Table Of ContentC
AGOGI O
HYPN
I
N
HE UNIQUE STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
C
BETWEEN WAKEFULNESS AND SLEEP
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A
N
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O
ANDREAS MAVROMATIS
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This is the only work in English dealing with hypnagogia, the state of cos-
sciousness between wakefulness and sleep. It provides an exhaustive account of
hypnagogia, bringing its diverse phenomena into a comprehensive framework.
Dr Mavromatis argues that this common, naturally occurring state may
not only be distinct from wakefulness and sleep but unique in its nature and
function, possibly carrying important evolutionary implications. He analyses
the relationship between hypnagogia and other states, processes and ex-
periences — such as sleepdreams, meditation, psi, schizophrenia, creativity,
hypnosis, hallucinogenic drug-induced states, eidetic phenomena and epileptic
states — and shows that, functioning in hypnagogia, a person may gain
knowledge of aspects of his or her mental nature which constitute funda-
mental underpinnings to all adult thought. In addition, functioning in
hypnagogia is shown to play a significant part in mental and physical health.
HYPNAGOGIA
The unique state of consciousness
between wakefulness and sleep
Andreas Mavromatis
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London and New York
First published in 1987 by
Routledge &@ Kegan Paul Ltd
First published in paperback 1991
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
a division of Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc.
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Set in Sabon, 10 on 12pt
by Columns of Reading
and printed in Great Britain
by T.J. Press
(Padstow) Ltd
© Andreas Mavromatis 1987
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Mavromatis, Andreas
Hypnagogia : the unique state of consciousness between
wakefulness and sleep.
1. Man, Hypnagogia
I. Title
154.3
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data also
available
ISBN 0-415-—05794-9
To dream and altogether not to dream. This synthesis is the operation of genius. . ..
NOVALIS
I turned my chair to the fire and dozed. Again the atoms were gambolling before
my eyes ... all twining and twisting in snakelike motion. Look! What was that? One
of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form wormed mockingly before
my eyes. As if by a flash of lightning I awoke; and this time also I spent the rest of
the night working out the consequences of the hypothesis.
KEKULE
One phenomenon is certain and I can vouch for its absolute certainty: the sudden and
immediate appearance of a solution at the very moment of sudden awakening ... a
solution long searched for appeared to me at once without the slightest instant of
reflection on my part ... and in quite a different direction from any of those which I
had previously tried to follow.
HADAMARD
I woke with a start and witnessed, as from a seat in a theater, three acts which
brought to life’ an epoch and characters about which I had no documentary
information and which I regarded moreover as forbidding.
COCTEAU
J am aware of these ‘fancies’ only when I am on the very brink of sleep, with the
consciousness that I am so.... In these fancies — let me now term them psychal
impressions — there is really nothing even approximate in character to impressions
ordinarily received. It is as if the five senses were supplanted by five myriad others
alien to mortality.
POE
In order to acquire continuity of consciousness, unaffected by lapses into unconscious
states, you must hold yourself at the junction of all the states, which constitutes the
links between sleeping, dreaming, and waking: the halfsleep or Fourth State.
FROM A TENTH-CENTURY TANTRIC TEXT
Contents
Acknowledgments Xi
Preface X11
Part I Phenomenology
Introduction
Background and incidence
W
The layout of this book
Somatosensory phenomena 14
Visual phenomena 14
Auditory phenomena 33
Olfactory and gustatory phenomena 35
Somesthetic, kinesthetic, tactile, and thermal phenomena 35
The hypnopompic variety 36
Speech phenomena 42
Classifications 42
Cognitive and affective characteristics 53
Suggestibility-receptivity 53
Awareness of significance and affective response 56
Changes in the quality of thought 63
Fascinated attention 67
The mode of induction, control, and prolongation of
hypnagogic imagery 71
The hypnagogic syndrome 77
Summary and conclusions of Part I 81
Vil
viii - Contents
Hypnagogia and its relationship to other states,
Part Il
processes, and experiences 85
87
Introduction
Dreams 88
Hypnagogic experiences as dreams 88
Dreams and shades of dreams 95
Some philosophical implications and general remarks 103
Meditation 110
The hypnagogic nature of meditation 111
Deautomatization 113
Sense of reality 115
Unusual percepts 116
Unity, ineffability, and trans-sensate phenomena 122
The mystical standpoint 125
Psi 131
Psychophysical induction of psi 132
Perceptual, quasiperceptual, and cognitive-affective
phenomena during psi 135
Ecsomatic phenomena and the conduciveness of hypnagogia
to their occurrence 145
Hypnagogic experiences as psi, religious, and mystical
events 150
Psychological observations and theoretical formulations 153
Subject-state interface and other considerations 158
Schizophrenia 160
Schizophrenic disturbances and their features 160
Schizophrenic-hypnagogic features 163
The LEBs, hypnagogic mentation, and delusions 167
Hypnagogists, madmen, and absent-minded individuals 172
The logic involved 178
Dissociation and fusion 181
Hypnagogic experiences and pathogenesis 183
Creativity 186
Connectedness and ‘actualized’ metaphors 189
The unconscious-nonrational 200
Originality: creativity and madness 205
Openness 215
Self-actualization 217
