I have experienced false awakenings several times in my life and finally a recent one led me to this forum and my desire to try and atain more control over these happenings and attain lucidity. Untill last evening I had only experienced these during an afternoon nap, but last night it happened in the middle of the night, just a week after I started to study this board and work on lucid dreaming techniques.

It went something like this. I thoght I woke up to the sound of loud gunfire just a few houses over, this in itself isn't too unusuall but it was very intense and very loud this time, more so than I had ever heard before. I rolled over to my bedmate and asked her if she heard it and she replied in a sleepy voice no. I than looked at the window in my room and noticed an extremely bright light comming through where there shouldn't have been one. I than felt more and more concern for our safty with the gunshots I heard. When I looked at the light again I realized I was actually still asleep, and than I promplty woke up to a quiet calm bedroom.

The experience was both encouraging and disheartening. Encouraging that I did realize I was sleeping and have been working towards this goal for a week now, but discouraging that I coudn't explore the sensation more. I guess I will keep trying.

I have only had false awakenings from Lucid dreams. Never from a normal non conscious dream. I think that somehow the act of realizing ones actual state in the dream world can occasionaly throw confusion momemtarily to the perception of the waking state (Conversly). The world of lucid dreams is a strange and wonderful environment and can be somewhat disorienataing. The fact that you are experiencing false awakenings is perhaps a really positive sign that you are experiencing signs of lucidity , even though it seems kind of back to front. Ie:I awoke but was still asleep, instead of I was asleep but still awake. It's pretty amazing stuff either way.

I experienced a Lucid dream where I experienced two false awakenings. I was chased by a dream demon. Something conjured up I think by my guilt. I was aware I was dreaming and decided to entertain the idea of intimate contact with a dream lover. I was in a relationship at the time and my dream partner was not my "real life" partner. Before anything too interesting had occured a character appeared. Some-one I didn't know, kind of unnasuming in appearance, but stern in attitude put his hand on my shoulder and shook his head at me reproachfully. I was kind of suprised and amused by his interjection. "This is my dream" I thought "and I'll do whatever I want". I studiously ignored the the "Do gooder" and turned back to my mischievious endevours. The unasuming character was not impressed by my response and glowered at me with a look that sent chills running down my spine, he then grabbed me by the shoulders and proceeded to melt and decay all over me in an expulsion of slime and goo. "It's only a dream" I told myself, but the physical sensation of being slimed on was too repulsive so I tore myself away. At this point I rememered something from one of the lucid dream books I had read. How to change ones dream environment. Execute a cartwheel, a backflip or some extreme disorientating manouver. I executed a deft back flip somersault with a half pike and landed in a completely different environment. A Black void with a white door. I was so exited at the success of changing my dreamscape I didn't really mind when my goo oozing nemesis burst through the door. I shot up into the void superman style and popped out elswhere , a desert I think, Goopy right behind me. We blazed across several scenarios before I awoke with a start in my bed at home. "Wow intense" I thought. I then heard a match struck very loudly right next to my ear. I turned to see what was happening and floated off the bed several feet the sheets getting entangled around me. I suddenly realised I was still dreaming, I woke again. As I awoke I woke up my girlfriend next to me . I started to tell her about my experience, but I realised something still wasn't quite right. I Awoke again in my bed. Third time lucky, this time for real, but it took a little while before I could believe it. I told my girlfriend about my experience. She wasn't too impressed. She figured that as I was lucid. It was a conscious act on my part to seek ot new life forms and have casual sex with them. My experience of false awakenings has always been extremely disorienting, yet have usually occured after a particularly intense Lucid experience. Perhaps just a strange side effect of stepping into the twilight zone

Recently I had quite a stunning false awakening. I was having a Non-LD and was dreaming of being in an automobile accident. I was thrown from the vehicle and awoke with my hands held up in front of may face panting, "I'm OK, I'm OK, I'm OK!". I looked around the room and noticed how dark it was. It was then that I realized that I had been up and awake one hour earlier (W.I.L.D. practice) and it was light outside then! I closed my eyes and suddenly I saw light through my eyelids and heard the birds chirping outside. I opened my eyes and I was laying on my side instead of my false awakening position.

