Did I hear God's Voice?

One night I was lying in bed awake with my eyes closed, perhaps on the verge of sleep, when I heard a loud voice say to me "The Spirit of the Lord is upon you". The voice was masculine and familiar to me but I couldn't put my finger on whose voice it was. The voice was also very loud, like someone speaking over a microphone. I was certain that it woke everyone in the house. I was frightened and I pounded on the wall to see if my mom had heard the noise. She didn't and neither did anyone one else.

When this happened I was sixteen and it was shortly after the experience I had with sleep paralysis which I describe in an earlier blog entry. I thought about this experience and believed that it was God's will that I become a great Bible teacher. I was even more motivated to learn God's word than before. I often boasted that I had heard God speak to me in an audible voice. You are probably thinking that I had illusions of grandeur and if you are, I agree with you. For reasons I won't explain, things didn't turn out as I hoped. I never did become a great Bible teacher. In fact, I backslid and abandoned Christian practice all together.

Sometime later I was reading web pages about sleep paralysis and came across information on hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations. A hypnagogic hallucination is one that occurs when falling asleep. A hypnopompic hallucination is one that occurs when waking up. I have had several hypnopompic hallucinations but only one hypnagogic one. The most experienced hypnopompic hallucination I have is hearing someone call my name. Then I wake up but no one is there.

I now attribute what I heard when I was sixteen to a hypnagogic hallucination but I am not 100% sure. What do you think?