Why is the hypnagogic state so powerful?  
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Just a few notes: Loss of the distraction of the body. The body is supremely comfortable to the point of the mind's loss of awareness of it, for the most part. This gives more power to the mind. It also allows the mind to slip into an 'accepting' state. This 'accepting' state is very powerful.


Why can we not accomplish the same communications or manifestations of intent in our everyday lives with our waking thoughts?
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I think we can, if we are alert to our state of mind in our everyday lives, and if we have enough peace and quiet (or can vividly remember our training, through repetition). It is interesting to me that so many 'spiritual' people insist on smoking. Well, it does put one into a very relaxed state. Chanting and other behaviors bring us into this kind of alignment, also, in my mind. The key is the 'disappearance' of the body -- immersion, I guess.


But what is this collective unconcsious we impress our beliefs onto?  
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It almost feels like the intention is like an iron and our lives are like the clothing. We can iron the clothes so that they are smooth and neat....or we can iron the clothes so that they are rumpled and scorched. It is a skill to develop. The cloth is life itself, the fabric of our lives, which are connected to many other people and creatures and to our actual environment.


Why does it respond to our intent?  
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I want to say something silly. But that's what came into my mind, seriously, it is.

Because it is there.

Is "hypnagogic" one of the states we transition through as we move away from body-centered conciousness?

Like

C1 -> day-dreaming -> hypnagogic -> ? then what? sleep? OOBE? maybe it branches?

I was dreaming right before waking the other day, and I think the radio alarm had come on, and I think I incorproated some of what I heard into my dream. Does that indicate we move back through the hypnagogic state to fully waking?

Bets! Thanks. I don't recall reading about that, and that's an old term. Wiki claims Frederick Meyers coined the term. That was a while ago.

I assume someone has some brainwave traces to support the idea that the two states are very different.

Hmm this bears further reading. Though the claims that are made don't make sense to me because I can't experientially distinguish the differences they claim are there.

In his experiments with nitrous oxide, psychologist William James came to this conclusion: our consciousness is divided into thin layers, each its own feeling tone and function.  He called for exploration of each level to shed light on this hidden potential.  I suspect that evidence that tends to refute the genuineness of contact with astral worlds arises from our inability to identify and determine which level of consciousness is generating our experiences on a given occasion.  The deception of spirit impersonators should not be blamed for all the astral errors of adepts like Robert Monroe, Robert Bruce, and Emanuel Swedenborg; these adepts probably operate on an oversimplified model of the levels of consciousness they are experiencing.  

We need to drop the New Age doctrine of "the higher self" and replace it with the more modest and neutral notion of the hidden self yet to be discovered.  In my view, the imagination operates at several unconscious levels that do not involve actual spiritual dimensions.  Failure to recognize this leads to erroneous descriptions of afterlife realms and beings.  I wonder whether the transition from waking to sleeping or vice versa takes us through a transitional level of consciousness that is more conducive to spirit contact than either waking or sleeping.  Perhaps, ES stumbled on to this transitional level and learned to stay in it through trial and error.

Some of my bizarre waking experiences make me wonder about this transional level of consciousness.  I am often awakened by loud psychic knocks, a loud voice calling my name, and by a whirling sensation as if my soul ins re-entering my body through some spin cycle akin to a washing machine.  Last night, I was awakened by the sound of my car's horn honking repeatedly and at first I attributed this to some annoying mechanical malfunction that woke up my neighbors!  But as I regained consciousness, the knocking stopped and I realized it was all in my mind--or was it?   I certainly would never deliberately wake myself up in these bizarre ways.  Am I experiencing mischief built into my hidden unconsicous self (not my higher self!)?  Or are passing spirits making sport of me or trying to contact me?  At this point, the more mundane interpretation seems more plausible.

Don

Year's ago before I found out about the higher self viewpoint, I took nitrous oxide while at the dentist, and I felt as if I was aware of another bigger me I'm not usually aware of. It was very curious...at the time.