In waking life I am not paralysed. I was dreaming that I could move my leg and that meant that I was not paralysed and I was amazed that I could move my leg. I decided that I may be dreaming and I did a reality check with a license plate number. The second look showed a different number and I was shocked and elated that I had become lucid while dreaming. Then I immediately became upset because if I was dreaming that I could move my leg, that meant that I was really paralysed in waking life, than I awoke from the dream.

This was my first, and only true false awakening thus far. It demonstrates the RT test button like nothing I could ever have imagined, as well as how much you might think you are awake, but aren't!

5/20/02 "Man in the Mirror" Cue: RTLD Time: Past noon - after interupted sleep. 3 hours normal sleep, with five hour break. Nap at noon. Action: RTLD 2) OMG - An RTLD mind blower. I awoke in bed, and for some reason, I thought to push the RT. It didn't work right. The click sounded wrong, and I saw two grey spots. Not repeating the mistake of letting it go, I tried it again. Again, the same malfunction. I became aware of the false awakening. So I attempted to rock, and roll over onto all fours. The sensations, including gravity was so physical-like, that I was sure I had snapped out of it into a normal awakening. So I pressed the RT again. The same malfunction occured. So I increased my efforts to awaken, and found myself actually rolling out of bed, wrapped up in the comforter, onto the floor. I laughed to myself as I rolled into the wastebasket by the bed, I could feel it against my back. Now I was certain I had awakened. I pressed the RT. It malfunctioned again! Now the comforter ballooned up around me like a tent, and it seemed as though light was coming through it like the pinprick holes of a thousand stars. I tried again to get out of bed, and suddenly I found myself floating up, out, and down beside the bed, seeing as clearly as I could in the dark, my body lieing there. The sensation of movement and gravity would be best expressed as walking on the moon, or on the bottom of a swimming pool while wearing weighted boots. I was hastened to leave the bedroom for the larger ajoining room,as the sensation was much like falling out of a lucid dream, and I feared an early awakening. Though it came to mind, I did not look at the digital clock on the dresser for an etheric seperation/dream reality check (grrrrrrrr). This dream continued quite a ways before really waking up, and recording it.

Jeff,

I couldn't help but notice your experiance about your false awakening, and everyone else's. I myself have them during the day quite often, but have never realized i'm not actually awake until waking up. I personally think these are more interesting than LD's themselves. I was wondering if you've ever tried flying, or if you've ever spoken to anyone during a false awakening? Do you usually have them when you've already had plenty of sleep, or are they just when you lay down for a quick nap here and there? I'm very interested in the subject. Thanks Brent

I have false awakenings almost every night. Mostly, I have them shortly before I have to wake up in the morning. I have some dream, than I wake up, look at my alarm clock and see, that is 6 A.M., I say to myself: "I can sleep another one hour." But after few minutes, my alarm clock really rings, because it is 7 A.M. So I realized that it was a false awakening. I aslo have another kind of false awakenings: I have some non-lucid dream, than I have false awakening in which I speak with some of my friends and tell him/her what was that dream about.

Eva

Eva,

Have you ever used any type of suggestion, or some kind of "reality check" during the waking hours to help promote your false awakenings? I am very interested in false awakenings and hope to have as many as I can. You seem to be able to have many.

Brent

Eva,

Perhaps the first kind aren't real false awakenings. Perhaps they are real awakenings where you look at your clock, roll over, go back to sleep and wake with your alarm clock. If this sleep of say an hour or so is dream free time can pass very fast. Your second kind of false awakening sounds like a real false awakening in which something more than just looking at the clock has happened.

