Seeing "images" when you close your eyes...

You guys are seeming to miss the point... it happens MORE during the night because you tend to close your eyes more at night and rest your eyes. This happens at nearly all times of the day so I'm not exactly sure how it could be any kind of sleep. It probably is just my imagination but it's still pretty creepy and I have to focus to get my mind clear.

BrawleR,

You stated that any advice given would be appreciated. If you meant that then show your appreciation by actually investigating the information offered instead of dismissing it because you have miscomprehensions about dream and other states of consciousness. We can only offer advice based on the information you give us. As said, if you are finding this is an intolerable condition that is affecting the quality of your life than you should contact a physician as soon as possible.

The neurology of dreaming is incredibly complex and only partly understood, but cognitive states do not divide into two neat categories, awake and asleep. As you describe it, it sounds like a hypnogogic nightmare, which is a stage one sleep phenomenon that occurs as you are passing from an awake state to an asleep state. You can be mostly conscious and still experience hypnogogic dreams. You can slip into stage one sleep at any time, sitting up, eyes open, and aware of your surroundings. If these visions occur, as described, as you are closing your eyes to go to sleep then this still seems the most likely explanation. When these experiences are negative and anxiety provoking they are sometimes called daymares. The "day" is to differentiate them from a nightmare experienced in REM dream states. If, as you insist, these visions occur when you are fully and completely conscious, then it is possibly something much more serious. It is also still referred to as a daymare. The ASAP Dictionary of Anxiety and Panic Disorders describes daymares as:

Daymare - a daydream or fantasy which produces intense anxiety. Regular or frequent daymares can be a feature of obsessive thinking. Contrast with nightmare.

Usually obsessive anxiety experiences of this nature are related to some form of post traumatic stress disorder. Since you state that the experience no longer bothers you, my money is still on hypnogogic dreams.

Hi. When I close my eyes (day, night, in the shower, etc..) I see faces, dark shadow-type, strange morph-type imagery. I'll see the eyes 1st then the rest of the face appears. Mostly they take on the look of what people might say were demonic looking. Sometimes the face with circle round and morph into different man-animal or winged creatures. One time when I was in the shower and I closed my eyes while I rinsed the soap out of my hair and I saw something I had never seen. It was a whole body...It looked at me & I looked at it. It was weird because I felt the thing I was looking at was as surprised as I was to be seeing it. It was like the thing was thinking,,,"hey you can SEE me." It looked like nothing I've ever seen, grey skin and freakish features. It happened in a flash of a moment--3 seconds? But it made me freak out, I got out of the shower real fast and sat down on my couch EYES WIDE OPEN afraid to close them again!

I don't drink, do drugs, and I'm not on any medication and until that time thought I was a pretty sane person. But why would a sane person see what I had just seen in such vivid reality? I haven't had that happen again (thank god), but I still see the faces. I've researched this type of thing online and have yet to figure it out.

Take care....

reply to post by BrawleR


I see horrible things when i close my eyes aswell
When i was young if i closed my eyes i would see faces like crying out for help it was really scary
and about a year ago i was getting ready for school i was holding books and such and then i blinked and this thing like flew at me, it looked kinda like a shadow person actually it could have been a shadow person. I was so scared i dropped all my books.
and Also i used to have these pens and i couldnt use them without thinking of someone cutting there wrist it was horrible, I have no idea why.
anyway thats all

reply to post by NewThor


I know exactly what you're talking about.

It's definitely not a dream. This does not happen when you sleep, just when you close your eyes. Maybe you see them more when you're getting ready for bed because it's darker in the room, and the darker it is when you close your eyes, the easier it is to see these images.

THey're caused by those little flecks of light in our eyes. Anyone can see them. You have to actually concentrate on the blackness to see images, though. Look THROUGH the blackness. The area that you see becomes really big, almost like you're looking into a big black dome. The images fly everywhere. The longer you do it, the more defined they become.

I've seen faces too. They always seem like they're demonic. I've tried to see nice things, but I just can't. It usually looks like they're laughing at me or something. It's definitely scary but even more so fascinating.

That being said, I'm pretty positive it's just my imagination. I've been wondering about it for a while, especially after one night where I just couldn't get passed it, stayed up all night looking into the back of my eyelids like a crazy girl. But I don't think it could be anything else. It only happens when I LOOK for it.

I look here almost every day, but rarely post because I can't relate to most stuff on here. But I had to reply and put in my 2 cents.

Well.......

Sounds like your imagination alright to me. I'll outline my own experiences and it may help to illustrate the point. Every time I close my eye's I get what can only be discribed as a 'machine gun' of images of various creatures that I consider 'concept art' for my digtial sculpts. As they pass by so fast that I can rarely can remember more than one...which is a resason I work as fast as the longer I take the more of the original 'image' in my head I lose and the more I have to create 'on the spot.'

Although I've not met any other artists who have the same 'insperation', I have no doubt that its simply a creative imagination....and probably why I'm a professional artist and not a brick layer. I dont think that these are somehow beamed into my head fomr anywhere else obviously...so sounds like your imagintion is to put it simply, 'hot' creatively.

Many artists create what could be seen as the most terrifyiing creatures / mosters and scenes. Maybe you've simply got an artistic mind thats wanting to be used, and its letting you know the only way that your subconsciousness can.

Wayne...

reply to post by the secret web


OH your so smart.
thats a really good idea, coz i draw and paint and i take art classes but i never thought about drawing these things

over the past few years when closing my eyes when im trying to rest i sometimes see a flash then i start seeing images...mostly ppl but i cant see their faces..just the shapes of their bodies and/or heads but the images never focus on just one person...its like im fast forwarding a movie or something...changing to someone new every second. and sometimes along with it i'll hear music but once i open my eyes and lift my head up the music will disappear. i dont experience this every night and the images onlyoccur when the flash appears after closing my eyes. there was also one night i thought i was going to die or something was going to happen. my husbandand i laid down to go to sleep and once i closed my eyes i just saw a bright blinding light. i had to ask if i had light shooting out of my eyes and he said no. it was all very strange.

reply to post by Cicada


My dad is blind and still dreams in images. Vividly, and often. He has no hope of gaining his sight back as his eyeballs are gone and his optic nerves have recessed back into his brain. He's been blind for about 40 years.