Sleep technique used by Salvador Dalí works • Hacker News Board

Re: Sleep technique used by Salvador Dalí works

#221

Post by ohiovr » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

ohiovr wrote: post #2

"As legend goes, Edison would sit in a chair when he got sleepy, holding a ball bearing in his left hand. Soon, he would enter the “hypnagogic state,” a stage between wakefulness and sleep where many people claim to have visual and auditory hallucinations." https://cityftmyers.com/1871/Standing-Thomas-Edison#:~:text=... . This technique should work if you can fall asleep without consciously thinking about what is in…

I just had this happen to me tonight. I was dreaming and then I started dreaming about mom's house. The sliding door was open and there was hurricane like wind outside. I cried out mom! I could feel the wind. It felt so real! I woke up and heard the city's warning siren say severe thunderstorm warning. Apparently it was very windy outside last night as my neighbors remarked today.

Re: Sleep technique used by Salvador Dalí works

#222

Post by ohiovr » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

elboru wrote: post #137

srcreigh wrote: post #129

I've experienced similar effects first hand. University algorithm class assignment is due tomorrow at 1pm. I start working on it at midnight the day of. At around 4-5am I was stumped from a few problems, and went to campus to get some coffee. Tim Horton's doesn't open until 7am. I sit down in a chair and fall asleep. While I was sleeping (half sleeping?), I dream-solved the remainder of the problems. At 7am, I awoke,…

I had a really similar experience during college. I was trying to display a binary tree in the command line. I was not able to solve it while awake. I went to bed with that problem in my mind. Then I dreamt the solution. I woke up and the dream made sense. I couldn’t believe it so I tried in the code and it worked! That was a surreal experience.

Ah.. We need to campaign for siestas in the office. Productivity really goes up after a nap I think. Mexicans were known to do this.

Re: Sleep technique used by Salvador Dalí works

#223

Post by ohiovr » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 6:37 PM UTC

Terry_Roll wrote: post #85

"In N1, you can imagine shapes, colors or even bits of dreams in front of your closed eyes, yet still hear stuff in your room" So is this when DMT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N,N-Dimethyltryptamine starts to rise? It would make sense if it does, but melatonin increases before you get to N1 so I wonder what DMT is like without the melatonin? Maybe that's why there are rumours of some coders microdosing LSD in Silico…

I think DMT changed my friend Dairy Haas in a way that was negative.

Re: Sleep technique used by Salvador Dalí works

#224

Post by zahma » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 6:37 PM UTC

I always tried to time this so that I didn’t oversleep and disrupt my sleep pattern for later when I actually want to sleep through the night. I never really noticed a difference in my creativity, but maybe I need to try some specific activities after waking.

Re: Sleep technique used by Salvador Dalí works

#225

Post by ohiovr » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 6:39 PM UTC

theartfuldodger wrote: post #51

I thought Edison's "visionary" status had been discarded and his primary skillsets were deceit and self publicity? How much meditation time does it take to strong arm other people's work over and over again? It's a talent, but visionary doesn't seem apt.

Culminating ideas to place items in a market place and market them to be desirable to the public, while electrocuting elephants is hard work for any man.

Re: Sleep technique used by Salvador Dalí works

#226

Post by stnmtn » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

c0nducktr wrote: post #91

pier25 wrote: post #14

I think I once got into this hypnagogic state by accident. I was having a nap and my dogs woke me up because it was time for their walk. I felt sleepy while walking the dogs but also had a clarity regarding anything I examined in my mind. It's as if my regular state of mind was like walking in a forest with limited visibility, and now I could see the territory from a bird's perspective. This lasted for about 15 mins…

I wonder if other changes, not just sleep, but quick changes to environment can create this effect as well. Your description regarding the feeling you had walking your dogs is very similar to something which happened to me once just as I was leaving work, as I was walking out of my office. As I walked out the door, everything felt very crisp, my mind felt lighter, and it was as if my senses were working at 200%. At t…

I had a very similar experience walking out of a movie theater after watching a particularly good movie this year. I walked around the main street in my town and it saw it from completely new eyes, and was able to appreciate everything about it without any prior opinions or memories about all the restaurants and shops on the block. It was surreal.

