Hallucinations during sleep are a phenomenon that can target any sensory perception, be it visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or other. Sleep hallucinations are often confused with both illusions and dreams. They occur in the state between waking and sleeping, although the person is considered to be technically asleep during these hallucinations. This is in contrast to dreams or lucid dreams, which occur while the person is asleep.
What’s the Difference Between Illusions and Hallucinations?
Illusions occur while awake and are classified as a sensory misrepresentation of an external stimulus, while hallucinations occur in the absence of any external stimuli. Hallucinations most often occur in the stages before or after sleep, explaining their connection as a sleep-related phenomenon. Hallucinations can occur at any time, though this article will only look at hallucinations as they are connected to sleep. Hallucinations are common, most notably sleep-related hallucinations, with over 10 percent of the population experiencing one at some point in their life.
Hypnagogic Hallucinations, Hypnopompic Hallucinations, and Sleep Paralysis
The two forms of sleep related hallucinations are called hypnagogic (hypnagogia) and hypnopompic (hypnopompia) hallucinations. Hypnagogic hallucinations occur just before sleep, and may be accompanied by sleep paralysis, a state in which the subject is physically immobile but fully conscious. Hypnopompia, which is often considered as part of a dream by the subject, also involves difficulty breathing and muscle tightness. Hypnopompia occurs upon waking, and may also be accompanied by sleep paralysis.
Sleep paralysis is much more common in hypnopompia than in hypnagogia. Sleep paralysis is often confused by the person experiencing it as part of a lucid dream, which accounts for the high number of recalled dreams with elements of being frozen in place or being unable to move. Common hypnopompic experiences include the sensation of falling and the feeling of a presence in the room.
Distinguishing Dreams From Sleep Hallucinations
Sleep hallucinations can cause confusion, as they will often be indistinguishable from reality in your mind. In contrast, upon waking from a dream during REM sleep, most people will clearly recognize it was a dream they were experiencing, or may immediately forget about the dream entirely upon waking. Hallucinations may also cause fear, especially upon waking, as they may include clear and complex visual images that are distorted or make no sense.
Sleep-related hallucinations can occur in as many as 25 percent of people, as opposed to under 5 percent for non sleep-related hallucinations. They are most commonly found in young adults and teens, and the frequency of hallucinations seems to decrease with age. Females are more likely to experience them than males.
Known Causes and Treatment of Sleep-Related Hallucinations
Sleep-related hallucinations may be a direct result of alcohol or drug use, or could be due to insomnia, anxiety, stress or other factors. People with narcolepsy have a high rate of sleep hallucination occurrences.
Sleep hallucinations may not need treatment, as they often occur infrequently and do not affect sleep quality. They may be a sign of mental stress though, or if coupled with daytime sleepiness, even narcolepsy. If the hallucinations are causing fear or anxiety, or to validate its causes, you may want to talk to your doctor or a sleep specialist. When issues of mental stress are suspected, you may be advised to contact a therapist, or practice relaxation techniques before bedtime to help the mind shut down. It may also be advised to stay out of bed until feeling extremely tired, to avoid lying awake in bed and having the mind wander onto issues that may be causing you stress or anxiety. It has been shown in studies that the clearer a person’s mind is, the less likely they are to hallucinate, or even dream.
If the hallucinations are the result of medication, drug or alcohol use, it may be advised to refrain from their use, and you may need to change medications if this is the case.
Any suspected case of narcolepsy should be consulted with a sleep specialist, and an overnight sleep study performed to look into it further. Narcolepsy can be a debilitating disorder that can be treated.
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1 2 3 … 10 Next »I am 73 years old. For the past few weeks, I have experienced visions/hallucinations on the ceiling of my bedroom. These visions appear as a variety of one dimensional images sometimes of peoples faces, cartoon characters, houses, or large creatures. It seems to occur when I am awake in the middle of the night and they appear on the ceiling only. The images are not 3-d, but rather flat like a drawing or sketch and they are very realistic and detailed. They appear in one area of the ceiling and rapidly change from one image to the next (although there seems to be consistency in the subject matter). In other words, on a night when I see faces - those are the only images I see. They are not mixed with creatures or cartoon character images. Each type of image has it's own night of appearance.
I am not frightened when these occur - just surprised and intrigued. I never experienced this at any other age in my lifetime.
I have had these since I was a child. When I was young I described them simply as "eyes and scary faces and wolves." Now as I am 31, I realize they occur somewhere between a state of being awake and asleep. I see my husband next to me, my window, my furniture, ceiling fan, etc. I think I'm awake, and actually I am fully conscious. But perhaps it's only part of my brain that is going to sleep. I am a health nut and have never added anything to my body that could cause this... So when I am in a state of half asleep/ half awake/ aware/ paralyzed in a partial-sleep state, I hear howling. It gets closer and closer until the wolves with bloody faces enter my room. They circle my bed and jump on my bed and look at me with terrifying eyes, snarling at me. They look the same now as they did when I was 4 and it only happens at night. After I pray and they disappear suddenly, I can wake up and move. The fear goes away... But when I hear the howling start, I am terrified. Sometimes figures walk in with the wolves... All bloody, terrifying images of my worse nightmare. I never know what I will see, but it is always with wolves. I absolutely hate this.
