Wednesday, February 29, 2012

My dream images are leaving retinal imprints

Many months ago while living in an apartment in Gilbert, Arizona, one morning while in the awakening (hypnopompic) state, I dreamed I was traveling west on a farmer's field-side dirt road
with the field to my right, an irrigation ditch and some power lines to my left, and a paved road beyond them. I still recall the converging perspective of all the east-west lines (roads, ditch, power lines) as I looked west.

When I awoke, those converging lines from my dream were imprinted on my retinas, causing the effect of seeing the shadow of my dream projected against my closed eyelids. This amazed me, and continues to amaze and intrigue me.

Since that discovery, I've observed the same effect multiple times. Most recently only a couple of days ago while I napped during the day, I awoke with the imprint of my most recent dream image imprinted.

I wonder if this effect is documented in the research literature. Comments?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

This sounds similar to an experience I had. I awoke from a dream and when I closed my eyes I could see a scene that seemed to be projected onto my eyelids. It was like watching a silent movie of people sitting on a hillside in front of me, talking, moving around. The scene would vanish when I opened my eyes. After watching a for 1 or 2 minutes the scene eventually faded. I have never experienced anything like this before or since.

Unknown said...

This sounds similar to an experience I had. I awoke from a dream and when I closed my eyes I could see a scene that seemed to be projected onto my eyelids. It was like watching a silent movie of people sitting on a hillside in front of me, talking, moving around. The scene would vanish when I opened my eyes. After watching a for 1 or 2 minutes the scene eventually faded. I have never experienced anything like this before or since.