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Sleep Paralysis and Lucid Dreams as Creative Inspiration
The thought-provoking fragmented state between wakefulness and sleep
“Reality is not always probable, or likely.” Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges was preoccupied with the concept of time, dreams, and reality. His short stories are interwoven with recurring images of tigers, mirrors, labyrinths, coins, and fictional cryptic tomes twist and weave throughout vivid and disorienting plots.
As someone who has experienced sleepwalking, sleep paralysis, lucid dreams, and regular vivid dreams, Borges' stories captivated me like no other work of fiction. I’m not superstitious, I haven’t done any psychedelics, and I don’t do anything to try to induce any hypnagogic hallucinations that during dreams feel as real to me as my own hands.
I’ve often wondered, is there a connection between sleep paralysis, vivid dreams, and lucid dreams? Furthermore, why am I so prone to conjuring such realistic fantasies? And what do they reveal about my creative processes?
Delusions of the unconstrained mind
Lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis are both considered hypnagogic states. Hypnagogia is the transitional period between wakefulness and sleep.
