Awake Between Worlds: Understanding Hypnagogia and the Threshold Between Sleep and Wakefulness

by Katerina Silin

Have you ever seen a face, a figure, or a shadow at the edge of sleep — and wondered if something was wrong with you?

Awake Between Worlds is a quiet, personal exploration of hypnagogia — the fragile state between sleep and wakefulness where reality can feel uncertain, vivid, and unfamiliar.

Written from lived experience, this book describes what it is like to see images, hear sounds, or feel a presence while the mind is transitioning out of sleep. These moments can feel intensely real, unsettling, or confusing — especially when no one around you seems to experience the same thing.

Rather than offering clinical diagnoses or rigid explanations, the book gently explores how the brain behaves during sleep transitions and why perception can momentarily blur. Through personal stories, simple explanations, and reflective observations, it invites the reader to understand these states without fear.

This book is for those who:

experience hypnagogic or hypnopompic imagery
feel unsettled by altered perception during sleep transitions
seek understanding, grounding, and reassurance
want to feel less alone in these quiet, often unspoken experiences
Awake Between Worlds is not a guide to controlling dreams or achieving lucidity.

It is an invitation to stay grounded, to observe without panic, and to move through these states with curiosity rather than fear.

Genres: Mental Health

52 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 30, 2026

About the author

For most of my life I kept a private secret — vivid figures and shadows appearing at the edge of sleep. For years I thought something was wrong with me.

One word changed that. Learning that what I experienced had a name — hypnagogic — felt like finding a missing piece. Not an illness. Not imagination. Just a peculiar way some brains move between worlds.

I write from that threshold. Nonfiction rooted in lived experience, and fiction that grows from the same strange, luminous place between sleep and wakefulness.

Reviews

[Ila Perey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting read from the point of view of someone with an opposite condition (somewhat). OCD prevents me from sleeping, like a chatty, overzealous ghost that, by the time I do fall asleep, it is because my mind has made itself too tired to keep talking. I then get catapulted somewhat unceremoniously into the dream world, travelling as though everything is real until I wake up. I thank the stars I almost never have nightmares except when ill or after having experienced something harrowing, like the death of a loved one or a pet. In that regard, the similarities extend to how disturbing experiences associated with sleep, or in its transition, come from our own experiences and feelings while we were awake.

As the book suggests, I too try to record in my journal my dreams/observations, like the people cited towards the end of the book, except I can only wish I were a quarter as creative as they were—happily, the hypnagogic state, albeit frightening and destabilising, can be harnessed as though it were a gift to produce art, inventions, music, and other creative works. While I do not experience it in that productive sense, I use my journals to table and decipher dreams as symbols, produced by my subconscious as, how I understand it, it organises, rearranges, and presents data obtained during the day from various points in the timeline into concise and usable information.

The book is written with a gentle, thoughtful, and engaging voice. It recognises the problem for what it is, its causes, effects etc and deals with it methodically. Fear, in the specific context of hypnagogia, is produced as the mind resolves leftover feelings and emotions from the day as it prepares to enter into a state of sleep, which results in their integration into the liminal space between dreams and reality. It encapsulates what is disturbing: illusion of reality, unpredictability, loss of control.

There is so much to take from this short book, but it showed me the importance of a safe, predictable, and stable environment which we take for granted and ought to recreate and maintain as best we can prior to sleep.

The strength of the book is the framing of the troubling condition in the abstract, giving it less force and power over us—similar to one engaging in emotional detachment in order to carry out a task otherwise impossible to achieve while carrying the unnecessary extra weight of emotions, feelings etc. To overcome fear, one must first recognise that one is indeed experiencing fear, then study the signs and causes; that it is a reaction to danger as the mind and body’s natural sense of self-preservation at work. As the author points out, acknowledging that we are experiencing fear is but one part. How we react to it is not beyond our control. In fact, it can very much can be wielded as a tool.

