Yes, This Will Be On the Test

Writing, Reading, Laughing

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Hypnagogia

Thank you all for your patience at my impromtu blog vanishing act over the last month.  



Have you ever been awakened by a deafening noise? 
Or did you just imagine you'd been awakened by a deafening noise? When you embrace consciousness, the house is dead silent. Your middle of the night investigation fails to reveal any mass destruction.

You've been visited by the specter of HYPNAGOGIA.

It's the freaky transitional state between sleeping and waking where the real and unreal inhabit the same space. Yes, there may be unicorns.

I woke up in a panic last week POSITIVE a mouse ran across my foot under my covers. I've never leapt to my feet faster in my life. My blankets were whipped off that bed so fast I created a wind chill factor in my bedroom.

I had two more "twilight zone" encounter with the mystery mouse. Alas, I have yet to prove its existence. 

Finally I unleashed my cat, Padme, who is a huntress extraordinaire, into my room. All she did was look bored. No scent at all. 

It's time to admit my mousey nemesis lives in the ether between sawing zzzzz's and being conscious.

At least it wasn't a snake.
No Freudian comments please.

Have you ever had an oddball twilight vision?

I feel a Hypnagogia Club coming on.

19 comments:

  1. I frequently wake up with the feeling of *something* in my room. Often, it's one of my kids staring at me, saying, "I had a bad dream." Other times, nothing that I can explain... *cue Twilight Zone music*

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  2. Oh, what I would've given to be in the room watching you battle with a phantom mouse! Campfire stories, Leslie! I notice that I have weird dreams like that when I'm sick.

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  4. Oh goodness I know exactly what you mean and of course there is a nutty latinish word for it!

    Even more impressive, to me, is your cat's name. Love.

    It's not mice for me, it's spiders or other crawlies on my face. I can create quite a wind factor, too. But I've never actually found the crawlie. So I think its the hypnagogia thing. Or at least I fervently hope so.

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    1. I read somewhere we eat some freakish number of spiders in our sleep. Maybe that's why you can't find them. EEEWWWW.

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  5. Glad it wasn't a real mous! I can relate to that period of reality between sleep and waking. I have had some odd things "happen" during that time!

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  6. Sounds like good material for a short story. ;)

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  7. Ooooo, creepy. My daughter has had this happen with spiders. Se will fly out of her bed like a ninja warrior. There weird part is that there usually IS a spider over her bed. Ewww.

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    1. Spider TOTALLY freak out my son. I just squish them. I'm sure in my next life there will be a line of spiders waiting to squish me.

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  8. Hypnagogia and I are good friends. I sometimes wake up thinking I hear one of my kids crying, but a quick check reveals gentle snores if anything.

    Welcome back and congrats on Pitch Wars (I loved your entry)!

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    1. Thanks you Vicki. Pitch Wars was a blast and a half. I'm so appreciative of the opportunity.

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  9. I woke up several times over the years with the feeling that somebody had just touched my hand or arm. Quite unsettling when it happens! :)

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  10. There are so many book opportunities there. Yes, I've had those hallucinations before. Well, no mice thankfully, but other things. Now if only I could get enough sleep to qualify for hypnogogia these days...

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  11. Oh yes. I know that sheet-ripping-off-the-bed moment! I think mine was a spider crawling up my back. Never found that beastie, but she left a small trail of red bites. The dream that came just before her reality, was not nice.

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  12. I know what you mean.... like the 2 worlds overlap... it seems so real!

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  13. Yes, I've felt or heard things that weren't there. Sometimes I think it's definitely happening in real life, and other times my dream overlaps with reality.

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