Faces That Pass by My Mind as I Close My Eyes to Sleep

Would you like to have a Netflix streaming service in your head with no monthly subscription fee?  Sounds pretty cool but I DO have one of those, only I never get to pick what I am watching. And it only happens when I am falling asleep …

…it’s a black and white slide show of people, mainly faces, whom I’ve never seen before. They appear when I shut my eyes. Some are hideous and some are beautiful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the same two faces – men, women, and children and beasts, even. Their faces are distorted, morphing from one to the next rapidly. They often change expressions from sad to happy and then off to merge into another face. These are people who look modern and those who appear ancient, people from the future, or those who belong to a different time. They don’t haunt me and they don’t frighten me. I see them just as they are and keep watching, often until I drift to sleep.

I am still awake and conscious. It’s like watching a film but without popcorn. Sometimes I open my eyes and shut them again. They’re only in my head, not in my room. They pass by quickly and change from one face to the next. Maybe I will see 20-40 faces before I fall asleep or before my mind wanders on to something else and the faces disappear. I don’t have much control over this phenomenon – I can’t conjure up the images just by closing my eyes if I am not already sleepy or trying to see the images. They just appear … or they don’t, and I go to sleep.

Even though I am just watching and have no attachment to these faces, I do get a brief feeling of sadness when I see a grim face, happiness when I see a smile, and horror when I see a grotesque face. But my emotions pass by quickly because a) they are not real and b) the faces change quickly … no more than a second or half a second for each face.  It’s like I’m watching TV. – I know it isn’t real, I just accept them as the faces that pass by in my mind as I lay my head to sleep.

This started happening a few years ago. I don’t remember the exact moment it started; I can’t say I was paying too much attention. I was just trying to go to sleep. (I’m an insomniac some nights.) And then I started to think more about the faces. Why was I seeing them?

Before you ask, I don’t do drugs and I rarely drink and I’m not on any type of prescription medication.

The scientific name for seeing faces and landscapes and stars before you fall asleep may be related to “Hypnagogic Hallucinations“. But this can encompass many different types of sleep issues, and I don’t consider what I see before falling asleep as “an issue”. It sort of relaxes me and induces sleep, more than anything.

I wonder sometimes if they are real people living right now somewhere on the planet. If that smile or that look of despair or that terrifying face is happening somewhere right now and it’s being teleported into my brain. I wonder if they were real people or if I have seen these people before and don’t remember. I think if I were a painter, this would be a great opportunity for drawing inspiration! But I don’t remember the faces for long and I can’t paint.

Sometimes I don’t see faces at all. I just close my eyes and wait until I fall asleep.

On rare occasions, I see landscapes instead of faces. This is more fun because, unlike the faces, they are usually in color. Sunsets and oceans and trees and mountains. But it only happens for a tenth of a second and then it’s gone. I wonder, too – are these real landscapes in some faraway land? I know I haven’t been to any of these landscapes, but maybe I will one day. Or maybe it was in a past life of vagabonding that I did see these picturesque visions. I

wish I could see the images whenever I wanted … because it is peaceful to watch them, although when I get too excited over them they tend to disappear more quickly.

These images that pass make me more aware of the visions I see during the day with my eyes wide open, while I’m walking around the world. Sometimes a sense of surreal passes through me and the life I am in also seems like a movie I am watching.

Yet how often do I remember to look up at the beautiful painting in the sky full of clouds moving about? Every day it’s a new work of art, that big familiar sky, changing color and form, the wind and sunlight acting as brushes maneuvering the canvas. From the first act at daybreak, in all its pink and polished golden glory, through the longueur midday blue hues with pluming clouds rolling by, to the set-piece sunset, where any number of colorful events could occur – silver, gold, bronze, pinks and purples, and blues — the sky sparkles and then dissolves. And then at last – the final scene, the night, filled with diamond specs and a looming moon.

And every day it’s a new work of art!

Is it this life that is the dream?

The hallucinations before falling asleep are not the only weird things that happen to me after I shut my eyes.

A couple of years ago I awoke from a dream only to find myself completely frozen. I was paralyzed! I was likely still dreaming, but in my mind, I was awake – but I could not move!

Before I explain what happened next, this sleep disturbance is technically called “sleep paralysis“, a frightening thing as you can well imagine, and is not that uncommon. It is also believed to be the cause of dozens of deaths in the 1970s of Laos immigrants to America, who were all healthy young men (and one woman) who had died suddenly in their sleep. (The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Atlantic all have reported about these deaths, and they inspired the Nightmare on Elm Street horror film franchise.)

It’s very scary, especially if you don’t understand the science behind it and that what you are experiencing is not reality, but a mere dream. When I was a kid, this would happen to me and I would tell no one because I knew they would not believe me. And I did not realize I was not awake – because the dream makes you think you are awake.

Usually, when I experience sleep paralysis I feel a presence in the room or a weight either on my chest or on my back, depending on whether I am sleeping on my back or my stomach. This is what others say they experience, so I know now that I’m not crazy – I know when I am awake and conscious that there is no actual other presence, only what is happening in my head! However, at the time of sleep, even though I think I am awake, this is not such a clear reality.

One trick I have found to be very helpful in breaking out of the terror is to realize it is happening and wake myself up by speaking. So I will say to myself in my head: “Jami, you are not actually awake; you are in sleep paralysis”. And then I try screaming out loud so I can break free and wake up for real.

And that is what I did on this occasion … and then a most magical thing happened: a brilliant display of stars appeared on my ceiling, bright shining stars spinning in a way that made me feel as if the Universe made sense.  I believe I was awake, but it makes more sense that I was still asleep and only dreaming that I had broken free from the sleep paralysis! Whatever the case, the stars on the ceiling made me so happy. I didn’t want this great spectacle to end. In that moment, I felt I was part of those stars and was given a glimpse into a special opening to the inner workings of the Universe. I smiled and slowly the stars started to disappear.

Unlike the faces and the landscapes I sometimes see before I fall asleep, this starlight show in my room lasted for what seemed like five minutes. But maybe it was only 30 seconds. And maybe my eyes weren’t actually open like I thought they were; probably I was still dreaming. Since I was sleeping alone, there was no one to nudge to make sure I was dreaming or not. It’s a mystery!

Lots of other weird things happen in my sleep with scientific names:

Lucid Dreams

S l e e p    P a r a l y s i s

Night Terrors

EXPLODING HEAD SYNDROME
(Yes, that’s a thing. Google it.)

It’s all just things going on in my brain and perhaps a scientist can put a label on it and he can hook up a machine to monitor my eye movement or my brain activity or even see what changes are happening in my brain during my hallucinations or dreams or whatever they are called. These strange things are not so uncommon – thank goodness the Internet can tell me that and I am not frightened by inexplicable phenomena like I was as a child.

Still, I have to wonder why it happens at all, or why it happens the way it does. A scientist can tell me that it is because this or that is occurring in the brain and give solid explanations. But the scientist can’t explain WHY I see faces before falling asleep and not cars (or horses or cats). She can’t tell me WHY I see a particular face instead of another. Because there is so much we don’t know. And that’s what makes the world so very interesting and exciting!

Are we awake or only dreaming?