# Do you have hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucinations sometimes?



## Tatiana Gordeeva (Jun 22, 2021)

Especially auditory hallucinations?
Hypnagogic = before falling asleep and Hypnopompic = upon waking up

Sounds that sounds _so real_ like phone ringing, door knocks, bangs, knocks, etc.
During that weird semi-conscious period where "lucid dreams" happen?

Nothing to worry about as 25-33% of population experience them. They're part of the parasomnia spectrum of experiences.








Hypnagogic Hallucinations


If you think you're seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting, or feeling things when you're half asleep, you may be experiencing hypnagogic hallucinations.




www.healthline.com





Check my other thread about earworms  Brains are weird! 100 billion neurons doing whatever _they _want!


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## toomanynotes (Jun 22, 2021)

If you mean as you just fallen asleep, you are suddenly awoken crudely by a jolt or as if you have fallen from a height. Then yes. It’s just when your mind is awake but your body is asleep. Same thing with sleep paralysis. Not sure what caused lucid dreaming, but I could wish for anything to make it happen; that used to be alot of fun years ago.


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## PeterN (Jun 22, 2021)

Tatiana Gordeeva said:


> Especially auditory hallucinations?
> Hypnagogic = before falling asleep and Hypnopompic = upon waking up
> 
> Sounds that sounds _so real_ like phone ringing, door knocks, bangs, knocks, etc.
> ...



Yea, but quite rarely though. 1-2 times a year, maybe.

I had the door knock in mid winter, living in cottage alone, "bang" woke up, it was the dream. The year before that I heard someone touch the key bundle (door and car keys). Heard the sound, woke up, but it was not for real.

Down in a conflict area (Manipur) where some teens had been shot (I think they were shot) I woke up to a "hello" in my hotel room - a teen voice. Spooky. In China too, a "hello" even said it in a Chingllish accent (chinese-english). So two ghost "hello" in a hotel room.  Both woke me up.

BTW this is common i war areas, you can check memoirs form Vietnam. Both Vietcong and US.

But as a musician you can use a milder version of this. Sometimes you thought you heard something in your music, it could just be a distraction of some kind, but it fits it there. So you can edit it in there later. Funny.


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## el-bo (Jun 23, 2021)

Tatiana Gordeeva said:


> Especially auditory hallucinations?
> Hypnagogic = before falling asleep and Hypnopompic = upon waking up
> 
> Sounds that sounds _so real_ like phone ringing, *door knocks, bangs, knocks, etc.*
> ...


I get this quite often.


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## ryans (Jun 23, 2021)

Hypnagogic yes. Typically when I'm on the verge of falling asleep and in a half-dream state.

Usually rather startling on the verge of disturbing. (Luckily) I'm an insomniac so it doesn't happen too often.


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Jun 23, 2021)

toomanynotes said:


> If you mean as you just fallen asleep, you are suddenly awoken crudely by a jolt or as if you have fallen from a height. Then yes.


Actually this is a similar thing called _hypnagogic jerk_ or _hypnic jerk_ (seriously) and may be triggered by stress or caffeine. I've read somewhere that this common reflex might be a remnant of the times when we, as apes, used to sleep in trees and prevented us from falling.


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Jun 23, 2021)

PeterN said:


> BTW this is common i war areas, you can check memoirs form Vietnam. Both Vietcong and US.


This points again to it being triggered by stress or anxiety. Interesting!


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Jun 23, 2021)

Many sleep disorders and parasomnia seem to run in families and therefore point to a genetic origin, maybe a susceptibility that can be triggered by specific conditions such as being tired, stress, caffeine, etc.

Its manifestations are quite diverse and sometimes really strange: https://www.healthline.com/health/parasomnia
Neurology is fascinating... and weird!


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## Double Helix (Jun 23, 2021)

Tatiana Gordeeva said:


> . . . Brains are weird! 100 billion neurons doing whatever _they _want!


According to Dr Gerald Edelman's _Bright Air, Brilliant Fire_, the number of possible synaptic connections in the human brain exceeds the number of sub-atomic particles in the known universe.

EDIT: I misspelled the good doctor's name


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## jbuhler (Jun 23, 2021)

Maybe once a year, just as I’m falling asleep, I’ll see a white flash accompanied by a loud boom. This usually ushers in a burst of creativity the next few days, like I’ve engaged mental afterburners.


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Jun 23, 2021)

jbuhler said:


> Maybe once a year, just as I’m falling asleep, I’ll see a white flash accompanied by a loud boom. This usually ushers in a burst of creativity the next few days, like I’ve engaged mental afterburners.


