Comments on: How to Prevent False Awakenings

By: Ryan Hurd

Ryan Hurd — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 06:20:51 +0000

Don’t worry about it Briana if you haven’t had it… it’s not all that common. Not a curse anyways, but an opportunity to explore the dream world safely!

By: Briana

Briana — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:36:47 +0000

Hi Ryan ,

Can anybody have these dreams, because im 15 & super scared ??

By: Nicole

Nicole — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 04:33:28 +0000

I have been having them a lot lately! I’ve never had them before! And I have to say, I dislike them very much. In my dream where I’m ‘awake’ I know I’m dreaming and I keep trying to wake up. It’s so scary. When I first started having them I was so confused, but now I know that I am asleep and no matter how much I scream for my husband to wake me up, it doesn’t work. Most of the time he has left for work already and I dream that he’s still here getting ready, but I know that he left already so it just freaks me out! I would very much like to be done with these false awakenings. :-/

By: John Parent

John Parent — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 22:15:22 +0000

I never heard of False Awakenings in my life, until this morning when I told my wife about a dream I just before waking up.
I woke up, brushed my teeth, took a shower, got dressed and headed off to see a customer located in San Antonio, Texas. Note, I remember driving the entire distance. (180 miles) I entered the building and asked for the person I had an appointment with. I informed the person I spoke with that I was early. So they asked me if I wanted to wait in the employee cafeteria. I then went to the cafeteria, but noticed all the people going to break were looking at me. I really didn’t think much of it, until one gentleman asked me if I was okay. At that moment I had a strange feeling that this whole morning was a dream. I could not get out of it. I new I had to awaken in reality and go to work and thought, if I don’t wake up, I will oversleep and be late for work. I then sat down at a table and placed head down in my harms and told myself to go back to sleep and wake up in reality.
I have to say this was the strangest dream I have ever had. Even my flashbacks from Vietnam weren’t this weird.
By the way I made to 60 years of age before having one of these FA’s.

By: Makenna Erickson

Makenna Erickson — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 05:45:33 +0000

I’m always kind of scared of this happening. I manage to forget any fears before I actually fall asleep and I can actually choose when to make my dream vivid or not. I might remember really strange dreams. What I hate about this problem is my photographic memory. Once I see something that’s shocking I can remember each and every detail.

False Awakenings havent happened too often for me to remember, but the one I do remember scared me. I was walking around my room, and then I noticed the furniture was from when I was younger [about 7-11, I'm a teen now], but I still felt like I was in reality. When I finally saw I wasn’t, naturally something scary pops up. It was kind of like a banshee. And now I have it stuck in my head forever due to my memory. Anyone know if I can fix this problem? Dreams with shocking images always leave me with a mental scar since they often follow me throughout my everyday events.

The “falling abyss” is actually pretty comforting to me. I like the feeling of my stomach flopping over and when it does happen, I always wake up with a jerk. And I know I’m awake. So I would much prefer it to my usual nightmares. A lot of my dreams actually end with me falling. It’s a bit annoying waking up at 4:35 AM with a jolt, but it beats knowing if I’m awake or not.

Also, I know this is irrevelant–I notice after I have a especially vivid dream, the week after I see little sparkles in the corner of my eyes. Anyone know what this is?

By: Zack Morris

Zack Morris — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 20:16:43 +0000

I’ve been able to lucid dream since I was a was a kid. But lately now (approaching 40), I’ve been having lots of multiple FA’s in one night. It can get kind of annoying.

Last night I FA’d several times, and once I realized I was dreaming, I would “wake up” and go find my journal, and feverishly write notes about what was happening in my dreams, trying to recall as many details as possible in my notes. This happened repeatedly throughout the night, and in the morning, there was nothing in my journal. But, I still remember quite a few of the details as I’m writing this many hours later.

