Did Kafka experience something like this before writing The Metamorphosis?
I used to enjoy this in-between state quite frequently, when regularly sleep deprived. I think of it as like a day dream, only more so. I believe these states are not only normal and healthy, but also can provide great insight into the self, even if it is non-verbal and inexplicable. If you have enjoyed the experience, you may well find it recurs naturally, in which case enjoy! If you wish to explore these states further, the easiest way is to practise waking up more gently, and to pay more attention as you fall asleep (though both are far easier said than done). You may force this state simply by staying awake a very long time, or sleeping very little. More healthy options are; exercise vigorously, then have a lie down; practice a creative hobby you can immerse yourself in; seek out films and music that relax and consume your consciousness, give them your full attention. Personal opinion/rant: I’m don’t think referring to this type of state as a hallucination is entirely accurate (in
Also, as fidgets suggests, your experience has similarities to the film altered states, which happens to be all about this very subject. Its quite trashy and distinctly over the top, but nevertheless much fun and worth watching for the ideas.
ikkyu2: Allow me to clarify, hopefully without muddying this thread too much with my semantic quibbles. I acknowledge ‘hallucination’ is an accepted scientific term for the experience described, but to most people (i.e. in an average conversation) the term signifies unusual/acausal sensory perception, within the framework of waking consciousness. Hypnagogic/hypnopompic states, meanwhile (at least in my experience and research) are more dream-like, and more fundamentally removed from waking consciousness (regardless of ‘depersonalization’). I haven’t taken LSD, but have experienced hallucinations – the experience, to me at least, is quite distinct from hypnagogia. In practice, the state corresponding to stage 1 (and possibly 2) sleep is often experienced as cyclic or wave-like wash of dream-reality and waking-reality, which the term hallucination utterly fails to convey, and moreover, can obscure. The description offered by the questioner, as a whole, sums up rather well the tension and