Creativity ensuing. Wow that's interesting!


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Jun 23, 2021)

Double Helix said:


> According to Dr Gerald Edelman's _Bright Air, Brilliant Fire_, the number of possible synaptic connections in the human brain exceeds the number of sub-atomic particles in the known universe.
> 
> EDIT: I misspelled the good doctor's name


Well, hardly, and impossible since neurons and their connections are themselves made of sub-atomic particles  According to my physicist husband the observable universe has an estimated 10^80 particles, give or take a few 

The brain has an average of 7000 synapses per neuron (some just a few but some have 200000!) so that makes about 700 000 billions or about 10^15 so A LOT LESS by a factor of 10^65 i.e. one followed by 65 zeroes less!

Of course there are also apparently as many glial cells as neurons so... But their exact role, once thought to be just support for the neuron nachinery, is still not well-understood.

Fascinating and mysterious this wet computer that is the human brain!


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## Loïc D (Jun 23, 2021)

I have often very realistic dreams where I play live with a band on a great stage, either on guitar or bass.
The lineup has no members of my actual band.
Shall I deduct something?


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## Double Helix (Jun 23, 2021)

Far be it for me to disagree with your in-house phyicist, but. . .
From "Dr Edelman's Brain" in the 2 May 1994 _New Yorker




_


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Jun 23, 2021)

Loïc D said:


> I have often very realistic dreams where I play live with a band on a great stage, either on guitar or bass.The lineup has no members of my actual band.
> Shall I deduct something?


Yes, you're crazy and one of us, *one of us, one of us...*
Welcome to the group!


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Jun 23, 2021)

@Double Helix Not wanting a debate too but this is utter non-sensical outdated info. I stand by my original post if you don't mind  

It is often said that even Nobel prize winners become "softer in the brain" with age.  Dr Ederlman got his for his work on the immune system, a very different thing from his late interest about consciousness (which is a fascinating subject I admit). If this interests you, may I suggest books and articles by V.S. Ramachandran.

FYI: a trillion is one million million or "merely" 10^12. The _estimated_ number of particles is 10^80 which is 100 million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillions!


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## Double Helix (Jun 23, 2021)

Tatiana Gordeeva said:


> Actually this is a similar thing called _hypnagogic jerk_ or _hypnic jerk_ (seriously) and may be triggered by stress or caffeine.* I've read somewhere that this common reflex might be a remnant of the times when we, as apes, used to sleep in trees and prevented us from falling.*


Yes, I experience this hypnagogic jerk (I did not know the formal term) semi-frequently, perhaps a couple of times/month.
And this is surely relative to Carl Sagan's observation in _The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence_ that infant chimpanzees and infant humans share three innate fears: fear of the dark, fear of reptiles, and fear of falling.

Fascinating thread


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## Stringtree (Jun 23, 2021)

PeterN said:


> But as a musician you can use a milder version of this. Sometimes you thought you heard something in your music, it could just be a distraction of some kind, but it fits it there. So you can edit it in there later. Funny.



The twelve-string guitar guy was slack in fretting a few notes of a sliding chord, and it turned into a whole brass section with mutes on the recording. Definitely stole the idea!

Yeah, I'll hear a loud bang or a raging engine moving around the house and there's nothing there. A television soundtrack with dialogue and music, and nothing there. Tinnitus from years of loud concert clubs doesn't bother me as much as phantom sounds. The brain is weird.


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## Double Helix (Jun 23, 2021)

Tatiana Gordeeva said:


> @Double Helix Not wanting a debate too but this is utter non-sensical outdated info. I stand by my original post if you don't mind
> 
> It is often said that even Nobel prize winners become "softer in the brain" with age.  Dr Ederlman got his for his work on the immune system, a very different thing from his late interest about consciousness (which is a fascinating subject I admit). If this interests you, may I suggest books and articles by V.S. Ramachandran.
> 
> FYI: a trillion is one million million or "merely" 10^12. The _estimated_ number of particles is 10^80 which is 100 million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillions!


I need to add Ramachandran to my lite summer beach reading
(and I do not mind in the least, Tatiana--I hope we can still be VI-C pals)


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## Double Helix (Jun 23, 2021)

Stringtree said:


> . . . Tinnitus from years of loud concert clubs doesn't bother me as much as phantom sounds. The brain is weird.


I prefer to think of my own tinnitus as an extended, one-note synthesizer solo


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Jun 23, 2021)

Double Helix said:


> I need to add Ramachandran to my lite summer beach reading
> (and I do not mind in the least, Tatiana--I hope we can still be VI-C pals)


Absolutely!  I really enjoy this discussion and the diverse contributions.


