Unwanted Flashing Mental Imagery When Trying to Fall Asleep....

Interesting topic. Did anybody ever experienced a short "buzz" before falling asleep? It does not hurt but it disturbs a little bit. It sounds a little bit like a computer hanged up repeating a sound very fast.

reply to post by verschickter


I've never experienced a buzzing sound, although I have heard tones like one hears during hearing tests and minor cases of tinnitus.

reply to post by GENERAL EYES


After extremely long gaming marathons I can't get thoughts/images of the game out of my mind while trying to fall asleep. The images keep coming in rapid order, and sometimes form a story of sorts. Strange phenomenon to say the least. My explanation here doesn't do justice to the actual event in my mind.

Cool thread GE.

I have this every so often, and it is very vivid.

Sometimes I am lying in bed, and I realize my eyes are closed yet I am seeing my room. It is like an ultrasonic view of my room if that makes sense..

I also see mental imagery. Seems random to me, but maybe there are messages hidden within.

I don't know. Just wanted to pitch in my two cents and let you know I experience this as well.

The last two nights I have been struggling with this.
Normally, in between sleep and being awake, I pass through a phase of having random images and sounds flicking through my consciousness, and I equate that with my mind just sort of venting randomly the stimulus of the day.
But these last few nights, (if it is that same process) it continues for a long time, sometimes hours,without me ever falling into a deeper sleep.
Also, the images I see are not ones I recognize. In the normal way this works, there will be people, words, phrases, ideas, that I was recently exposed to.
But right now, they are people I do not know, in situations that don't relate to anything I have been exposed to.

The worst part if just that I cannot get any real sleep, and am exhausted all day. Even during the day, I tried to take a nap, and the same thing just went on and on....

I am not bipolar or anything, and take no medications, and my life is not especially stressful right now.
I do tend to hear the hum, and have been hearing it for the last couple of weeks, but have never had this happen before (hum or not) so have no reason to believe the two are correlated.

reply to post by GENERAL EYES


Unwanted thought syndrome. Your mind is spiteful. Could be a lot worse though.
It will go away in time just don't worry about it.

So many theories.......

Let's get some things straight. Firstly, these images are not visualizations or thoughts. They are spontaneous and uncontrolled, with an energy and quality that is entirely different from imagined or visualized images induced by deliberate mental effort. Secondly, very few of the "slides" in the mental slideshow appear to refer to memories because the experiencer often cannot identify the pictures - or so it has been in my case. It is inaccurate to regard this kind of imagery as referring to personal memories. Their hallucinatory, '___'-like quality often seem bizarre and totally foreign, with faces of complete strangers or unfamiliar scenes one has never visited appearing. Thirdly, they are NOT hypnopopic images, which are either images of things seen during the day or memories of familiar things, all of which are experienced far more slowly than the rapid slideshow reported by the OP. Fourthly, hypothesizing a rush of brain chemicals as causative agents fails to explain why the phenomenon does not happen far more often - especially when it happens out of the blue without anything being so radically different in one's physical or psychological life that it could account for the sudden onset of these uncontrollable images (ignoring, of course, brain pathologies like tumours). Giving an ad hoc medical label to a bizarre perception may explain it away for some people. But it does not cut it for me. Human mental experiences are more diverse than anything neatly catalogued in textbooks on psychology and neurology.

I get these after a heavy night, images of normal faces that will start to turn really ugly and then into something a bit scary. It's usually accompanied with an annoying song that will ring around over and over and over. Something like
"friday, friday gotta get down it's friday"

I posted this in another thread but i'll repost it here. I don't see "images" per se. But when i close my eyes at night i see flashes of patterns. This started about 2 years ago randomly (maybe 1 night every few months) but now it's much more frequent. The only way i can describe it is if you rub your eyes really hard you start to see patters of light...it's like that but much more obvious. It's hard to describe otherwise

Interesting, and yes, I noticed that something slightly similar started happening to me about three or so years ago. However, in this case, it's not necessarily related to falling asleep or fatigue because it happens when my eyes are closed for whatever reason, anytime, day or night. What started happening was that once in a while, a dull "light spot" opened up in my mind's eye, slightly to my left, looking outward, and a vision would gradually come into focus. It was involuntary at first and I was unable to stop "seeing" this spot until I opened my eyes and let some light in. If I leave my eyes closed and focus on the spot, the vision gradually intensifies and comes slowly into view. Once I can tell what it is, it rarely changes other than some movement within the vision itself. So it's not like the flashing slide show you and others might be describing. The frequency started gradually increasing over time but the intensity of what I saw did and still does vary. Sometimes it starts out pretty clear and other times I have to focus to clarify it. I also learned to (and this sounds weird but...) control it more? Now I can both summon a vision and/or prevent it or get rid of it if it comes on its own. Hard to explain. Also, these aren't what I'd describe as dreams. With these visions, I can't "change the channel" as someone mentioned and as I too can and have always been able to with my "normal" presleep or sleep dream state.

