Hypnogogic and hypnopompic halluctnations.

Having suffered from these since I was a kid, along with night terrors, nightmares and (sleep walking which stopped when I was 16.) Then came RLS, insomnia and sleep apnea after a sleep study a few years back.

How did you cope with hypno hallucinations? I actually got used to them, even though sometimes they would still catch me off guard and scare the hell out of me. I noticed that every time I was prescribed benzo's they would go away. Valium or mogadon worked wonders for them but once I was diagnosed with RLS I was prescribed Rivotril (clonazepam) and basically have maybe one or two a year now. It's fantastic for them, and also works on my anxiety and mood stabilization. I'm slowing weening off my clonazepam at the moment and was wondering, if they come back. Is there anything else that stops them? Or should I stay on a low dose of Clonazepam to keep them at bay. I've weened from 6mg a day down to 4.5mg a day with no ill effects so far. I'm doing this very slowly as I know the drill very well with coming off benzo's too quickly. W

sorry i'm not sure what those big words mean in your title would you mind explaining. I recently had hallucinations for the first time and diazapam was the only thing that helped them in away.

hi crystalrose, the best explanation I have found that describes them in depth and easy to understand was on wiki but it has change a bit since I last read it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia

There are more links at the bottom of the page, some of which are good too. Mine are alway accompanied with auditory, visual, tactile and sleep paralysis. It's rather unpleasant and too long for me to explain properly. When I was younger I thought I was being attacked/haunted by the paranormal upon falling asleep and waking up. Having sleep paralysis while your nightmare enters the room with you as you wake up is awful, so is the feeling of being touched, grabbed, slapped or pinned to the bed with the feeling of a heavy nasty presence in the room. W

I was just wondering if anyone else out there has suffered or is suffering from them too. W

I have hypnagogic visions when I am falling asleep. I think this is the common use of the word--it's these half awake/half asleep little dreams we have. I am often sleep deprived and start to nod off to sleep quite a few times each day, and so I have rich hypnagogic visions. They are interesting but I have never been concerned about them. I think they are normal. What you are describing sounds more troublesome. I think one way to combat them is to make sure you are very well rested so you don't start falling asleep during the day. If you have untreated sleep apnea, this can be a problem.

Good luck.

Well,
the only way I avoid hallucinations is not sleeping on my back and having a scheduled sleep schedule

-Kiana

Don't sleep on your back.
Have a full nights sleep.
No sweet stuff

Reg. hypnagogic hallucinations aren't always intense and sometimes the visual ones are even limited to behind your eyelids (though not always). You said you have sleep paralysis with the hallucinations (the hallucinations tend to be more severe and often frightening during sleep paralysis), and that's a whole other ball park, generally speaking! Tokitoki had good advice about avoiding sleeping on your back, as I have read it increases the likelihood of having sleep paralysis. Sorry I don't have any more advice, but wanted to back up tokitoki on this one. Do you normally sleep on your back? I'm sorry you are dealing with this. I know it must be really frightening. Also, are you usually sleep deprived when you go to sleep or...?

Thanks for the advice, I do sleep on my back now but I didn't when I was suffering from them. I have a bad back and cannot sleep on my stomach at all. I can sleep for small periods of time on my sides, but once I come off clonazepam. I know they will come back. They came back pretty quickly when I came off Valium. I'll talk to my sleep Dr about it when I see him next.

tokitokiATTACK and locust thank for your suggestions. And locust you are so right when they are combined with sleep paralysis. 99% of mine are. I feel the paralysis setting in and then it begins, mainly upon waking. When I'm falling asleep, they are generally more auditory in nature and don't bother me too much.

It's so hard to explain to people, the absolute worst ones for me are I wake up from a nightmare, it's always very early dawn, there is a very dark blue haze. I dive for my light and it won't switch on or if it's not too bad I'll get up for a glass of water. Every time I get to the kitchen and touch a glass or another light switch, I wake up back in bed paralysed and then the nightmare I was having enters the room. It's not early dawn either. That was one of they ways I learnt it was happening and learnt how to take control of them.

Maybe I'll just wait and see what happens when I come off clonazepam. I can always stay on a low dose like 0.25 or 0.5mg and see if that works!

I'm just looking to see if there are any other ways out there to stop them, either through a practiced technique or medication other than a benzo. W

I've never heard of the term before but now that I've read a little bit about it I've had similar experiences as a little kid. They use to scare me really bad because I was afraid I was going blind (because said hallucinations involved big black blobs shrinking inside a green light of sorts... hard to explain) eventually I guess I just "grew out of them" as after a few years they just stopped.