The Veranda: How the Liminal Space Before Sleep Can Calm, Restore & Inspire

The Veranda is where the outer world dims, and the inner one begins to glow.

We cross a threshold every night, though most of us rush past it without noticing. It’s that drowsy, drifting time when the day begins to loosen but dreams have not yet formed—the hypnagogic state. I call it The Veranda.

Childhood Rituals

When I was young and couldn’t fall asleep, I would rest my foot against the white and purple toy box my Dad built for me, rocking myself gently back and forth while the GE flip clock on top clicked its steady rhythm, the faint orange light marking time in the dark. Sometimes I’d count the seconds until the next flip; other times I’d just wait for the inevitable click of time passing. Years later, on the waterbed Dad built during my pre-teen years, I’d listen to late-night AM talk radio and let the voices carry softly next to my pillow—so my parents wouldn’t hear I had it on—while the slow back-and-forth slosh of water beneath me lulled me into calm.

As a child, I also discovered something magical, before I knew it had a word! I would sometimes watch the colors and shifting patterns of light behind my closed eyes, fascinated by their quiet movement. I'd rub my eyes and watch the colors change and swirl, or just quietly watch the pattern evolve. It felt like a magical color show made just for me. I didn’t know they were tiny sparks from the visual cortex—light that continues even when the world goes dark.

I didn’t know it then, but all of those small rituals and discoveries were teaching my anxious, overthinking mind how to ease its grip—how to downshift from the quick pulse of stress and wakefulness into the slower, rhythmic waves of sleep.

Learning the Language of Light

Now, decades later, I’m pretty sure my husband of more than thirty years wouldn’t appreciate me rhythmically rocking the bed with my foot—or tuning in to late-night AM radio—so I’ve had to find new ways to soothe myself to sleep. Over time, I came back to those inner lights I’d watched as a child. Now I know they have a name: phosphenes.

They’re the biological trace of illumination—little bursts of the visual system still active when sight itself has gone quiet. Watching them without judgment or effort, I began to notice how they seemed to lead me inward, toward stillness and calm—the same gentle descent my childhood rituals once gave me, but from the inside out.

That curiosity—and perhaps the latent scientist hiding inside the dreamer—led me to the study of hypnagogia, the state between waking and sleeping where those sparks often bloom into colors, patterns, or even brief dream scenes. Scientists recognize this state as the transition between alpha and theta brain waves—the threshold from relaxed awareness to the first stages of sleep.

The term hypnagogia literally means “sleep conductor.” It was coined in the mid-1800s by the French researcher Alfred Maury to describe this unique passageway of consciousness. And while the science may sound modern, the practice of working with this liminal state is anything but new. Throughout history, countless creative minds have used this very threshold to spark insight and invention. Beethoven, Wagner, Edison, Dalí, Tesla, and Newton all developed ways to linger at the edge of sleep—holding an object or taking a brief doze—to let ideas surface from that half-lit place between waking thought and dream state.

Brain Waves

• Alpha waves (8–12 Hz) appear when we close our eyes, relax, and let sensory input fade.

• Theta waves (4–7 Hz) emerge as we drift toward sleep and are associated with creativity, memory consolidation, and intuitive insight.

So what I once treated as a private light show turns out to be part of a universal biological rhythm—a built-in bridge between thought and dreaming, and a practice that visionaries have quietly used for centuries.

Finding My Veranda

My Twilight Veranda Vision - a purple starry sky, a comfy chair, a cup of tea, and a sleeping dog.

With this newfound understanding of phosphenes and hypnagogic states, I began approaching my nighttime descent—from wakeful restfulness toward dreaming—much more consciously. A few years ago, I discovered it was soothing for me to envision the night sky, the constellations, and astrological charts in my mind's eye as I tried to fall asleep. I let that idea expand into a veranda under a deep purple twilight sky. The veranda became a place of respite between daily life and entering the house of dreams. It's a liminal space between conscious thought and the world of dreams. On that veranda, I envision myself curled up comfortably, looking at the stars, smelling the scents of the season lightly in the air, with my dog at my feet and maybe a cup of tea and a warm blanket. There I can let the day fade and thoughts wander. My Veranda.

Why the Veranda's Liminal Space Matters

Science, it turns out, validates what intuition already knows: this threshold isn’t just poetic—it’s profoundly practical:

• Stress Reduction: Attending to imagery or breath in this zone lowers heart rate and cortisol. It’s a built-in antidote to rumination.

• Sleep Readiness: Easing through the alpha–theta doorway rather than collapsing through exhaustion enhances spindle activity—tiny bursts that consolidate learning and emotional balance.

• Creativity & Problem Solving: The hypnagogic state couples relaxed attention with active imagination—the same condition Edison and Dalí used to harvest ideas. When we “sleep on it,” this is where the mind does its quiet, elegant work.

It’s a state that prayer and meditation also touch—eyes closed, breath slowed, awareness turned inward toward a whisper of light.

How to Enter

Here's how I practice stepping into the Veranda:

• Create your veranda. Dim light, quiet sound, a sense of safety. For me, that’s imagining the night sky dotted with stars and my astrological chart floating above me—each planet a lantern of meaning.

• Shift focus from thoughts to images. Notice the patterns of light behind your eyes; let them change on their own.

• Pose a gentle intention. A question such as “What would help me feel healthier, more abundant, or wiser?” Or perhaps more pointed questions, like "How can I best address this interpersonal issue at work tomorrow?"

• Surrender to the drift. You’re not forcing sleep; you’re letting the current carry you there.

Morning Integration

What begins on the Veranda continues the next morning. Insights from the night often surface quietly—during breakfast, in the shower, or mid-conversation. A brief journal note (I use the Notes app on my iPad) or pause of reflection can turn half-remembered images into usable wisdom.

This daily rhythm—descending into the Veranda at night and emerging with the dawn—is how the psyche keeps itself whole. It’s the original form of self-care.

Your morning self will thank you.

Try This Tonight

When you turn off the light, resist the urge to scroll, plan, ruminate, or second guess your life choices.

Instead, close your eyes and picture your own veranda—perhaps under a purple sky, perhaps beside the sea. Let the day’s worries settle like dust on the porch.

Then look gently into the darkness behind your eyes. You may notice tiny sparks or ripples of color—the phosphenes. Let them appear and change on their own, as if you were watching fireflies or distant phosphorus lamps in a cavern.

Quietly ask, What do I see? What do I need to know or understand?

No effort, no analysis—just curiosity.

Whisper an intention for peace, clarity, or creative guidance.

Each night’s Veranda is only one doorway. In time, I’ll write about what happens when the same light glimmers in other kinds of darkness—grief, change, and the quiet moments of becoming whole.

For now, I hope this small practice help you rest, rejuvenate, and re-imagine.