By: Shawn

Shawn — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 07:32:39 +0000

Hello
I just had a frightening series of FAs. I am staying in a hotel tonight and dreading going back to sleep and possibly having more. In the FAs I would scream myself “awake” and wake up my friend in the hotel room. It actually took more than screaming; I would have to roll off the bed, spaz out, and jump onto my friends bed. I kept ending up in sleep paralysis in the FAs, sometimes laying on the floor wrapped up in my blanket trying to scream, and, of course, my voice box was being stubborn. The worse part is that I was having a nightmare before each FA. I won’t go into the details now and I’m forgetting anyway, but it was something like having visitors from the paranormal world. It reminded me on the scene in the recent movie Insidious, where the woman finds the little boy in a hat scampering around her house. After each FA, not much happened before going back into the nightmare; I just looked around the dark hotel room. There’s no way I could have seen abnormalities or realized it was a FA since I’m not familiar with my surroundings. So that is basically my story. It has been scary and i Googled it and found this thread. I did take some philosophy but forgot the term false awakening. Wanted to see if anyone else went through the same torture.
Regarding some of the posts I’ve read, milk almost always causes me to have a dream when I drink it before bed. I agree that alcohol and caffeine mess up your sleeping routine. For me, eating a lot before bed increases the chance of dreaming, too. Any time you go to sleep without following your typical routine I think dreams are more likely. Example: sleeping with your head on the opposite side of the bed makes dreams more likely. Well that’s it so wish me luck not having another FA tonight. After I literally woke up earlier I woke my friend literally to prove to myself I was up.

By: Ryan Hurd

Ryan Hurd — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:07:49 +0000

welcome Diane and I hope you rest better knowing you’re not alone, and that there’s some things you can do to prevent further false awakenings from stacking up.

By: Diana

Diana — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 15:27:35 +0000

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I went to sleep last night very early, and woke up very early this morning, early enough that I decided to go back to sleep, resulting in a stream of lucid false awakening dreams where I was laying on my side in my own bed, unable to move or talk, while a version of myself (or rather, a manifestation of all the parts of my personality I am not proud of and generally try and avoid) leaned against the wall and varied between yelling and screaming at me, trying to get me to slip into a real dream instead of waking up, and threatening me. Mixed in were several “false awakenings” and one real awakening, where I ripped off my sleep mask (which I could feel all while I was sleep, and kept trying to take off as an attempt to wake up). I fell right back asleep and the same thing happened. Absolutely horrifically terrifying, 100 times more than any nightmare I’ve ever had, because I kept thinking, Oh my God, this is what I’m really like–what will happen if I ever DO lose control of my subconscious? I’ve been shaky and scared ever since I woke up for real the second time (whereupon I promptly chugged an energy drink and turned on a light) two hours ago.

Your site has been an absolute blessing. So many things you’ve written about I experienced in the dream–right down to wiggling my pinky (despite never having read that technique before!) I remember thinking maybe it would get my blood flowing and wake me up (it didn’t, but next time I will know to either relax and go with it or try and scrunch my face!). I also, during the only false awakening where I actually got out of bed, realized I was dreaming right on the threshold to my bathroom, where I promptly realized I was dreaming and had ANOTHER false awakening right back in my bed, arguing with my dream self (again).

All the elements you mentioned where there–resistance, fear, some kind of erotic feeling (my dream self was trying to get me to relax into an erotic dream and I didn’t want to because I’m generally fairly uncomfortable with that sort of thing. It succeeded at one point, I did relax into another dream, also taking place in my bed, until it felt too real, and I panicked because I began to wonder if I was drugged or something).

I’m terribly sorry for rambling, it was just such a completely unusual experience like nothing I’d ever had, to come here and realize I am not alone, that this is natural, explainable and something others have experienced in some form or another, has done more for my piece of mind than anything. Usually, writing out nightmares helps me release from them, but they were never lucid, and 1500 words later, I was still freaked out by all this. My last thought this morning before I fell asleep was “I hope going back to sleep won’t cause me forget the wonderful dream I had last night”, so I guess my brain just took that and ran with it.

Thank you, thank you.

By: Ryan Hurd

Ryan Hurd — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 02:35:14 +0000

Hi Emily,

sounds like you’re in a vicious circle. I have heard other parents of infants talk about this issue, the heart of which is that you are most likely sleep deprived. no kidding, right? to answer your first concern, the worry that you won’t wake up is probably not an issue, as you are actually experiencing TOO much vigilance when asleep, and that’s leading to increased lucid dreams. while the false awakenings are disconcerting while they happen, nonetheless they are harmless and there’s no evidence that they contribute to not knowing reality from dream while you are awake.They are emotionally taxing however, so getting better sleep is the most important priority. Can you find time in your schedule to get more sleep? Can you sleep when the baby sleeps? Can you take catnaps at other odd hours when you have 30 minutes to spare? You may also want to pose this question to my colleague Erin Langley, who also experienced many unwanted lucid dreams when she was parenting a baby. her blog is: http://luciddreamconservationproject.blogspot.com/