*I'm thinking of blogging again, and found this draft from 12/2012 that I never published.  Here you go world... just an interesting experience I had.

Edgar Allan Poe spoke of a unique class of "fancies" -'thoughts that were not really thoughts and described it as follows...

 "only at its epochs of most intense tranquillity–when the bodily and mental health are in perfection–and at those mere points of time where the confines of the waking world blend with those of the world of dreams. I am aware of these "fancies" only when I am upon the very brink of sleep, with the consciousness that I am so. I have satisfied myself that this condition exists but for an inappreciable point of time–yet it is crowded with these "shadows of shadows" 

I had an experience like this today. Sights that could not really be seen. I drifted off while reading and awoke peacefully with my eyes closed. Before I opened my eyes I realized that I could see something beautiful. Colors and patterns moving and swirling about, mostly green and blue, ebbing and flowing in three dimensions. I "focused" on what I could "see" trying to decide what it was. Perhaps the blood vessels of my eyelids or retina? I was most assuredly awake. I turned my head a little and everything got a little darker, so I turned it back. Then I covered each eye to see if it would have an effect. When I covered my left eye with my hand nothing happened, but when I covered my right eye with my hand (without applying pressure) there was darkness that flowed in, and out again when I removed my hand. It is so difficult to put down in words what I saw. I opened my eyes, and closed them again, and the scene was gone.

 I decided to Google "seeing with your eyes closed" and found a lovely wiki article that gives an explanation of this phenomenon, "closed eye visualization" (or hallucination) What I experienced was Level 3, just a step below actually seeing and conversing with unicorns (kidding), also known as a type of phosphene. There is a small gif that shows an example, but what I saw was much more beautiful, dimensional and dynamic. And although the wiki associates this mainly with LSD use, I assure you I have never dropped acid. I read a little more about this... it is a fascinating subject! I wonder what this from? Random nerve firing? Strange! Anybody else experience this? I also have struggled with sleep paralysis which is linked to on the wiki page.