unwanted mental pictures

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I don't know how to express this, I don't want to say hallucinations because they happen in my mind, or it seems, in the space behind my eyes. I had one yesterday out of the blue a guy appeared with all these worms coming out of his nose. I see *alot* of stuff just before falling asleep, in the space between waking and sleeping. When I was young I used to feel there were ghosts in our house and I could see them right before I fell asleep. I would go screaming into my parents room. They weren't nighmares because I wasn't asleep yet Just about all narcotics except dilaudid really amp this up for me. Before I got sober I used to not understand why people wanted to do hallucinogenic drugs, I always felt like saying 'I hallucinate enough already' but I was always scared to tell anyone so I never did. I have alot of images of really messed up, weird stuff that seems to come out of nowhere, like my mind is trying to freak me out. I don't watch scary movies or anything fantasy because it will make it ten times worse. There isn't any illusion that it is reality though, because my eyes are closed. Actually it would be nice to find out everyone has this and it's normal. I am not on any drugs, prescribed or otherwise.

edited to add I'm posting this here because I'm thinking it has something to do with the 'thinking in pictures' thing that is part of the spectrum

I used to have these pictures from my early childhood, from around the time of the birth of my sister, pop into my head, as I was falling asleep. They were very unnerving, because I remember not being the typical 3 year old, being still in diapers, and just not typical for that age. If people talked about their children at the factory that I worked at, the images were even more intense, as I feel asleep, on those particular nights. That was between 1995 and 1998. No wonder I don't care for the 70s, that much. I haven't dealt with any of those images, since I was put on Paxil and Risperidone, the summer of 1998, knock on wood.

very interesting. i am reminded of a long-ago article in psytoday about how, when the sleep system is working properly, there is an order to which the frontal-lobe-parts of the brain ramp up and down relative to sleep-time, and when this order is disrupted somehow, you get problems like what you are describing, the disturbing images "behind the eyes." this happens to me every now and then, only it manifests as my less-than-waking-consciousness self being trapped and immobilized while something shadowy and of manifest menace on the periphery of my "vision" seems about ready to gobble me up and spit me out somewhere- this terror is wordless, i cannot scream or change the channel or even move, and that is the most terrifying part.

These are hypnagogic hallucinations. It's like your dream state starts before you're fully asleep. I used to have them all the time. I still get the behind the eyes images when I'm falling asleep. I kind of like them. Here's a link.

http://www.sleepdisordersguide.com/topi ... tions.html

I get this too-not the same type of stuff, but still similar to some extent. My most common one seems to be me jumping rope... tripping and falling into a pit. It always jolts me and I have to get up for a little bit. It's obnoxious because I rarely actually get to sleep at the time I would like to.

When I try to lay back down, anxiety sets in really strong and every noise I hear after that freaks me out for some reason.

I see unwanted mental pictures every time I close my eyes.
And sometimes with my eyes open.

Apparently not everyone experiences this phenomenon, at least to such a vivid degree, but I can't remember a time when I didn't. I agree with Aimless that most of what you're experiencing falls under the category of Hypnogogic hallucinations, but more than that, I believe it's all tied in with the same right-brain visualizations that drive our dreams and most visual-based creative pursuits, as well as being directly related to 'thinking in pictures'.

I'm always shocked to hear people say they don't dream, or that they don't see their dreams in color. My dreams are such rich, far-flung panoramic epics, nothing James Cameron could come up with will ever impress me much. And without that ability to 'see' three-dimensional objects and characters, I wouldn't be able to write a fictional scene to save my life. In fact, I'm roadblocked in a novel-in-progress lately because of one stinking scene, in which I already know exactly what's going to happen - but I can't quite see it yet - or hear all the dialogue. It's as though I'm sort of psychically looking into a parallel dimension where these things have already happened, and I'm just transcribing them, but sometimes they freeze - the image hangs up, like it's buffering and buffering, and buffering...so I wait. But it's all pictures in my head. And voices.

