Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Inducing sleep; soporific.
- adj. Of, relating to, or occurring in the state of intermediate consciousness preceding sleep: hypnagogic hallucinations.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Leading to sleep; inducing sleep; hypnotic.
Wiktionary
- adj. that induces sleep; soporific, somniferous
- adj. of the drowsiness that precedes sleep, or of the images perceived in that state
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Leading to sleep; -- applied to the illusions of one who is half asleep.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. sleep inducing
Etymologies
- French hypnagogique : Greek hupnos, sleep; see hypno- + Greek agōgos, leading (from agein, to lead; see ag- in Indo-European roots).
Examples
“Because the existing word hypnagogic means “of, relating to, or occurring in the state of intermediate consciousness preceding sleep,” and hypnopompic means “of or relating to the partially conscious state that precedes complete awakening from sleep,” many people came up with hyp - coinages.”
“As to her own ordeal, Henry told her there was a name for the strange, shifting images you see just before sleep: they were called hypnagogic hallucinations, and they often occurred in connection with sleep paralysis.”
Incubus
“The hallucinations produced in this way are called hypnagogic (from its derivation this term is properly applied only to phenomena observed at the instant when we fall asleep, or when we are imperfectly awakened, and not to the period of most perfect repose), and they occur when the subject is not in a condition favorable to sound sleep.”
Hygienic Physiology : with Special Reference to the Use of Alcoholic Drinks and Narcotics
“Apparently it's called a hypnagogic hallucination (if it happens as you're going to sleep) and a hypnopompic hallucination if it happens as you're waking.”
“Episodes frequently occur at sleep onset, termed hypnagogic, or while waking up from sleep, termed hypnopompic (Solomonova).”
“In medical parlance, the twitching is called hypnagogic myoclonus (the first word refers to sleep and the second to muscle twitches).”
“It felt like this was the description of a kind of hypnagogic state, one in which reading was like dreaming and dreaming was like creating.”
“The swots call it "hypnagogic", the more commercial-minded are calling it "sugary mutant pop".”
“Many people experience this borderland routinely when slipping into sleep -- "hypnagogic" hallucinations.”
“The Head Trip, which discusses various different states of consciousness, and that's where we learned about the hypnogogic (also sometimes spelled 'hypnagogic'), which is the state that your brain passes through on the way from waking to sleeping, "said Yates.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hypnagogic’.
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Adjectival Arcana
A roster of adjectives that infrequently surface in typical conversation and writing. Many are dredged from scientific or other technical jargon or sieved from examples of disused archaic forms.
unitegmic, acaulescent, reticuloendothelial, ingressive, uniate, acanthopterygian, ossific, epiphysial, perivisceral, acœlomatous, cestoid, acælomate and 7762 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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hypno-, hypn-
relating to sleep or hypnosis
hypnogogic, hypnotherapy, hypnotism, hypnosis, hypnophobia, hypnagogic, hypnagogia, hypnea, hypnic, hypnic jerk, hypnerotomachia, hypnoid and 21 more...
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sleep
hypnopompic, hypnagogic, nocturnal vertigo, soporific, sleep debt, slow-wave sleep, sleep inertia, sleep hygiene, bruxism, exploding head sy..., hypnic jerk, oneironaut and 5 more...
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Kathy C's List
My favorite words
golconda, au fait, purlicue, tautonym, cunctatory, gynecomastia, vesta, imprimatur, efflux, antediluvian, protean, phlegmatic and 24 more...
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I am : tired
Tired and sleepy words!
tired, weary, sleepy, exhausted, soporific, droopy, snooze, nap, dead-beat, shuteye, rinsed, groggy and 9 more...
darqueau I insist on the fact that the drawings thus obtained lost more and more, through a series of suggestions and transmutations that offered themselves spontaneously - in the manner of that which passes for hypnagogic visions - the character of the material interrogated (the wood, for example) and took on the aspect of images of an unhoped for precision, probably of a sort which revealed the first cause of the obsession, or produced a simulacrum of that cause.
Max Ernst "On Frottage" 1936 Oct 20, 2008
rolig The preferred spelling, according to Wordie's resident etymologist Qroqqa. See note at that second-rate o-heavy spelling hypnogogic. Sep 8, 2008