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Jun 23, 2021)

Double Helix said:


> I need to add Ramachandran to my lite summer beach reading
> (and I do not mind in the least, Tatiana--I hope we can still be VI-C pals)


In this case get this short one first








A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness


How can some people come to believe that their poodle is an impostor? Or see colors in numbers? Internationally acclaimed neuroscientist,...



www.goodreads.com




It's an easy and fun read!
Then you can check Dennett, Pinker, Sachs, etc.


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## Double Helix (Jun 23, 2021)

Many thanks, I'm going to have my Inter-Library-Loan expert check its availability Carolyn is batting 1.000, having accessed books from Cambridge and Harvard for me (!)

(Though I have not read their entire body/bodies of work, Daniel Dennett and Steven Pinker are among my favorites. AS you know, Oliver Sachs has had numerous articles published in the _New Yorker_; he has a manner of anecdotal writing that makes complex topics approachable for the lay-reader. . . and I can recommend David Chalmers' work on consciousness if you haven't already encountered it--though I must admit that it is somewhat beyond me and requires repeated reading: the "hard problem" is, indeed, hard. I posted in another thread that exploring "consciousness" with one's consciousness is inherently a tautology)

Much appreciated


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Jun 23, 2021)

Yes, Chalmers too of course. My husband is a neurology buff so we have this huge section of the library at home devoted to it and associated subjects.  I have my own pick to peek at them.

He also enjoys this series called _Closer to Truth_ where Kuhn interviews the greatest thinkers, scientists, etc. and discusses with them subjects like physics, cosmology, consciousness, etc. It has been around for 20+ years now. First grade stuff!


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## toomanynotes (Jun 23, 2021)

Tatiana Gordeeva said:


> Actually this is a similar thing called _hypnagogic jerk_ or _hypnic jerk_ (seriously) and may be triggered by stress or caffeine. I've read somewhere that this common reflex might be a remnant of the times when we, as apes, used to sleep in trees and prevented us from falling.


Interesting! I also had panic attacks and sleep paralysis nightmares for 15 straight years. These monsters would chase off the top of the a skyscraper..I would be pushed off and fall (terrifying might I add) but always landed on my bed with a jolt…never the ground in the dream. Witches, invisible entites too. Not nice.
At one point I could to control my dreams, make things happen as I fell asleep…fly over the clouds and sea was the best feeling ever! It really was special and liberating.
Anyway, bck to the nightmares,
Finally one day I confronted my demons, I was chased back up the Skyscraper, I stood at the edge and the monsters started to slowly walk towards me. I told myself I won’t die if I jump…(leap of faith) convincing myself I will end up landing in my bed away from these @##wipes.
I jumped and the most bizarre terrifying twist occurred..I landed….on the road, not my bed! I looked up and saw the creatures point down at me as if to say we’re coming! I screamed Noooooooooooooo! And that extra shock landed me in my bed with a cold sweat. Talk about double heart attack. So cunning are nightmares. Anyway, I never saw the monsters ever again.
Just thought I’d throw that one out there.🌝


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## Polkasound (Jun 23, 2021)

Once when I was a kid, I remember panicking and jumping out of bed as a tornado was ripping through my bedroom, only to wake up to a whooshing sound effect quietly playing on the radio. That's when I realized that my brain will pick up the faintest of sounds, amplify them to 11, and insert them into my dreams as something else.

To this day, if I have a sudden sound inserted into a dream, I know it was based on a real sound. For example, if I dream of people screaming, the neighbor kids are probably playing outside. If I dream of a gun shot, the wind probably caught a window shade in the other room. If I dream of an explosion, my cat probably knocked something off the table.

Sleep paralysis was always pretty nasty. You're conscious, but trapped in a sleeping body. You're like, "Oh crap, here we go again!" and you're sucked into this dark void of a paralyzed state, often during a nightmare. You tense up every muscle and let out a Rambo scream and eventually you "bust through" to consciousness and wake up.

Since I was diagnosed with sleep apnea, as long as I have my CPAP mask on, I don't have sleep paralysis episodes. So I figure my sleep paralysis must have something to do with oxygen levels.


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## Double Helix (Jun 23, 2021)

This 
I've always marveled at how we are able to integrate an external sound into our dreams and have it seem perfectly logical.

