This is probably only for people who are familier with lucid dreaming.
Why does hypnagogic imagery (that you get when you try to fall asleep conscious) look like the pattern you see when you press your finger against your closed eyelid?
If this is about to a Staff Report, a link is appreciated. Perhaps this is the one: Is it possible to do “astral traveling” while sleeping?
It was supposed to be in general Questions, but you deleted the one there.
It hasn’t been deleted or even closed. It has just been pushed off the first page of GQ by subsequent posts. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=80975
Oh, I see now. The second thread you opened on this subject in GQ was quite rightly closed by the redoubtable manhattan.
Since nobody else has replied, I’ll take a stab at it.
What is the pattern you see when you push your finger against the closed eyelid? I’m not sure, but it has something to do with your eyes picking up signals and transmitting them - it may be the rods and cones getting physically distorted, or maybe thermal pickup from the blood vessels. Anyway, the eye transmits whatever signal it gets, and the brain interprets what it receives.
Okay, so why does the hypnogogic or hypnopompic images look the same? I imagine you’re getting the same signal pickup to the eyes transmitted to the brain. Especially if your eyes close and you just think they’re still open.
Cecil covered this: What happens when you “see stars”?