I'm 15 and I woke up early to study but I feel asleep during study and when I lay down my head I can't close my eyes and many peoples voices came and white things.. I neither open my eyes nor fell asleep. But I fell asleep and I saw realistic Dreams but everything is happening bad in there. I can't get conscious while sleeping.. my mom said she called me thousand times. And I didn't answer.. She touched me and I woke up... I don't know what to do... I feel heavy and drained in sweat after I Woke up...
This topic and comments are very near and dear to my heart. My family and I were tormented by these types of situations and phenomenon. There is a distinct difference between a dream/nightmare and being tormented by a spirit. There is an answer and there is a solution. If you would like help please feel free to reach out to me
I am so relieved to have a term for my experience. Its not quite sleep paralysis but I get it during, like a side effect but not the main problem. I can feel a HUGE spike in anxiety nd the only way I van move again is if I calm myself down (which I have to do in the first 2 seconds or else ill freak out) I do this by taking really deep breaths.
Mine is a totally different problem where i couldn't say what is it ...though i tried to find the answer to my question.... Sometimes i feel i cannot wake up...though i try very hard to wake up...i can sense tearing my eyes open so that i can wake up but with no avail.... I become a little conscious too that i havent woke up ..so i try slapping myself or rolling out of the bed so i can wake up...it becomes so frustrating to know still i am unable to wake up...sometimes i feel i may die in my sleep to... In my effort to wake up...i do wake up and sense a huge relief but soon i realise thats just another dream too... These days i have tingling sensation on my right thigh too...dont know what is that...
I'm dealing with sleep paralysis since from age of 12 and at 13 it's become strong and now I'm 19 and still it's happening I see many eerie things during sleep paralysis like a girl whispering talking to me ..and I can remember what she said so clearly she is always in below my bed ..and many more ...I see stranger ..and experience physical activity/grabbing etc
Waking Dream, a transitional state from wakefulness to sleep. The hypnagogic state of consciousness. Phase include hallucinations, lucid thought, lucid dreaming.. Mine started about two and hale years ago after getting a flesh eating bug. I think it never left my system. My doctor was confused. when it hits my system it puts me down for seven days. I do not get sick its just hard to get out of bed. That's when the shape shifters moved in. Over time I can see them every where . when their in my apt. I can not sleep. try that for seven days and nights. during the day I see their out lines. people that shift into at least four persons and then beasts. I watch them change my art into their own.. I contribute this to opening the Third Eye.. awake I see them try to sleep I see them..
Not that I have much medical knowledge but there could be 2 or more causes- if the bugs still there or even a chemical imbalance, your body might be responding to that- see a doc and have tests done and also talk to a therapist about the trauma you my not realize
This has been happening to me too !! Did you find anything that helped you solve this issue ??
I am so grateful that I googled this because I have been seeing large spiders on my bedroom walls and ceiling always early morning when I wake up. So real and frightening. I was afraid to go to sleep at night. I realize now that I was hallucinating. I will call my Doctor an hope I can switch meds or come off completely. I have been on imipramine for many years and it has been effective controlling depression. But I cannot deal with these side effects.
If I drink energy drinks, I have waking dreams of spiders above my bed on the walls.
hello lee,
we have the same cases i too see spiders in my ceilings and some times on my wall its very frightening .sometimes it even comes to attack me i have been seeing these things since 2015 and now i know the answer to my trauma.
Lee
I see spiders too. I thought I was going crazy.
I feel better that someone else had it too.
What did your doctor say?
I do have stress and anxiety .
I take lexapro.
I’m 50 and have been interested in lucid dreaming since my 20’s... that being said I have been relatively successful in distinguishing between the differences, Because of my studies.. there have been some alarming failures, but understanding that - Not understanding how the brain works has been an actual comfort. In the last 1,000 years these have been attributed to the supernatural, which I think exacerbate the effect. Realize that this might be stress, bad sleep pattern, narcolepsy, drug use, etc...watching late night horror, ( just recently bought a tarantula after my dog died and held her- I had dreams next few nights of VERY TACTILE dreams of spiders, BUT was not scared)
After my wife died I used to see flying objects going through the mirror, I wasn't imagining it because the dog saw it too and then other times lights going on and off and believe it or not Cherubs dancing around maypole on the ceiling and then later seeing a middle aged man standing over me whilst I was in bed that disappeared after ten seconds, it stopped when I moved bedrooms although I still get something that I can't explain.