(EDIT -- way to spell, Double Helix)


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Jun 23, 2021)

There was an interesting article related to that sensory integration recently









Dream engineering: Simulating worlds through sensory stimulation


We explore the application of a wide range of sensory stimulation technologies to the area of sleep and dream engineering. We begin by emphasizing the causal role of the body in dream generation, and describe a circuitry between the sleeping body and ...




www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov





The brain is thirsty for info to process as shown by her work here in Montreal 
https://esolomonova.wordpress.com/about/


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## cuttime (Jun 23, 2021)

I have experienced hypnagogic hallucinations most of my life, usually the ringing doorbell type. I think it is somehow related to expectations (When is that delivery coming?), much like the phantom phone phenomenon:





Phantom vibration syndrome - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org





What really got my attention was a bout of exploding head syndrome (again, not a joke). I had the sensation of a supernova going off in my head followed by a complete lack of consciousness that slowly returned. No pain. Again it was during the period of hypnagogia. I'd note that I've suffered sleep disturbances all my life:








Exploding Head Syndrome - Sleep Education


Exploding head syndrome is a rare parasomnia in which affected persons awaken from sleep with the sensation of a loud noise.




sleepeducation.org


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## Alchemedia (Jun 23, 2021)

Tatiana Gordeeva said:


> Actually this is a similar thing called _hypnagogic jerk_ or _hypnic jerk_ (seriously) and may be triggered by stress or caffeine. I've read somewhere that this common reflex might be a remnant of the times when we, as apes, used to sleep in trees and prevented us from falling.


I still fall asleep in trees occasionally. Fortunately, they're all bonsai's so I rarely get bruised.


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Jun 26, 2021)

Tatiana Gordeeva said:


> Of course there are also apparently as many glial cells as neurons so... But their exact role, once thought to be just support for the neuron nachinery, is still not well-understood.
> 
> Fascinating and mysterious this wet computer that is the human brain!


About glial cells and sleep: searching about sleep and creativity, I found this surprising (to me) article:








Why Sleep Deprivation Eases Depression


Glial activity reveals how sleep deprivation elevates mood




www.scientificamerican.com




Curious brains!


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## Loïc D (Jun 26, 2021)

Totally Little Nemo stories you’ve got 

When I was a kid, I used to have a recurring dream of a ghost chasing me in the house I grew up. Woke up in cold sweat, and right after the nightmare, thinking about how I can turn the end of rhe dream at my advantage.
Everytime I had this dream, I managed to make the story progress a little.
Until I managed to defeat the ghost abd never had this nightmare again.

Iterative solution ? No wonder I became engineer afterwards


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Jun 26, 2021)

Thanks @Loïc D for introducing me to Little Nemo. I didn't know. I also learned along the way about dime museums. Cool!

Iterative? Good thing it's not recursive!


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## Alchemedia (Jun 26, 2021)

Tatiana Gordeeva said:


> About glial cells and sleep: searching about sleep and creativity, I found this surprising (to me) article:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I just read this and was about to post it to this thread and low & behold you already did!


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## Loïc D (Jun 26, 2021)

Tatiana Gordeeva said:


> Thanks @Loïc D for introducing me to Little Nemo. I didn't know. I also learned along the way about dime museums. Cool!
> 
> Iterative? Good thing it's not recursive!


You’re welcome.
Little Nemo is awesome. One of my favorite comic book ever.


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Jun 26, 2021)

If, like me, you are interested by the number of glial cells vs neurons, you will know how the estimations of this ratio varied over time. For ex. from 1:1 to 50:1 (glial cells to neurons) depending on sources!

Here's some good refs about this question (but both from 2012):









Know Your Neurons: What Is the Ratio of Glia to Neurons in the Brain?







blogs.scientificamerican.com




and 








The remarkable, yet not extraordinary, human brain as a scaled-up primate brain and its associated cost


Neuroscientists have become used to a number of “facts” about the human brain: It has 100 billion neurons and 10- to 50-fold more glial cells; it is the largest-than-expected for its body among primates and mammals in general, and therefore the most cognitively able; it consumes an outstanding...




www.pnas.org




If you have more recent estimates please let me know. Sorry for diverting the thread a bit.


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## dcoscina (Jun 26, 2021)

I’ve heard someone whisper my name twice in my life when I was falling asleep. Creeped me out.


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## Macrawn (Jun 26, 2021)

I had a very lucid dream when I was knocked out for an operation. When you get put under there is absolutely nothing, but when I started coming too I had the most vivid dream as I was starting to become conscious again. 

I thought to myself after that, I bet if people knew about that they would take that knock out drug for recreational purposes. 

Then like 10 years later Michael Jackson OD on the stuff. I know he was using it because he couldn't sleep supposedly, but I do wonder if the lucid dreaming was part of the appeal of it. 

Anyone ever dream something and then it happened in exactly the same way? Like Deja vu?


