Not much more to the question, really. I’m just wondering why it appears impossible to retain a memory of something we do every single night. I mean, really…what does the actual moment of falling asleep feel like? Also, would it be possible through some kind of training (I’m thinking of ‘Lucid Dreaming’ here) to remain sort of conscious as you become…er, UNconscious?
Now my head hurts…
I do remember falling asleep. I really like it.
So why am I still on-line?
I read myself to sleep usually, so I have very focused as I feel my eyes start to close, and my body fade away and my mind start to drift.
You’re probably just one of those lucky people who fall asleep quickly.
As you fall asleep, your mind begins to disassociate, this is the initial part of the sleep process. You probably have noticed that as you drift off you start to think about odd, random things which you pay less and less attention to. It’s hard to fall asleep when you’ve got something on your mind, and the best way to go to sleep is to ignore it and let your mind wander. Your consciousness needs to scatter apart before it can enter a dream state.
You’ve probably closed your eyes sometimes when you’re really tired and lapsed into a waking dream. I did this in class sometimes, often ending when I tripped over an imaginary root and my arms jerked in reflex, waking me up with a start to the amusement of my classmates. The dream state is not conducive to conscious memory, which is why you remember very little about your dreams each night. It stands to reason therefore that you should remember very little about entering this state, even when it comes in the form of an overtired afternoon nap. At night you are more likely to just lapse into unconsciousness.
Some people have the focus and training to fall into a dream state without loosing consciousness, it’s called Astral Projection and is often associated with the occult, mostly because the manuals for it date back to ancient Buddhist teachings and philosophies. If it happens that you gain consciousness in the middle of the dream, a far more common and easily studied phenomenon, it’s called a Lucid Dream. I’ve had a few of those, and I can tell you that the hardest part about them is maintaining focus. It’s amazing how easy it is for you to stop paying attention for a second and slide back into a dream.
I can occasionally remember falling asleep, especially if it’s a time when I’m trying to stay awake. More often I can trace back my thought patterns afterward; as they become more and more erratic, I lose more and more of my consciousness and finally I can’t remember anything else. In this latter case, it’s generally if I wake up during the first hour or two of sleeping.
I remember that this used to happen to me as a kid. One incident is very clear in my mind. (I was very young; probably around 6 or 8.) I was dreaming about climbing on a mountain nearly vertically, when I felt that I ‘woke up’ but I was still in my dream. I realized I was still dreaming, and that I could consciously control my dream! I up and flew off the mountain, flying around and having a grand old time.
Once in awhile, I can still do this, but not quite the same way. I can wake up in the middle of a dream in the morning, and think ‘that was a nice dream, what if I could have done this’, roll over, and go back to dreaming, having added elements that I thought of while awake (but the dream is again ‘real’ and I don’t remember that I’m dreaming).
I am sometimes aware of falling asleep. I normally imagine various things while I’m lying in bed and sometimes I am consciously aware of a moment when I am no longer an outsider imagining things, but I become one with the imagined surroundings. Kind of like changing from watching TV to actually being the person in the TV.
It is also the point where my thoughts become more surreal. If I think about it too hard I wake, in fact the only time that I remember this kind of thing is if I wake fairly quickly afterwards.
Waking can be interesting from that state. Sometimes when I wake it’s as if I was hovering about a half foot above the bed, I don’t get a falling sensation so much as the feeling that the ground/bed has hit me in the back.
I notice when I’m about to fall asleep…I find myself going into that subconscious mode where I’m very still and peaceful, and anything outside my mind seems very muted…and I can think to myself, “I’m about to fall asleep,” but if I concentrate on it, I start waking back up. The trick is to keep thinking random thoughts.
But I can’t remember the actual moment I fall asleep, either.
And I’d like to know what the deal is with having to pee so bad while you’re asleep that you dream that you get up and head to the bathroom. It’s not “dreamlike” at all; I actually think I’m sitting on the toilet to pee, and that I’m totally wide awake.
I’ve always stopped short of actually doing it–peeing in bed–but I swear I’ve come close. That damn dream just seems so real!
You might be interested in reading from Richard Feynman’s book Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman. In the section “Always trying to Escape”, he wonders the same question and talks about how he tried to observe the process of falling asleep and what happened. It makes for interesting reading, but that section is pretty short. On the bright side, the rest of the book is very good.
On the lucid dream side, when I was a kid I had terrible nightmares, but I went to some therapist who showed me how to recognize when I was dreaming and then to dream lucidly. I couldn’t do it all the time, and today I don’t know if I could do it much at all, but that moment of, “Wait a minute. I’m dreaming!!” was always very exciting.
I’ve had (and still have) quite a few lucid dreams, but they don’t last very long. At some point in the dream I realize I’m dreaming. Then, instead of taking advantage of it and flying around or f-ing supermodels, I realize that, if I’m dreaming, I’m really just lying in my own bed in my own stinky life, and I wake up. 
I guess I’m too analytical.
I had a period of pretty bad sleep deprivation and, right after I collapsed into bed, I could remember me falling asleep, not only that, I could also remember me FORGETTING the sensation of falling asleep. It was one of the most surreal experiences ever. Its quite hard to explain but you can almost feel the knowledge ooze out of your brain.
LOL, Audrey!
I’ve had the “bathroom dream” often. I finally figured out that when I’m dreaming of toilets, I need to wake up and sit on the real thing.
I’m also a migraine sufferer, and I’ve learned that if I DREAM I have a headache, I need to wake myself up and take medication. Most headaches that people suffer respond quite nicely to sleep; however, with my migraines, I MUST take the medication or I’m going to wind up with a killer headache.
Funny how the mind works!
~VOW
There have been a couple of times that I did remember falling (almost) asleep but was awakened before I was totally asleep. I think it’s awakening so soon after that allows you to remember, otherwise I guess it never gets committed to long-term memory.
On the flip side of that coin there have been several times when, in the morning, I become conscious before fully waking up. It’s kind of a trancelike state where I can think but I’m not quite getting any sensory input and I’m practically paralyzed.
I have gone to the toilet in my dream without waking prior to actually going. But despite my panic on waking shortly afterwards, I found that I had managed to hold on in real life.
When I was younger I had bathroom dreams. And well, lets just say I went all the way with it. I woke up thinking:" What? I went to the bathroom! How did this happen!?!?!?"
Lucid dreaming is fun. Once I fell out of a hot air balloon and realized it was a dream. I flipped landed on my feet with a big smack and leaped back up into the balloon. I’ve had several more but I can’t recall.
And I have had a few where supermodel types appear, and well. I think you can guess whats next. I love those dreams. I’m going to bed.
