The adjective “hypnagogic”, signifying “which immediately precedes sleep”, a state of drawsiness. Hains’ use of hypnagogy enabled him to tear himself away from the usual tendency of photography to mimic : it deconstructed the light and transformed the image into abstract lines. He made use of procedures adapted from pre-war Dada and Surrealism with hypnagogic abstract photographs, often produced with the help of distorting mirrors. In 1948, he opened his first exhibition, “hypnagogical photographs“, at the Gallery Colette Allendy in Paris.