Strange Experience

Two days ago I purchased my first tarot deck after much time spent desiring a deck of my own. I had read a couple times that you should sleep with your cards to feel more connected to the cards so placed them near my bed and went to sleep. Not long after falling asleep I was awoken to a groggy half asleep half awake state when I saw a bright flash accompanied by an extremely loud poping sound in my head. I can't recreate the sound in my head now that's how loud it was and it startled me into consciousness but I was still asleep almost as if I had become aware yet still sleeping. After the popping sound a rush of various symbols and intricate patterns fluttered through my mind all so fast that I couldn't focus on any one single thing enough to remember what it was I saw and if it was familiar to me. After the images stopped I drifted back to sleep. This sort of thing has never happened to me so is this just a coincidence or could it have had something to do with the deck at my bedside? Any thoughts or experiences would be helpful thanks!

I don't think it was a coincidence!

I've felt an "energy leap" connected to a new deck of cards before, just a few weeks ago actually (the Ukiyoe tarot if you're interested -- magical deck). The first time I used them and placed my hands over top of them in preparation for the first draw, I felt a "surge" (hope that makes sense) between the deck and the ring I was wearing, which is set with a carnelian stone that has deep personal symbolism for me. It was like the cards recognized that and were saying hello, eager to get to work.

Written out that sounds cheezy as hell, but that's what it felt like and a great feeling of joy surrounded all of it.

I think your bedside experience may have been something similar -- the cards making themselves known and excited to be working with you. Or maybe it's your own subconscious that's excited; I really don't have a clue but my instinct is that however you feel/respond is the key point. : ) Did you feel happy/excited? Or something less pleasant?

Oh by the way welcome to AT!

That's really interesting, I was wondering if others had experienced anything similar. Also I was pretty indifferent to the experience it wasn't unpleasant or a happy thing it seemed to happen and I just took it in. Thanks for the welcome!

I have never had that with a tarot deck, but once I did with a bead necklace that someone made for me and blessed. I think it is a 'first contact' event because it does not seem to recur every time.

On a much more non spiritual side of view, you might have experienced sleep paralysis. There are a great loads of articles about sleep paralysis. (now I am dumbing the explanation down, but I hope it makes some sense)=> Some say that when you experienced sleep paralysis you can visualize a rope and think of climbing on to it, to get our of bed; and when you do that your soul exits your body and you can go exploring and doing whatever you want in this world, and after that you can return to your body. Some call this OBE (out of body experience. Other don't believe in the soul exiting the body part (also I tend not to believe that the soul exits the body) and call this a lucid dream. More exactly a part of WILD (wake induced lucid dream). There are a number of ways to checking if you are asleep or you are dreaming, known as "reality check". One of my favorites is to pinch my nose and then try to breath. If I can, it means I am dreaming. It's quite an interesting concept, you might want to research more into it . A great website for that is World of Lucid Dreaming, but there are also tons of books and other materials online.

Again, this was on the non spiritual side of how I see things

TL;DR: What you have described sounds like sleep paralysis. Also, look into WILD if you so wish (wake induced lucid dream).

We only use 10% of our brains. The rest is quite mysterious, even to the medical researchers. Your mind will do some pretty wild things depending on a lot of factors. There are no spirits connected with Tarot and the "magic" of it is what your mind does with it, so considering that Tarot is considered "occult" and the connotation of "occult" brings a lot of people to the conclusion that there's something evil about Tarot, your subconscious could be playing tricks on you. The power of suggestion, you know? Don't worry about it. It's just a deck of cards. Get to work about the task of learning how to interpret them and you'll be fascinated for life. The combination of your mind and intuition plus the cards is a beautiful thing.

Just to break the myth with 10% of our brain, you might want to check this

Several times, I've had that feeling of a great rush of power coursing through me when handling cards. It even happened to me today, in fact, when I was holding the 7 of Diamonds from my cartomantic playing card deck. I was hoping to "absorb" its spirit of focus and determination, and that's exactly what happened.

I also experience sleep paralysis on a semi-regular basis, and it's similar to what you describe: the feeling of being half awake and half asleep, and of being visited by otherwordly signs and beings. That rush of sights and symbols you describe is very interesting, though, and not like what happens to me. When I see things in sleep paralysis, it's almost always something that appears to be a sentient being (specifically, terrifying ghosts and monsters. Sleep paralysis is always accompanied by the most horrifying nightmare of my life). It might work differently for other people. Do you think you've ever had it before?

A friend of mine on Tumblr described hearing a similar popping noise when waking up after apparently returning from a state of astral projection. You can read about her experience here.

There are many superstitions and folklore bits about The Care & Feeding of Your Deck - {I wrote an entire book of Tarot 'rules'}. One of them says to sleep with the deck under your pillow - another says to do it for 10 nights; yet another says remove the Devil card (Or Else!) before you do!

A little offtopic, but why would you remove The Devil card? Isn't it that you want all 78 cards to be infused with your energy? Then why remove one of them? There are more negative cards in the deck, that doesn't mean you are going to remove all of them. It's weird. Anyways, what did you settle on for your book? How much to sleep with them under your pillow? As I said, offtopic. Sorry.