I was looking around for a thread on whether anybody ever dreams in black and white (I don’t, and everybody I’ve asked who can see color when awake says they dream exclusively in color). While I haven’t found one yet, I ran across this one from January, which I think is a lot more interesting (if too short).
The OP was asking about this sensation of… well, I was gonna summarize it, but Pygmy Rugger really does describe it better than I can:
The thread’s about four months old, but I’m hoping to revive the discussion because I have that experience too. It’s not exactly a dream; it’s thoughts expressed as clear language, and it usually feels very similar to when I’m writing a story. I usually think it’s coherent, and suspect that these thoughts actually are sensible enough to post, say, on this message board. But in nearly every instance I forget the content entirely when I become fully awake. In fact, the only way I ever can remember this stuff is if it transitions into a full dream, as it sometimes does.
One other feature of the experience, at least as it occurs to me: I’m not aware that I’m actually asleep (that happens too, even in non-dream sleep, but it’s another topic), falling asleep, half-awake, transitioning, or whatever I want to call it. I’d go so far as to say that I forget, in this state, that there are any other kinds of experience at all. There have been a number of times, in fact, where I have a thought along the lines of, “…oh, and obviously this is what eternity is like.” That’s a startling enough thought to make me wake up all the way and wonder, “What the hell else was I thinking, though? Seemed interesting at the time. Oh well… zzzzzzz.”
FWIW, yes, I have used hallucinogens in the past. And no, it’s been over eight years. And interestingly (to me at least), I didn’t begin to have this sort of experience until shortly after my first trip (but on the other hand, after my first trip, I no longer had hypnopompic hallucinations… weird, huh?).
Anyhow, cmon folks, if any of this rings a bell, please give… I’d love to see more on this than only a couple of posts this time around. Part of the entertainment, I think, is writing about a subject such as “what it is like to be asleep” without sounding like you’ve fallen off your rocker.