• Gene

Brent

"I was wondering if you've ever tried flying, or if you've ever spoken to anyone during a false awakening"

I have not tried flying, but I have been able to get up and explore the room I was in. On one occasion I was able to see my reflection in the mirror. It was very odd and scared me. I had the same basic form but as if my body was made of smoke and mist somehow, and distorted like the features were being pulled down, my reflection was also entrirely grey.

"Do you usually have them when you've already had plenty of sleep, or are they just when you lay down for a quick nap here and there"

I have always had them during a nap almsot eclusively in the afternoon, and strange enough only when I nap someplace other than my bed, like a couch or the floor or something.

Jeff

Jeff,

Unfortunately, I haven't had very many false awakenings to recall, only a couple. But to answer your question, no, I haven't spoken to anyone or tried flying;I was only aware of what it was after the fact. The only times I've had them are when first going to sleep after work, of course I get off of work at 7am and thus I sleep during the afternoon hours, but I have heard from many sources, and people, that they are much more common to have them during a nap type situation after at least 6 hours of sleep. I have also heard that flying and speaking to people, including past loved ones, are very common, and that these incidents seem much more real than the common dream, or even the lucid dream. Something to investigate I think, and I will keep trying to have them using the techniques that I've read about. and update you if I have any progress. Good luck. Brent

Hi!

Today was the second time in as many days that I took a nep and had a dream that began with the conviction that I was waking up in a strange environment. I did not do a state test or become lucid in either of them.

In the past when I have "awakened" like this I have always found myself in my own dream bedroom, usually standing by my dream bed. This is apparently a powerful dreamsign for me, as I can't recall ever failing to perform a state test and to become lucid in that situation. So, it is interesting to me that these recent "awakenings" did not trigger the memory to do a state test, even when I had set my intention before today's nap to do precisely that.

Of course, as always, the next time this happens, I will remember to to a state test.

Anyone have similar experience?

Paul

Aloha Paul,

Not quite the same as the scenario you've described, but I've had a few non-lucid dreams of waking up in a "familiar" environment -- the one in which I've dreamt of falling asleep. Talk about twice removed from reality!

Come to think of it, how did I get here? Keelin

Hi Paul,

I had a strange FA only a couple of weeks ago when I was staying in a hotel in Tehran. I woke up to find a ghostly figure walking into my room and pass by the bottom of my bed. Not quite understanding what I was seeing I reacted by assuming a man had actually walked into my room and shouted "Oy, what you doing in my room?" At the same time I was trying to pull myself upright in bed and finding that terribly difficult to do. Feeling heavy and confused I then woke up properly and realised that I had been dreaming. The dimly lit environment of the room in the dream seemed to be exactly the same as it was when I woke up.

I have had a few FAs (one only the other night) where I have woken up anxious about what time it actually is, finding out I'm several hours past the time I should have got up and I panic. The sense of panic usually wakes me up and I discover it's just few minutes from the time I need to get up. - I don't like alarm clocks and I think this is just one of a number of ways which my mind uses to wake me up. I wonder if I could take advantage of this phenomenon and use this as a dreamsign for lucidity. I could deliberatly set my intention to wake up say about 45 minutes before I need to get up and next time I have one of these FAs I need to say hang on a minute I'm not late! I could be dreaming here and do a state test of some sort and discover that I really am dreaming! And why 45 minutes before? Well you never know I might have a really long LD!!! If from the intention I wake up naturally 45 minutes before then I can just set my ND for a 20 minute delay and see if I get an LD from the cues.

And if I oversleep? Well what the heck! It rarely happens.

Ambitious Dreamer Phil.

Paul:

I can remember a few false awakenings into strange places, and, happily, most of them have led to lucidity simply because of the strangeness. For instance, a while back I "woke up" in a hotel room, alone and surrounded by loose papers. I got up, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the dresser to look at myself in the mirror. When I did that, I noticed something odd about my reflection ' it was me from 20 years ago, and not last night. Intrigued, I paused to review the room through the mirror's reflection. I suddenly said, "This isn't right!' and backed away from the person leaning on the dresser. I regarded myself for a moment, from behind and a little above, and then swept out of the room, through a couple more occupied rooms, and out into daylight to begin a new adventure.

