Early Morning Dad Visit

On a recent morning as I lay in bed in the drifty state between sleep and waking, my father, who’d died of alcoholism in 1974, came to visit me. We silently stared at each other as I took in the details I’d forgotten in four decades. I saw the worry wrinkle between his eyebrows and the long fingers, like mine, which made people suggest we should study the piano. When he finally broke the silence between us, he spoke in a plaintive voice: “Can’t you just see me as a vulnerable person?”

He must have known such a sentence had the power to shift my perspective, explain his earthly behavior in a deeper way, and lead me further along my road to forgiveness. He must have known, because in that moment I stopped viewing Dad as the selfish giant who’d terrorized our home. I began seeing him as a curly-haired boy who’d come to Earth only wishing to be loved, but whose heart had been repeatedly broken by his own violent alcoholic father.

More of Dad seemed to show up that day in the border state. He had a greater wholeness than he’d had in life. Some say we leave a larger percentage of our souls on the other side when we incarnate, bringing only a tiny portion of all we really are into the body. Roberta Grimes, host of the “Seek Reality” podcast has a great analogy. She says incarnating on Earth is like going to the gym where we strip down to the basic shorts and tank top before our workout.

Maybe I was experiencing the difference between the limited personality Dad had been back then, and the whole consciousness he appeared as now. In any event, I understood he unselfishly wanted to make things better and to somehow help me forgive him for my own sake.

I was lucky enough that morning to be in the hypnagogic state when he came by, the drifty state between sleep and awake, where I could be open to receiving that message. We all pass through the hypnagogic when we cross the border into or out of sleep, but most of us don’t stay there long enough to even notice we are in an in-between state, much less put it to use.

In the hypnagogic we might hear voices or see visions. Before I began actively working with the hypnagogic, I’d sometimes have spontaneous experiences there. I’d see and hear things that weren’t part of regular life. This confused me because I was convinced I’d been fully awake when it happened. I would have sworn to it in a court of law! Years ago when I first experienced this, I said to my energy healer friend Catherine, “I know it’s not possible, but I saw a skeleton man in my curtains this morning when I know I was awake!” But in reality, even though my eyes were open, not all parts of me were online yet when it happened. A six-foot skeleton man lurking in the folds of the window treatments was not the most fun! But soon much more interesting, positive things began to happen, experiences I was grateful to have.

When I first began receiving helpful, problem-solving messages in the threshold state, I thought it was unusual to receive guidance at the edges of sleep. But I later learned other people receive guidance in the hypnagogic, too.

Robert Moss, the author of many wonderful books on active dreaming and shamanic journeying, said:

“I frequently have inner dialogues in the place between sleep and awake, with sources of knowledge I have come to trust. This is a time when I can often receive streams of counsel and information from inner guides.”

Learning our way around the hypnagogic is just one more way we can explore the inner world. There is so much more to say about it, but for now I’d like to ask: Have you had experiences in the space between sleep and waking? I’d love to hear your stories!