The things I usually see that I don't consider hypnagogic hallucinations (which happen to me when I've been suppressing a lot of anxiety) look kind of like Al Held paintings.

thanks everyone for the feedback, I am relieved to know I am not the only one and to finally have a word for what it is. I thought it was interesting at the link it says that irregular sleep schedules could cause them and in my home growing up I could never sleep because of all the noise. My dad's room was right next to mine and he always had to fall asleep with the tv on or the stereo on, and he liked the bass really loud so even if I couldn't hear the music the bass would drive me nuts. Or my idiot sister would be up trying a new hairstyle and blowdrying her hair at 3:00 in the morning. I have extremely sensitive hearing so I have to have complete silence to sleep, which never happened in my house until 2 or 3 in the morning. It makes me wonder if I could have done better in school had I been able to sleep, too. Now I am just a night person thanks to that experience growing up and don't go to bed til well after midnight. Alot of times these hallucinations will wake me up several times just as I am falling asleep, too, so it takes a few tries to get there. It's so weird and freakish what my mind comes up with and why on a daily basis...like yesterday I had no conscious thoughts of worms or noses or anything and then boom I just saw that kid with the worms crawling out of his nose in my mind. Gah.

that is so cool that you notice that it's when you are suppressing anxiety. That painting reminds me of the things I saw behind my eyes when I was younger, I would do this at night on purpose, laying on the bed and seeing all the patterns behind my eyes and all the stuff moving around. Sometimes I would push on my eyes to make designs and stuff. During the day I would just stare at stuff until it divided in half and separated (I have astigmatism so I think that had something to do with it) I could bring one closer and make one further away, I would move the illusions around. I think my childhood was one long hallucinogenic trip.

I have this too and combat it with other images. I'll re-run scenes of favorite movies or shows, go over any old happy memories that are lying around- things like that. I find that if I work on maintaining conscious images, the hypnagogic images stay away and I go from the intended mental images to dreams without that hypnagogery inbetween.

I really supress it in the time between going to sleep and falling asleep. If I close my eyes I focus on keeping it dark in there. Half the time I see stuff and wake up again and have to start all over, but sometimes I can go right to sleep, usually it takes a few tries. I didn't think about putting other positive images in there, that is a good idea.

Were they like regular yard worms, like Nightcrawlers, or fuzzy caterpillar type worms? Was the dude sitting in his car?

no, like pin worms. they were coming out at me, pointing in my direction. They were somewhere between beige and yellow, and there were tons of them, his nostrils were swarming with them. He was standing up looking at me. It was just a flash and then I squashed it.

like tiny maggots?

I just had to bump this thread because in recent years I often have what I call "visions" which are disturbing, dreamlike events that unfold behind my eyes and seem to convey my own fear of human beings in general. They happen over and over again without me trying to create them.

In one vision I have been transformed into this insect resembling a cocroach. I look up and a giant shoe is falling down towards me. I get up on my back legs in a desperate attempt to try to catch it on the way down but it crushes me anyway. Nobody mourns.

In another I have been transformed into a chimeric creature with the forlegs of a two-toed sloth, the back legs of a wolf but with enlarged claws, a bony, knoblike tail, a hairless and anorexically thin body and a human head but with sabre teeth like a Smilodon. In this vision I am browsing on vegetation in the forest (apparently the habitat of whatever I am) and am tackled and pushed over by a group of shadowy figures. the shadowy figures begin kicking me. The big toothy grins on their faces indicate that this is an act not of fear or retaliation but of sadism and schadenfreude. I try to speak, but this creature I am cannot talk and I only manage to make catlike growls. The kicking continues until I am badly bruised and too weak to move.

Just then a woman wearing a white robe comes out of nowhere. She exclaims "You monsters! Look at what you've done to him! He feels pain just like you and me!" The shadowy figures are not amused. One of them kills her with a spear through the stomach. They then proceed to turn their spears on me. They last sound to exit my mouth before I am stabbed to death is a banshee-like shriek of pure desperation and terror.

Sometime, somewhere, I had to reveal all this. I am confident that this is the correct place and time. It all reminds be so much of how I have been bullied daily in the past.