So, maybe false awakenings into strange places are more helpful toward lucidity, because they offer more oddity than false awakenings in a familiar place.

Peter

Peter,

My FA's into strange places certainly seem less likely to lead to lucidity than those that occur in my own dream bedroom, at least so far.

I believe it's because of all of those "OBE" (WILD) experiences I had before I knew they were dreams. If I had typical vibrations, I knew of course that I wasn't in a normal waking state. If, as occasionally happened, I was standing by my bed suddenly awake, I just seemed to know that something wasn't right, and would do a state test.

Having an FA in a strange place, however, is just like an ordinary dream scenario to me, and my natural assumption is that I'm really awake. But I agree that this should be an excellent dreamsign, and I am excited that this has started happening. With a little effort, I should be able to use this to become lucid!

One question: Is it really a classical false awakening if one is not dreaming before it occurs? It seems that most dreams are a kind of waking up experience, actually. I thought FA's always followed a dream, usually lucid.

Paul

Keelin,

I am lost. I'm going out to look for myself. If I get back before I return, please ask me to wait!

Paul

Paul:

I tend to go in the opposite direction. When I have a false awakening in what appears to be my bedroom, I almost invariably fail to notice I'm dreaming because of the familiarity of the moment. This is, of course, in spite of clocks reading the wrong time, furniture in the wrong places, or the presence of people who normally wouldn't be in my bedroom. Indeed, the other day I even had a FA where I got up, went outside and watered some new shrubs in front of the house, chatted with the neighbors, and came back to bed to complain to my wife about all the dream signs I've been missing. Then I "woke up,' and described the whole dream to my wife, only to roll over and find myself in yet another dream! That switch was enough to finally pound some lucidity into my thick skull!

Though I dare not pretend enough knowledge to confirm a "classical" definition, I would say that a FA would need to follow a dream, just to give it context. I don't think they must follow a lucid dream, though that certainly increases their impact. Also, I would add to that definition that a FA should include the "sensation" of waking up (i.e., opening your eyes in your bed), so that the dreamer is truly given the opportunity to think that he is awake.

Peter

Peter,

In the recent dreams I'm referring to I had just gone to sleep during a nap. I'm pretty sure--can't be positive--that I went right into REM. When the dream started, I believed I was waking up. My mind concocted stories that began with my having been asleep. There was no preceding dream that I recall (Unless, of course, we take waking life to be a kind of dream!) Perhaps I remembered just going to sleep, at some level.

It's interesting that we don't have more ordinary dreams at night that begin with the belief that we are waking up. Usually I just find myself in a dream world without contemplating the state I was in just before the dream. Maybe it has to do with how quickly we start to dream after falling asleep.

I'm definitely going to start working with this "belief that I'm waking up" as a dreamsign, especially at nap time. What I need to do, I think, is begin to be compulsive about checking my state whenever I think I have just woken up, 24/7.

Paul

Paul:

Keep in mind that dreams are all about our minds' manufacturing novel waking worlds, separate from physical life. I would imagine that a sense of waking up, or remembering that you went to sleep, would be anathema to the natural premise of dreaming (as is Lucid Dreaming!). When dreaming, we're not interested in our sleeping selves, or even what happened in our physical lives moments earlier (i.e., falling asleep). This disinterest is one of the hurdles toward successful LD'ing.

So, if you were feeling like you were waking up (but were still dreaming), you were likely having some version of a false awakening. Also, though I'd bet that you might just not remember the dreams that preceded them, I suppose you could experience a false awakening without a preceding dream or LD. More important, if you are getting that sensation of waking regularly, it is certainly an excellent choice for a dreamsign! After all, you're already doing something "unnatural." You could be clearing an impotant hurdle with your false awakenings. Let us know if it works!

Peter

P.S. Maybe Stephen will share some research results to confirm or deny the points of this discussion...