“One of the most famous practitioners of hypnagogia was the surrealist artist Salvador Dalí. He did not fear this state—he deliberately sought it out in order to capture fresh, absurd, and vivid imagery for his work.” There are several more examples of what would have been a veritable nightmare being turned into a goldmine. indeed, we have more control over it than we know. Thomas Edison, Mary Shelley, Paul McCartney, Charles Dickens— all have found a way to harness their superpower to create something spectacular.

The book includes a plan for management at the end, which I appreciate. After all, if we must prepare our bodies for war, tournaments, the Olympics, gruelling exams, we must prepare it for sleep too—as it travels in the dream world for 6-8 hours a day and the subconscious works hard at making sense of the data it has so meticulously amassed.

[Debbie Roth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awake Between Worlds: Understanding Hypnagogia and the Threshold Between Sleep and Wakefulness by Katerina Silin is a brief, concise, clear, and easy to understand book about the psychological state of hypnagogia which she has personally experienced. She also mentions well known creative minds, including writer Charles Dickens who have literally imagined solutions or material for their work while in a state of hypnagogia, and acknowledges, “hypnagogia can become an inexhaustible creative resource.”

Silin describes the hypnagogic state as, “…a very brief and specific moment that scientists describe as the boundary between wakefulness and sleep…Many people spoke about the sensation of falling at the moment of falling asleep—often accompanied by sudden muscle jerks. This, too, is part of hypnagogia…I see shadows—vivid images of strangers and animals—at the very moment I should be falling asleep…My brain, trained for logic, could not cope with the fact that these visions felt absolutely real…Every night, my brain seemed to get stuck between wakefulness and sleep.” These visual images can also be accompanied by auditory experiences.

Silin reassures readers, “You are not alone. And you are capable of handling this…Hypnagogic images are not a problem…Your brain is simply signaling a need for care, rest, and calm.” She continues, “Based on my understanding and experience, several factors most often provoke this malfunction.” She describes a number of conditions that can trigger hypnagogic episodes, and more importantly, provides a series of responses that have proven effective for her, and can be used to manage the condition. She states, “I have not learned how to completely eliminate fear, but I have learned how to let it pass through me. This was the key step in my acceptance.”

When it comes to proactively managing conditions that can lead to an episode, Silin provides a Self Care Plan, “After analyzing your Observation Journal, you begin to notice patterns. Your images are not random—they are a response. Now it is time to turn this understanding into an active strategy for caring for your highly sensitive nervous system.” She encourages, “Every time you choose a walk over anxiety, use earplugs to create silence, or say no to stimulants, you are doing more than following the rules of sleep hygiene.”

Although I was familiar with the expression “hypnagogic state,” I never really understood exactly what it meant, what causes it, and how it might be managed. Author Silin answers these questions, describes her “slowing down” ritual for relaxing before bedtime, and shares a specific action plan for how to effectively manage symptoms that works well for her.

[Anastasiia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up mostly out of curiosity and ended up recognizing a few experiences I’d never really had words for before. Katerina writes less like an expert and more like someone trying to understand something she went through herself, which makes the book feel very approachable. The explanations of what hypnagogia is and what happens in the brain are simple and not overwhelming.

I also liked the chapter about creative people who used this in-between state. A quiet, thoughtful read that made me feel a little less strange about my own mind.

[Marianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who practices yoga nidra, I’m no stranger to the hypnagogic state — but I never had a book that spoke to it so personally and honestly. Katerina writes from lived experience, not theory, and that makes all the difference. She captures exactly what it feels like to exist in that strange threshold — the vivid imagery, the confusion, the quiet wonder of it.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m giving this book 4 stars because I’d like to read more from this author.

I’ve experienced similar states myself, and this book helped me find some answers and feel less alone. It’s a very personal and honest exploration of hypnagogia, written in a simple and approachable way.

I appreciated how the author combines her own experiences with clear explanations, making a complex topic feel less frightening and more understandable.

At times, I wanted a bit more depth in certain sections, but overall it was a meaningful and comforting read.

I’m definitely interested in seeing what the author writes next