Also, these things I see I don't "know." The vast majority of the time, I see a face I don't recognize and/or places that are unknown to me. Random scenes. And on the occasion that I do "see" something I recognize, it's usually the face of a person who has died. The last time I allowed a sight to crystallized, I saw a chain link fence in a sandy place in daylight with a canvas bag-lined bunker just beyond it and no people or other life around it other than a few loud, large birds flying by.

At first it sort of worried me, but then I decided to just "go with it" and see where it took me, and it's been interesting, to say the least...both the visions and thinking about where they might be coming from. I've been absolutely prescription and OTC med-free for over 14 years and am not unusually stressed out or obsessed about anything. The only thing I can think of that I might "abuse" and that might be in any way altering my natural "system" is caffeine or perhaps some additives in food or environmental factors that I'm unaware of. I've discussed this before, maybe 2-3 months ago, with another ATS member via U2U.

Originally posted by GENERAL EYES
I've never experienced a buzzing sound, although I have heard tones like one hears during hearing tests and minor cases of tinnitus.

Yeah this also happens sometimes. You hear this "piep" and you feel pressure in the ears. Sometimes the mentoined "buzz" will "shift" you away, like your mind is not connected to the body/head and after that it "rings" back.. It´s hard to describe for me because I´m trying to translate what i feel in a other language.

Yes.
I have had a similar experience countless times and I believe it came from starting to meditate a lot and not really knowing what I was getting into. That being said, it occasionally still happens to me, whether near sleep or in the middle of the day awake.
I would see some very negative and horrible images along with some horrible sounds and no matter what I tried I had a heck of a time getting rid of them.
I've seen some very convincing evidence of this kind of energy manifesting itself and starting to work at someone during their day as well.
There was a very simple cure, but it had to be sincere and persistent. about 5-10 minutes of a buddhist healing chant literally "excorsiced" whichever "demon" it was.

I believe the source of the negative energies is all linked, all the same energy, and the only way to really defeat these kinds of things is to put out a positive vibe and hold on to all of the positive light and fire inside of you.

nam myoho renge kyo
that was the chant I used. Literally, the negative energy physically left the body of the person.

ohm mani padme hum
that's another one I really like, very basic is the only chants I know, but they really do put out positive vibrations which are so much more powerful than negative ones.

Hmmm seems others have these as well, thing is for me unlike most here, I find them rather calming and enjoy having them (when I have them, which is rather rare)... havent yet tried to remember what im seeing and then correlate it with other material or memories.

Would be interesting. For me its mostly places, faces and scenes like photos of events from an eye level point of view.

reply to post by GENERAL EYES


Sorry I am late to this thread, somehow I missed it.

I have had these type of visualizations numerous times, usually I can control it and see the stars, planets and galaxies.

There are times I see beautiful mountains.

When I meditate there are times I see a man sitting on stump in a wooded area, he is wearing a long white robe and has long flowing white hair and beard, he is never close enough where I can make out his features, I mentally ask him who is and to please talk to me but it never happens.

Whoever this is he is loving, I have never had any fear.

Strange that you mention seeing clowns, I have seen what I consider animated clowns and for some reason they scare me, any clown scares me.

Another time I saw what looked like symbols, haven't a clue what they were and have never seen them again.

These are Sumerian and what I saw reminds me a little of these. The strange about seeing these symbols was it was during the day and I was wide awake, they were all yellow against the sky.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/b1c7af93c523.gif[/atsimg]

Perhaps a form of OCD, OCD manifests in unwanted thoughts. My best bet is that you're lacking on Dopamins or perhaps Serotonin.

Try to speak to a Psychotherapist, and if OCD then join CBT.

These are called hypnagogic images and they're completely normal. Everyone has them, not everyone remembers them and in our culture there's no reason to talk about them so it can seem like an abnormal thing. Just sit back and enjoy the slideshow

My eight year old sister keeps telling me and my mum that whenever she tries to sleep she gets scary images in her head and I am quite worried now so if any of you have any helpful info or tips I would be super happy to have them. Thank you

a reply to: GENERAL EYES

I suffered nerve damage back in 1999. My sciatic.

I would sometimes see crazy 'glitch in the matrix' in my field of view--->
even while my eyes were closed...

So I took to bicycle riding to cure myself.
Don't take pills to fight the pain, you have to let yourself 'feel the heal'.

Am I off my rocker- do you suffer back pain?

a reply to: loveguy

I'm in no position to gauge being "off ones rocker"....I know I'm somewhere off the porch and wandering around the yard already.

I have upper back pain, but I'm finding light yoga and a bit of low impact weights to help alleviate the worse of it.

Ah, the joys of aging.

Being over tired, especially from sleep deprivation does it for me. After you get that second wind, it is hard to fall asleep with all those busy thoughts and visions that keep popping up. I think it may be blood sugar related. Sometimes, having a candy bar or a hot chocolate can help calm it down.