Ticice - I call this the Waking Lucid Dream - see
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/the-waking-lucid-dream/ - I know it doesn’t feel like dreaming, but that is because you are conscious in it and it transforms the whole thing. Having experienced this for over 40 years I have been able to explore some of its facets.
You say you have tinnitus since the experience and also visions. The fact is that breaking through the barrier of dreaming is stressful. The first time I experienced it I was vomiting and felt sick for days. In fact ever since then I cannot watch home movies where the camera move quickly between scenes.
But visions are simply lucid dreaming. See
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/levels-of-awareness-in-waking-and-dreaming/ -
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/hallucinations/ There is so much rubbish written about this area and so it is worth while realising that dreams create virtual realities that make people, animals, scenes appear outside you. In the dream sleep state that is accepted, but when the same things appear apparently outside of you people often get confused.
But as you have broken through the seal that usually protects people from experiencing wider awareness it might be worth your while reading
http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/lifes-little-secrets/ because you are exploring inner space, which is immense and very different to waking life.
Here is a woman’s experience of exploring in this way, but she had no prior information.
“I had some disturbing experiences. I was awakened by a peculiar heavy atmosphere around me. Then my whole body would start to be enveloped in the atmosphere, feet first. I would start to shake uncontrollably from top to toe as if by vibration. I didn’t want to go to wherever I felt I was going infinite blackness but felt less and less able to resist. Strangely I wasn’t afraid. It felt like an event rather than a dream”.
Remember “the space around me was black” - and the woman’s “I felt I was going infinite blackness”. That is a sign of experiencing your core self. It seems like ‘nothing’ but is fact everything.
Tony