I also was able to, just like you said, become aware of a couple of large life problems that I had been unconsciously ignoring, and felt such a serene sense of "absolute certainty" about what I wanted to do about them

If I could just have that state 3-4 times a year! It was genuinely magical

Re: Sleep technique used by Salvador Dalí works

#227

Post by BlameKaneda » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

josefrichter wrote: post #79

Wow. I didn’t know this, but I was actually able to observe this state on myself. When going to sleep, my mind is wandering. But at one point it drifts from real world thoughts to completely abstract concepts and wild imagination that sometimes makes no sense. It’s almost like a hallucination. What’s most interesting is that sometimes I am able to notice the transition to this state and consciously observe it. Usuall…

I used to be able to do this thing to where if I kept perfectly still, I'd "stare" (with eyes closed) into the nothingness---by that I mean I'd be staring into the backs of my eyelids---and there'd be a point in which my mind would start to create images. For instance, the shape would take the form of a fish, and then I'd see it become a radio, etc.

If I held on and tried this for as long as possible, I'd feel my body drift off to sleep. But it was hard, because there'd be something in me that would jerk and stop the imagery (like a hypnic jerk, just nowhere near as uncomfortable).

There was a bizarre situation where one evening I felt my body convulse (or perhaps I imagined it) and I'd actually fallen asleep. However, I was so freaked out by it that I shook my body awake, in my dream, and I woke up. I must've been out for less than a minute or so.

It's been 7-8 months since I was last able to stare into the nothingness and let sleep overtake me. Maybe it's my caffeine intake or something else, but I would like to experience it again.

Edit: I'm pretty sure they were hypnagogic hallucinations. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/hypnagogic-h...

Re: Sleep technique used by Salvador Dalí works

#228

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 7:19 PM UTC

soheil wrote: post #123

Can we please respect readers and not post ad riddled sites like this to HN? It’s impossible to read a paragraph without an ad jumping in the way.

Adblock is your friend.

There are mobile browsers which support this (Firefox notably), and mobile-device adblock apps as well, in the event you're not on a desktop system.

If you're in a corporate environment, put in a request for adblock on your network as, amongst other things, a security feature:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28631005

Re: Sleep technique used by Salvador Dalí works

#229

Post by rubicon33 » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

philmcc wrote: post #182

rubicon33 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kinda jealous. I couldn't be more different. I can't remember the last time I had a dream. Months ago probably. Random question but - do you consume any caffeine?

I’ve helped a half dozen people with this. One trick is to just keep a notepad by your bed and first, first, first thing try to write down what you remember from your dreams. My suspicion is eventually the brain says “oh you care about this? Okay cool I’ll hold on to them for longer.” Give it a couple of weeks you might be surprised.

Thanks for the tip, I'll give this a try.

Re: Sleep technique used by Salvador Dalí works

#230

Post by rubicon33 » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 7:47 PM UTC

Vedor wrote: post #174

rubicon33 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kinda jealous. I couldn't be more different. I can't remember the last time I had a dream. Months ago probably. Random question but - do you consume any caffeine?

I, too, rarely have (or remember) dreams – once per month, maybe. But lack of dreams is not a problem for me. What I find annoying (and I'm really curious if you have similar experience) that I don't have feeling of passed time. My sleep is like blink of an eye. It's night, I close my eyes, then I open them, and there is morning already. I's always the same, no matter how long I have slept, whether I am well rested o…

Hmm.. I don't really have this problem. When I wake up, I definitely feel like time has passed, but I wonder if it's for different reasons than you're expecting.

For me, I usually will wake up once in the night, and fall back to sleep quickly. This adds to a sense of time. Also, waking up in the morning it's distinctly more cold, I feel distinctly more groggy, etc. I definitely get a sense that time has passed...

But if you're asking if I am ever aware that I'm sleeping and conscious of the minutes passing by? No, never. I fall asleep, time passes, I wake up (but, unlike you, I do feel like time passed...)