What's happening here?!
Question:
What's happening here?
Every once in awhile, I'll go through these spurts where I'll wake up suddenly in a panic, and when I open my eyes, I will halluccinate. I see either bugs, cherubs, colors, or colored lines. I will go a couple of weeks or months doing this several times whenever I fall asleep (at night or taking a nap), and then go awhile with nothing happening at all. Has this ever happened to you? What is this?
Answers:
Sounds like you are having what are called:
Hypnagogic hallucinations
They are often vivid and frightening hallucinations that occur right before falling asleep or upon awakening. They are not due to pyschiatric disease, but probably just a result of a mixture of REM sleep dreaming and wakefulness.
It is one of the cardinal features of narcolepsy...which is (simply put) a problem where elements of sleep intrude into wakefulness and elements of wakefulness intrude into sleep.
Symptoms can include one or more of the following:
1) Hypnagogic hallucinations (what you are describing)
2) Daytime sleepiness
3) Sleep paralysis (inability to move for 1-2 minutes right when waknig up)
4) Insomnia
5) Cataplexy (sudden partial or complete collapse triggered by strong emotions)
Cataplexy only occurs in 60% of patients with narcolepsy and usually after 3-5 years of having problems with sleepiness during the day.
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So, I would see go see a doctor and ask him or her about "Hypnagogic hallucinations" and the possibility of you having Narcolepsy (which is my bet).
There are tests that can be done...and treatment that might be very beneficial for you, if this is what is going on.
Hope this helped...and alleviates some of your fears!