Bearing in mind that I'm still very much a novice in these experiences, I would like to say that in my opinion the definition of a false awakening is not dependent upon what happens prior to the false awakening. All it takes to experience a false awakening is the belief that you have just woken up (a belief impressed upon you by the unconscious part of your dreaming mind) and that belief is essentially non lucid regardless of whether prior to the false awakening you had just fallen asleep or were dreaming non-lucidly or lucidly and regardless of whether after the false awakening you continue to dream non-lucidly or lucidly.

I think that the unconscious dreaming mind can have you believe that you have just woken up by creating that impression using your dream surroundings and or by giving you the sensations you normally experience when waking up like opening your eyes, feeling heavy or slightly disorientated. I could even be controversial here and suggest that the belief of having woken up can even be formed by the creation of a false memory of having gone to sleep! I'm not sure about it myself but it's a thought.

What I'm trying to say is that the way I understand it, you don't necessarily have to have just gone to sleep or dreamed of going to sleep prior to the false awakening to experience the false awakening and the nature of a false awakening in itself is non-lucid even if in some cases (prolific LD'r) only for a short moment.

As for using a FA as a dreamsign I'm not really qualified to say, but I think it can be used as a powerful dreamsign and I'm hoping I will be able to use it in a similar way as Paul has suggested himself. As I said in my last posting, I don't like alarm clocks and therefore rely upon my natural body clock to wake me up. This means that by habit the first thing I tend to do when I wake up during the night or early in the morning is look at my watch to check the time. This anxiety about the time has on a number of occasions spilled into my dreams in the form of waking up late.

Sorry for letting this post drag on. I'll try and keep them shorter next time!

Phil.

Phil:

Excellent post! You seem to have a good grasp of false awakenings, and, with Paul's help, you've convinced me that a false awakening can be a stand alone event. And yes, part of the FA could include the invention of the memory of a previous dream (but how would we ever know?).

The really interesting thing here is your opportunity to convert a regular dream event into a dreamsign! I was going to say that I hope doing so doesn't screw up your natural alarm clock, but I couldn't do it: if I had this opportunity I would probably sacrifice a bunch of late starts in the waking world for the possibility of LD's, too!

Peter

P.S. Don't worry about your post's length...sometimes it takes a while to get the thoughts out!

Thanks for your words Peter. It's nice to know when a contribution helps.

I have often wondered about false memory because I have had dreams where I find myself in surroundings that feel very familiar and within the dream I act and behave as if I have always known the place and yet upon waking reflection I cannot think why the place should have been familiar to me. This leaves me with two possible conclusions either I have unknowingly (or just plain forgotten) of having dreamed of being in that place previously or that part of the dreaming mind which creates the dream has the ability to make us believe we know the place by means of false memory. I'm referring to non LDs but I suspect it is just the same with LDs.

Just interesting thoughts! I'll let you know how I get on with using an FA as a dreamsign when I start working with dreamsigns. I'm in no rush and currently working on improving my dream recall ability. Phil.

Phil,

With regards to non-LD dreams with (irrationally) familiar settings, I think this is actually one of the more tricky obstacles for me to overcome for LD'ing. It would be easier to recognize a dream as a dream if the setting didn't so often feel so natural, usual, and familiar. The plus side is that sometimes the (dream-only) familiar places recur and lend themselves to a nice possible dream sign. Peace, Michael

Does a false awakening have to involve the dreamed event of "waking up" in bed? I have had several dreams where I find myself up and about, usually in the kitchen of our house, doing things that I normally would do after waking up. The surroundings are familiar to me and, other than some bizarre dreamsigns, everything is as it would be had I woken up for real.

For example, today I dreamed that this morning I found myself down in our laundry room in the pre-dawn hours. For some reason the washing machine and dryer were still running. Usually our laundry is completed before 10:30 PM the night before.

Now, in the above account I do not remember dreaming of waking up, but yet it is something that occurred within the context of "this morning after waking".

Perhaps this is not a "true" false awakening, but rather a variation. Any comments?