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Jun 26, 2021)

dcoscina said:


> I’ve heard someone whisper my name twice in my life when I was falling asleep. Creeped me out.


Did you recognize the voice? See the face?

BTW I've read somewhere that if in a dream you hear a voice you usually cannot see the face and vice versa. Is that a real thing? And why? Faces are recognized by the fusiform gyrus area of the brain. OTOH it is the posterior superior temporal gyrus in the right posterior temporal lobe which is responsible for voice recognition.

Problems in these areas lead to prosopagnosia (cannot recognize faces) and phonagnosia (voices).
Having no emotional response to either is _the very weird _Capgras syndrome. Neuro is fun stuff!


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Jun 26, 2021)

Macrawn said:


> I had a very lucid dream when I was knocked out for an operation. When you get put under there is absolutely nothing, but when I started coming too I had the most vivid dream as I was starting to become conscious again.


My husband was put in coma for 3 weeks and awaken progressively during a week. He experienced vivid visual hallucinations (annoying repetitive patterns moving horizontally then stopping), like frames of a movie. He also hears music and dreamt scenes but it was not lucid dreaming (he had no control over it all). Only months later was he able to pinpoint the source of these, some going back to this exact video (music by Sviridov on top of constructivism imagery) he watched a few weeks before surgery. He could discuss details for hours...

http://www.onf.ca/film/tower_bawher/
OTOH he practices lucid dreaming almost daily. It helps him solve mathematical problems and think creatively about physics. You can learn to do it better and longer over time. He does it in the morning usually.


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## Wedge (Jun 26, 2021)

I used to hear things as I was falling asleep but it's been a few years.

As far as lucid dreaming goes...
One night I had a work dream, I was a server at the time, and there was a staircase in the middle of the dining area that brought you to a second dining area (the only staircase at my place of work was to dry storage in the basement.) When I realized it, I was carrying a tray up the stairs. I dropped the tray and said 'Fuck This!' I walked out and had my first lucid dream. After that night, I noticed I have staircases in my dreams quite often and almost everytime they're in a weird place. When I first started noticing the stairs I would get a little too excited and wake up. So I had to teach myself to take a couple deep breaths and walk away from my surroundings calmly, it didn't take long to get that down. So just by being aware that staircases show up in my dreams a lot, I have about a one to two lucid dreams a month. I assume everyone has something like that and it's just a matter of finding yours. But I don't know.


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## dcoscina (Jun 27, 2021)

Tatiana Gordeeva said:


> Did you recognize the voice? See the face?
> 
> BTW I've read somewhere that if in a dream you hear a voice you usually cannot see the face and vice versa. Is that a real thing? And why? Faces are recognized by the fusiform gyrus area of the brain. OTOH it is the posterior superior temporal gyrus in the right posterior temporal lobe which is responsible for voice recognition.
> 
> ...


Nope no face just a voice. I don’t even recall if it was male or female because it was a whisper. Creepy…

ive had night terrors ever since I was a kid though they seldom happen anymore. I wonder if this has something to do with that….


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Jun 27, 2021)

Judd said:


> So I had to teach myself to take a couple deep breaths and walk away from my surroundings calmly, it didn't take long to get that down. So just by being aware that staircases show up in my dreams a lot, I have about a one to two lucid dreams a month. I assume everyone has something like that and it's just a matter of finding yours. But I don't know.


That's exactly what I meant when I wrote "You can learn to do it better and longer over time." 

I remember reading that about half the people experience it at least once in their lifetime but only 20% have it at least once a month. It is less common than déja vu (about 75%, less as we age). And no, it's _not_ a glitch in the matrix


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Jun 27, 2021)

I find this whole discussion *absolutely fascinating! *To find out what other creative types experience. Don't you just love this? *Thank you to everyone *for sharing your experiences so far! Let's hope this continues...


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Jun 27, 2021)

Since we were discussing the complexity of the brain here my husband attracted my attention to a recent paper about the internal structure of dendritic spines. The general view is like this; the image on the right is a zoomed view of the synapse (circled red) on the left, axon on top and spine on bottom.

Between the axon and the dendrite's spine is the *synaptic gap*. This is where stuff happens!  These little dots are neurotransmitters. There are 500+ different ones identified so far, categorized in 60 types. The 7 major ones are "the usual suspects" for medication: acetylcholine, dopamine, gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), glutamate, histamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin.






Now if you zoom and look INSIDE ONE of the spines it looks like this!  These are all different proteins, all coiled up!!!




Source: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-021-00874-w

Crazy stuff  and also the stuff of crazyness


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