Image by Gerd Altmann from http://Pixabay.com

Faces That Pass By in My Mind as I Close My Eyes to Sleep -

Would you like to have a Netflix streaming service in your head with no monthly subscription fee?  Sounds pretty cool but I actually DO have one of those, only I never get to pick what I am watching. And it only happens when I am falling asleep …

…it’s a black and white slide show of people, mainly faces, whom I’ve never seen before. Some are hideous and some are beautiful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the same two faces, men and woman and beasts. People who look modern and people who look ancient and people from the future, people who belong to a different time. I see the very old and the very young and the in-betweens. They don’t haunt me and they don’t frighten me. I see them just as they are and I let them exist. Sometimes the faces change expressions and sometimes they turn into another face. I am still awake and conscious – it not a film I can watch while eating popcorn. Sometimes I open my eyes and shut them again. They’re only in my head, not in my room. They pass by quickly and morph from one face

to the next face to the next. Maybe I will see 20-40 faces before I fall asleep or before my mind wanders on to something else and the faces disappear. I don’t have much control over this phenomenon – I can’t conjure up the images just by closing my eyes if I am not already sleepy or trying to see the images. They just appear … or they don’t, and I go to sleep.

Even though I am just watching and have no attachment to these faces, I do get a brief feeling of sadness when I see a grim face, happy when I see a smile, horror when I see a grotesque face. But my emotions pass by quickly because a) they are not real and b) the faces change quickly … no more than a second or a half a second for each face.  It’s like I’m watching t.v. – I know it isn’t real, I just accept them as the faces that pass by in my mind as I lay my head to sleep.

This started happening a few years ago. I don’t really remember, I can’t say I was paying too much attention. I was just trying to go to sleep. (I’m a bit of an insomniac some nights.) And then I started to think about more about the faces. Why was I seeing them at all?

Before you ask, I don’t do drugs and I rarely drink and I’m not on any type of prescription medication. The scientific name for seeing faces and landscapes and stars before you fall asleep may be related to “Hypnagogic Hallucinations“. But this can encompass many different types of sleep issues, and I don’t really consider what I see before falling asleep as “an issue”. It sort of relaxes me and induces sleep, more than anything.

I wonder sometimes if they are real people living right now somewhere on the planet. If that smile or that look of despair or that terrified face is actually happening somewhere right now and it’s being teleported into my brain. I wonder if they were real people or if I have seen these people before and don’t remember. I think that if I was an artist, this would be a great opportunity for drawing inspiration! But I don’t remember the faces for long anyway and I can’t paint well.

Sometimes I don’t see faces at all. I just close my eyes and wait until I fall asleep.

Rarely, but it does happen, I see landscapes instead of the faces. This is more fun because, unlike the faces, they are usually in color. Sunsets and oceans and trees and mountains. But it only happens for a tenth of a second and then it’s gone. I wonder, too – are these real landscapes in some far away land? I know I haven’t been to any of these landscapes, but maybe I will one day. Or maybe it was in a past life of vagabonding that I did see these picturesque visions. I wish I could see the images whenever I wanted … because it is really peaceful to watch them, although when I get too excited over them they tend to disappear more quickly.

And these images that pass by my mind make me think of the actual visions I see with my eyes wide open and conscious, walking around the world. What is it that I am seeing when I look up at the sky or watch a sunset or sit on a bench people watching? If I sit very still and be very quiet, it too, the life I am in, seems like a movie that I am watching.

Yet we take this planet and our surroundings for granted, rarely looking up at the beautiful painting in the sky, crafted especially for us to enjoy. Every day, different designs are chosen, changing color and form. From the first act when the sun starts the day, in all its pink and polished golden glory, through the longueur midday blue hues pluming with pearly clouds rolling over each other, to the set piece sunset, where any number of colorful events could occur – silver, gold, bronze, pinks and purples and blues — the sky sparkles and then dissolves. And then at last of course the final scene, the night, filled with diamond specs and a looming moon.

And every day it’s different! Everyday it’s something new!

Our lives, our earthly lives, are more like ocean waves … created by a force of gravity and h2O, slowly forming into larger, stronger beings that usually step in line with the other beings, just as waves follow one another, side by side, row after row. Maybe sometimes something different happens — the wave dissolves early, takes off in another direction, goes off on its own, or grows to be a giant tsunami. But in the end, all the waves eventually land back at shore and dissolve back into the ocean, no matter how big, small, mediocre or powerful.

Is it this life that is the dream?

Once I awoke from a dream, a bad dream, in which I seemed to be frozen and then I broke free. I may have still been dreaming, but I thought I was awake – I thought I was awake and that I was paralyzed!!

This is technically called “sleep paralysis”, a frightening thing as you can well imagine, and is not as uncommon as you might think.

Anyway, what I saw, in my bedroom (after I broke free from my bad dream) was the most brilliant display of stars, bright shining stars and spinning in a way that, well, the way they were spinning, just made sense. I believe I was awake, but it’s hard to say for sure. It made me so happy. I remember smiling and thinking I didn’t want this great spectacle to ever end. I remember thinking that I am just a part of those stars and that I was given a glimpse into some very special and small opening to see what “it’s” like. I don’t really know what “it” is, but I felt like I did at the time. It wasn’t a life-changing experience by any stretch so I don’t want to over-dramatize. That is how I felt at the time, however.

Unlike the faces and the landscapes I sometimes see before I fall asleep, this star light show in my room lasted for what seemed like five minutes, maybe even ten. But maybe it was only 30 seconds. It was time enough for me to take it all in and remain in awe for quite some time after. Since I was sleeping alone, there was no one to nudge to make sure I was dreaming or not.

I have lots of other weird things that happen in my sleep that have scientific names.

Lucid Dreams

S l e e p    P a r a l y s i s

Night Terrors

EXPLODING HEAD SYNDROME
(Yes, that’s a thing. Google it.)

It’s all just things going on in my brain and perhaps a scientist can put a label on it and he can hook up a machine to monitor my eye movement or my brain activity or even see what changes are happening in my brain during my hallucinations or dreams or whatever they are called. These strange things are not so uncommon.

And a scientist can tell me that it is because this or that is occurring in the brain and give explanations for every turn in my brain. But the scientist can’t explain WHY I see faces and not cars. She can’t tell me WHY I see a particular face instead of another. Because there is so much we don’t know. We don’t know jack shit in reality – we don’t even know WHAT reality IS! 

Ah, reality. Is the world full of zombies, called you and me? Are we awake or are we only dreaming?

http://introspectionist.com/2015/08/21/faces-that-pass-by-in-my-mind-as-i-close-my-eyes-to-sleep/