Rich:

Good question. I'm not sure we've addressed that angle exactly in the past, but I would guess that a false awakening should include the sensation that you are "waking up" from your dream into another. This would probably require the false awakening scene to offer some resemblance to your normal awakening scene (i.e., your bed).

That said, I must admit that I regularly have two irregular themes in my false awakenings: First, they are almost never set in my own bed or bedroom, or even anything that resembles it. I'm often in bed, but it's invariably a bed in someone else's house (or barn, or tree, or car, or spaceship, etc). Second, I also regularly have dreams after LD's that are set in environments that bear no relation to either sleep or waking up. In them I describe to my wife or an inexplicably familiar stranger the details of the recent LD, including why it was an LD, and what I did to prolong or lose lucidity. For instance, yesterday I spent some time following my wife around an antique store while she shopped for exquisitely impossible items. I excitedly explained an LD I had just experienced and also lamented my failure to fulfill my intentions for that LD. Both themes share a sense that I just had an LD, and that I was no longer asleep, or dreaming.

I would call the first theme a classic false awakening with a mild twist, so I guess it fits standard descriptions. Though the second example carries no physical sign of waking up, I think I can term it a false awakening because I feel awake after having just been dreaming, so I am able to "trick" myself into thinking I am awake. Falsely.

Okay, I think I'm beginning to stray from sense at this point, so I'll stop. Hopefully other dreamers with a better grip on the accepted definition of a false awakening (or confirmation that there is no accepted definition) will chime in at this point"

Peter

P.S. What is truly amazing is my knack for accepting the "reality" of the moment in both above circumstances, regardless of their bizarre settings or the recent LD!

Hi Peter and Rich,

Well, there's an original question! In a broad sense, it would seem that every non-lucid dream could be thought of as a false awakening if we define the state as believing we're awake when we're actually still dreaming. And to take this notion even further, here's a quote from LaBerge's first book "Lucid Dreaming" that seems appropriate to the question posed:

"How do you know that you are awake right now? You may say you remember waking up from your last night's sleep. But that may merely have been a 'false awakening,' and you may fool yourself now by dreaming that you are not dreaming anymore. Perhaps what we take to be 'true awakenings' are really just another degree of partial or false awakenings."

Ooh, I like this! Because if I think of my current, presumed-true waking state as some kind of dream, what choices unfold before me! That is, as long as I remain aware -- and respectful of the "dream characters" who populate this scene.

And what do others think of this notion? This dream character would like to know! ;) ' Keelin

PS: Isn't it a more beneficial question, by the way, to ask not "Am I awake or am I dreaming?", but rather "Am I aware?" regardless of state?

Keelin:

"Am I aware?" Whoa, that's a powerful question, especially if asked and answered honestly!

You are right, though -- to acknowledge the presence of your Self on a regular basis would certainly aid in the experience of lucid dreams'and lucid life!

Now if we can just get a few million people to turn off "Survivor" for five minutes to consider the thought"

Dream on,

Peter

Keelin:

I like you thoughts on the "Am I aware" question regardless of state. To me a lucid dream seems pretty much exactly like my daytime life since I'm "aware" in each circumstance. Now if I could just learn to fly during the day I would have it made

Peter:

I can't stand "Survivor" and "reality TV" so your comment really gave me a laugh! So many people are addicted to something and pass through their lives unaware of all the wonderful possibilities out there

Blue Topaz

My experiance of a false awakining to me was one night I was trying my nova dreamers. It was a new experiance for me about the second or third try.I wore them all night and at about 4 in the morning I awoke and removed them and under flash light I turned control to mode 9 to check how many times it went off during the night.. It flashed 14 times.Well then I turned them off and put the [N D] sleep mask in a box. It was still early so I went back to sleep for another hour or so..When I woke up to my suprise I was still wearing them!! And when I checked how many times it went off it said 9 times! My memory to the first check at 4 oclock was so life like and vivid that when I awoke at 5:30 to find the sleep mask still over my eyes It was hard to believe! Does this sound like a false awakining or some fairly strong lucidity cues I missed?? any opinions??

