start floating up. I get the ceiling and i can turn around and see my entire room just as it was when i went to bed that night. when i look down at my bed i am no longer lying in it so its not an out of body experience. its kinda weird because it seems so real. since everything in my room is exactly the same as when i went to bed, even the sensation of floating seems real. but ive just dismissed this as a crazy dream that i have every few months. whats even more strange is that i have these "dreams" where im lying in bed trying to go to sleep. my eyes are closed, yet i can still see my surroundings. again, everything is the same in my room as i left it. realizing how crazy this is, ill open my eyes to make sure im not dreaming, and low and behold i see the exact same thing i was just looking at when my eyes were closed. again, i dismiss this as a dream too, and again, ill have this dream every few months.

Did you ever consider night terrors?

I would have night terrors as a child. I would see everything around me, but my mind would be in a different state. I would dream my lips were huge...like 100x their size...and everything I knew would be right there in front of me, but I couldn't wake up or seperate myself from reality and dreams...

I would dream about soooo many weird things. I would even talk to my mother and I could have full conversations with her, but the whole time something was happening around me that I couldn't break free from.

Although, night terrors aren't very common in adults.

no night terrors for me, thats partly what makes it a weird dream. i just float up and can see my room. its rather boring, the lights are out, my wife in bed sleeping, my dog sleeping, nothing happening at all, except for me floating to the ceiling. theres nothing scary about it, no aliens abducting me, no crazy lights or anything. it literally like you wake up in the middle of the night and just start floating.

I too had night terrors as a child, and I still only sleep 5-6 hours a night, but I also have "flight" dreams. to the extend that I can feel gravity disappearing, now here is the odd part, my ex-wife swore she saw my body floating about a 1/2 foot off the bed one night when I was having a flight dream, all my flight dreams have been as an adult, never as a child.
The (more?) bizarre parts are
1. I have precognitive dreams often
2. I feel if I could "maintain" the feeling while awake, I could "float"
3. I no longer tell people the future because they say things happen because I said it not because I saw it before it happened. (as though I create reality)

I had a similar expierence when I was 7, I woke up during a really bad storm to find I was nearly touching the cieling with my nose In a panick I threw my hands out and hit the cieling with 2 open palms in a pushing type way which slammed me back into my bed. My heart was pounding and I remember looking at my alarm clock one of those 80's ones that had radio and bright orange backlit numbers the time stuck with me because it was 3:33 (easy to remember) I remember thinking it was just a bad dream and hiding under my covers which I had to pull over myself, that was until morning came. I got up and went to the bathroom and wiped the sleep from my blurry eyes. I lived in a strict home so I went back to make my bed and realised there was little white pieces of stucko all over my bed afraid that I would get in trouble I remember cleaning it all up and hidding it unxer some tissue in my waste basket. I jumped onto my bed and looked up to find that there were definitely some stucko damage about my shoulder width apart. Not sure what happened never told anybody about this but I can remember it like yesterday.