Ray Butterworth

I have always had very lucid and vivid dreams with images that are highly detailed. While waking up, I am in a 𝘩𝘺𝘱𝘯𝘰𝘱𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘪𝘤 state where I know that I’m visualizing, but if I try at all to deliberately control what I’m seeing, or even if I pay too much attention to what I’m seeing, my vision switches to my real eyes, the images immediately go away, and I wake up. While falling asleep, in a 𝘩𝘺𝘱𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘤 state, I occasionally experience the same thing, but not nearly as often. I often wondered what it would be like if one could have this ability while fully awake, but figured that except for those rare people with “photographic memory” it just doesn’t happen. It wasn’t until I was 67 that I discovered otherwise (and experienced a long series of “so 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 why” epiphanies about myself).