Hi Tom,

In response to your question: "Does this sound like a false awakening or some fairly strong lucidity cues I missed?"

Well, it sounds like both! And this is why pressing the RTB (Reality Test Button) on the mask EVERYTIME you THINK you've awoken is absolutely essential when you're working with the NovaDreamer.

Thanks for offering your dream as an example of just how easy it is to be fooled (And how appropriate of you to post this on April 1st!)

Foolishly fun dreams to all, Keelin

Here's a multiple False Awakening experience I had this morning that I thought I'd share:

I had a mildly disturbing normal dream, which was followed by a convincing FA. During the FA, which took place in my childhood bedroom, I decided to WILD back into the dream to resolve it. Instead, I had a newly disturbing dream where I was lying on my back in bed, in total darkness, my hands bound tight at my sides. I was lucid (or at least the dreaming mind that had me WILDing from a FA also convinced me I was lucid), but was still unable to free myself, or change the dream to a happier scene. So I forced myself to wake up. I did, but emerged into another convincing FA (I even did a successful reality test to confirm that I was awake in the black room with a distant pinpoint of light, not remembering that my "real" room was barely dark, and that comforting pinpoint shouldn't have been there).

I 'WILDed' once more, and was back in the darkness. This time my wrists were held by my crazed older brother, who appeared as he would have during his teenage bully years decades ago. I escaped to another FA, and wondered (still unaware that I had not woken up) at the implications and symbology of all this. I decided to stop trying to LD, but that decision doesn't carry much weight when made during the dream. I 'fell asleep' again, to find myself lucid once more, this time bound by a pair of hands whose arms disappeared into the darkness beneath me.

I had had enough, so this time rather than 'wake up,' I gathered all the concentration power that I could to convince the hands to release me -- it was, I assured myself, my dream after all. The effort succeeded, and when the pressure was off my wrists I immediately flew up through the ceiling of my old bedroom, determined to LD on my own terms.

I made it through the roof easily, and floated in space above a moonlit pristine jungle while trying to remember my original goal for that night. I must have paused for too long, because I woke up, for real, moments later. Once awake, I had to smile at my folly: I found myself lying on my right side (as usual) with my hands clamped firmly between my knees. Both hands were asleep, and painfully numb!

I guess my dreaming mind was trying to tell me something after all...

Peter, are you sure you're not still dreaming?...

Paul

The dream was trying to keep you in itself, protecting you from awakening.

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some advice towards false awakenings. I seem to have these A LOT. And false awakenings, at least to me, seem to be the most realistic dreams I have. Last night, I woke up from to hear my mother whistling, which I found very strange because she is not scheduled to be back in the same time zone as me for a few more days. I said "Mom, I thought you were coming back tuesday?." "I must be dreaming." And she replied by saying "Obviously you are not dreaming, im right here, you're in your own house, everything is real, talk to your father. Hes disapointed that he didnt do well in the tournament." All of this made perfectly logical sense at the time, seeing as how my father is a touring poker professional, and I heard the day before that he got knocked out, and might be returning early. So I realized the reason I had woke up was because I had to use the washroom, so I went... did my business, and crawled back into bed, repeating "I will remind myself I am dreaming in my next dream."

Anyways, the point is that the dream was so realistic that I didnt even think to do a reality check. I was groggy in the dream from just awakening, and everything seemed to be in place, and I had no text near by, nor a clock to look at. Plus it did not seem an appropriate time to do a RC.

I woke up this morning to realize it was a dream. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to deal with false awakenings. They all seem so real to me, and occur very often.

Jesse James

Jesse,

The thing that helps me most - is to always check reality somehow when you wake up. If the alarm clock thing works for you, do that... or find something that does. Check it every time you find yourself awakened in bed. Afte a while, you'll catch yourself out, and hopefully be able to turn that into a lucid experience.

Michael