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Comment by 0des | Hacker News Reader

What is the thing right before I fall asleep where any voices or noises are at booming volume? Is that my brain's last chance to alert me of a predator?

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Hypanagogic hallucinations. I don't know why or for what purpose they happen but that's the term.

They're things actually happening, they're just very loud. Someone speaking is like wearing headphones turned all the way up, is the best approximation for it. Is that still part of the definition of a hallucination?

Hmmm, I know what you mean. I've experienced both... hard to say if they're the same thing or not though... They're certainly triggered at the same point for me but not always concurrent, as I've had both in isolation as well.

Are these the same as what I call "micro-dreams"? When I'm trying to fall asleep I will get these tiny but full end to end dreams on situations and voices and places - but clearly I am not asleep. I'm in that "trying to fall asleep" phase.

What is this called?

I get these, but for me it’s not real-time noise. It’s noises and voices I heard throughout the day. It feels like they’re being replayed from a tape recorder right as I fall asleep.

I have a newborn and every night while falling asleep all I hear is his cooing and laughing on replay.

It’s sort of like when you play a lot of Tetris and you can’t stop seeing the falling bricks as you fall asleep.

On two occasions, once after skiing for a week and once after playing flight sims an entire Saturday, I had an intense (and very nice) feeling of gliding down a (glide)slope as I fell asleep.

Lucky you, I get visions of running on the school yard and tripping over, lol.

> It’s sort of like when you play a lot of Tetris and you can’t stop seeing the falling bricks as you fall asleep.

Never noticed this from any single-threaded activity. But once I played two games in parallel for a few hours (two instances of wow) that had a direct impact on trying to fall asleep. The task-switching tried to check my other self, but there was no other instance to switch to.

Sounds similar to "auditory sleep start" aka. "exploding head syndrome". The sensation of falling which makes you twitch from your whole body is "sleep start" or "hypnic jerk" (who comes up with these names). There is also a visual version where one experiences flashes.

Probably not what you meant, but sometimes, before I fall asleep, I "see" bright flashes of light, as if there's a strobe light going off outside my window. Rarely, I also hear a loud "boom."

Apparently it's a known sleep disorder and has the terrifying name "exploding head syndrome"

https://www.sleepassociation.org/sleep-disorders/more-sleep-...

I don’t have anything to add other than that I have this too. It seems like it happens at exactly the point where I can either go to sleep or wake back up. Like suddenly all the volume rushes up and everything is at full intensity, and if I choose to sleep I guess it goes away. Super weird tbh

I think it may have to do with relative noise levels, when snoozing on the couch I get more sensitive to other people's noise sometimes, but that's also because it would be relatively quiet before.

It might be a survival mechanism, now you mention it.

Interesting, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that (or even heard of it). Is that something you experience every night (assuming there is sound)?

Not OP but I only have it when I sleep in the presence of voices

This would explain why I've only experienced similar things on long bus rides from high school.

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