Spiral at Night

[BrandonD]

Hi everyone, I'm a long-time "lurker" on the forums.

I've been having an experience lately and it seems like the type of thing that those on this forum might have some insight with.

At night, often I will lie there in the dark and count my exhales with my eyes closed. This was an exercise I came up with to try and help me sleep, it seems to help take the focus of my attention away from my mental chatter.

But lately, I've been just sort of lying there and watching through my closed eyes. And pretty much every time, after several minutes I will begin to see in the darkness a spiral of 2 lighter and 2 darker bands. In the center of this spiral is often a white light (not totally white, just lighter than the rest of the image). After a while the darker bands will often form what appear to be a series of amorphous humanoid figures walking down a corridor. It is an interesting thing to look at because sometimes the figures look very real, it seems as though I can see their arms and heads moving. When the image becomes a corridor, it is like the spiral is becoming 3-dimensional, with the center of the spiral being the far end of the corridor.

Over the course of the evening, what I'm seeing will often cycle from the spiral to just ordinary blackness, and then back again. Since sometimes the spiral is there and sometimes it's not there, this makes me suspect that perhaps it's not just some strange feature of the retina, like "seeing stars" or something like that.

I was wondering if anyone has had this experience, or might lend some insight towards what it might be.

Thanks everyone :)

 

[manitoban]

Hi BrandonD,

Sounds like you've been having some interesting experiences. I'm not sure what to make of it, but perhaps other members will have input.

Anyway, welcome to the forum. :) We recommend all new members post an introduction in the Newbies section telling us a bit about themselves, and how they found their way here. You can read through the many newbie introductions to get a feel for how others have done it. Thanks

 

[mamadrama]

BrandonD,

Wondering if you've ever tried putting gentle pressure on your eyelids while this is happening? If not, why don't you give it a try and report what you observe.

 

[BrandonD]

Thank you for this input, I've never tried this because part of my "counting exhales" exercise involves being completely motionless. If I move at all, then I start back at 1.

I will definitely try this. I do recall putting pressure on my eyes in the past and seeing "lights" when my eyes were closed. Those lights resembled pulsating squares. I will try this while seeing the spiral and let you guys know.

Thank you again for the input :)

 

[Oneearth]

Brandon, I experienced something similar back in July, for several weeks, I would wake up between 2:00AM & 4:00AM and as I would close my eyes again, I would start out by seeing bee honey combs & then it would turn to spider webs, next I would see the palm of my hand from which the lines would turn to spirals, thousands of them, but I was focused on one spiral in particular and it became like a tunnel and I could see a light in the distance, at the end of it (it seemed to be the only one that I could see a light at the end of )...I felt myself being lured or as if someone was trying to help or guide me through the tunnel. I felt very strange and light as if I was ascending… It was a very strange experience. I tried to make sense of what it could mean, if maybe I was being taught that everything in the Universe and beyond is made up of the same intricate patterns…and maybe just as Michio Kaku’s book, Parallel Worlds, perhaps there are infinite worlds and depending on our destiny..each of us will enter a spiral to our next reality.…It was a very strange experience. I had thought about posting this to see if anyone else had a similar experience and then today I saw your post.

 

[BrandonD]

I totally forgot to post the results of the suggestion to apply light pressure to my eyes while the "spiral" was taking place. I probably forgot to reply because the results were disappointing... unfortunately I didn't notice any change in the spiral effect. Though if I pressed hard then I had the usual spots in my field of vision.

I still don't know what the spiral effect could be - could just turn out to be something totally mundane, I'm open to any possibility. If anything insightful pops up I will relay it to you guys. Thanks again for the suggestion!