False Awakenings and Lucid Dreaming
October 15th, 2007
A false awakening occurs when you're dreaming and believe you've woken up when in actuality you are still dreaming and only dreamed of waking up. You "wake up" and begin to go about your daily routine — visit the bathroom, brush your teeth, get dressed, etc. — until eventually you realize you're still dreaming.
At that point, you may slip into a completely new dream or you may wake up from the dream for real this time. Or, even more intriguingly, you may have another false awakening and believe you've woken up when instead you're still dreaming and once again only dreamed of waking up.
You can "wake up" from a dream only to discover you haven't really woken up at all and you're still dreaming, and then you can "wake up" from your first false awakening and think to yourself "This time I'm REALLY awake," only to find out you've had another false awakening and you're still dreaming, and then you can "wake up" again into another dream of awakening, and so forth.
This cycle of false awakenings can go on and on. In fact, it can go on so long you begin to constantly question whether or not you're awake, and you wonder how you can ever be one hundred percent certain you're not still dreaming. This is exactly the kind of persistent questioning of reality that rests at the heart of lucid dreaming.
Lucid dreaming offers so much more than entertainment. It can lead to an entirely new awareness and insight into the nature of reality.
In the Tibetan study of lucid dreaming, sometimes referred to as dream yoga, one of the goals is to guide the student to discover waking reality is not so different from dream reality.
After all, how can you ever truly know you're not dreaming?
The only answer: You can't. There's no way to know with full certainty whether you're awake or whether or not this is a dream. It's one of those complex philosophical dilemmas that prompt more questions than answers. How do we define "real"? Is an idea real? Is a thought real? How can we determine if something is real when we experience everything subjectively?
I've been experiencing false awakenings more frequently lately. Yesterday, I dreamed of waking up, using the bathroom, brushing my teeth and hair, walking into my home office, and booting up my computer, before I finally realized I was dreaming. This is unusual for me because my dreams are usually very abstract and rarely feature everyday activities. I used the brief moment of lucidity that came with yesterday's false awakening to shift into a different dream scene and was able to remain lucid for a short time before truly waking up.
Though they sometimes can be unsettling, false awakenings provide the perfect opportunity to become lucid within a dream. If you experience a false awakening, you'll inevitably reach a point when you finally realize you're not truly awake like you thought you were. You'll realize you're dreaming, which is exactly what is needed for a lucid dream to occur. This sudden realization often results in the dreamer abruptly waking up (truly, not falsely), but that doesn't have to be the result. If you remain calm and relaxed, you can harness that realization as it emerges and use it to guide yourself into a lucid dream.
False awakenings also offer a glimpse at the illusory nature of waking reality. If a dream can fool you into thinking you're awake and experiencing the "real" world, what else can fool you into thinking the same thing?
Alysson says:
ok so i had watched "Waking Life" and never fully understood it until i read your article. thanks for clearing that subject up for me.
strangely enough i had a false awakening this morning. they usually start with me waking up for real and thinking about what i am going to wear that day and what i am going to do. that way my mind just falls into dreaming about the day starting and me going about my business. I will eventually wake up realizing that i haven't started my day yet. I think i will try the idea about being able to harness the dream one day when i don't have to worry about being late for work.
Oct 17th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Jeff says:
I haven't had a false awakening for years. Never liked them. So tiring! But as you say they are a marvellous doorway into lucidity.
Oct 17th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
reality shifter says:
Alysson, I'm glad you mentioned "Waking Life"! That's a great movie about dreams and about lucid dreaming.
Jeff, I agree, false awakenings can be tiring sometimes, especially when you have multiple false awakenings in a row. Sometimes I'm eventually able to become lucid enough that I can change the dream into something else and stop myself from going into another false awakening, but other times I can't get lucid enough to do anything with the dream. It definitely gets tiring to wake up and then wake up again…and again…and again.
~ Kris
Oct 18th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Alysson says:
yeah i did it again this morning just because it was on my mind and i wanted to try it out. i finally got dressed and ended up way late and riding my bike to work with wet hair right out of the shower. but they are second graders. i don't think they care about my hair.
sometimes i find that i am lucid in a dream, but i only realize it because i notice that i can not see anybody's face. this seems to make me conscious enough to know that i am dreaming but not enough to fully wake up. it is kind of cool because i have been practicing moving my eyes up to the face of the person who i am talking to in my dream. first it was like i couldn't look above their shoulders and now it is more like their face is just blurred out. Maybe i just don't want to face up to who it is or maybe the person is a fictional character who my mind can't put a face to.
more than trying to control where or what i do in the dream i am focusing on controlling what i look at. It is harder than i thought it would be. I'm glad to practice though. sleep is always more than welcome, even if i am mentally conscious.
Oct 18th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Ryan Hurd says:
great article on false awakenings. i'm glad to see you bring in the tibetan buddhist perspective too. and the questions you ask about what is reality really hit home for me. reminds me that science can't scientifically prove it is correct, because it has to use its own methods against its self - a mirror trick of impossibility! instead, science uses other methods, like application and pragmatism, not very scientific. anyways, keep up the good work and i'll keep reading!
Oct 20th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Adam says:
I just stumbled on this essay, and I have to disagree: you made some interesting points, but I generally *can* tell when I'm dreaming. In dreams, things just don't always act the way they should, and thus it's easy enough to tell, at least given enough time. If you find yourself hovering off the ground, or you find yourself uncertain where you were 10 seconds ago, or a door doesn't always go the same place… you're probably dreaming. Correspondingly, if everything seems perfectly normal, you probably aren't.
Much stranger was the feeling I had once, after being exceptionally sleep-depped, that I was dreaming when I was actually wide awake (for certain definitions of "wide awake", anyway. I definitely wasn't sleeping, though).
Oct 20th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
reality shifter says:
Hi Ryan,
Yes, science does seem to get tangled in its own reasoning when it comes to the subjective nature of everything, or at least when it comes to the philosophical question of what is real and what isn't. Generally, if something can be consistently observed by many people, science considers it part of consensus reality and therefore labels it "real". That approach works most of the time, though not always. When you take into consideration the subjective aspects of the observation process, things can sometimes get wonky.
~ Kris
Oct 20th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
reality shifter says:
Hi Adam,
You wrote: "I generally *can* tell when I'm dreaming."
That puts you in the minority rather than the majority, but that's a good thing. Most people are not able to realize when they're dreaming. The part of the mind that observes our surroundings and labels them as "normal" versus "bizarre" doesn't function in the same way while we're dreaming. Most people wake up and consider the dream they just had and wonder how on earth they didn't realize while it was happening that it was just a dream, especially when the events in the dream were so bizarre. After waking up, we can always say "Oh, I was just dreaming", but most people don't have that same full awareness while the dream is taking place.
You wrote: "In dreams, things just don't always act the way they should, and thus it's easy enough to tell, at least given enough time. If you find yourself hovering off the ground, or you find yourself uncertain where you were 10 seconds ago, or a door doesn't always go the same place… you're probably dreaming."
That goes back to the same problem of the mental critic generally being inactive in most people while dreaming. While awake, if you found yourself suddenly hovering off the ground, the analytical part of your mind that observes your surroundings and determines if something is normal or not would instantly sound a mental alert. You'd immediately think "Okay, I'm hovering, this is definitely *not* normal." But while dreaming, that part of the analytical mind usually remains very inactive and things that would trigger that sort of mental alert are often accepted as real or normal without a second thought.
Granted, this is true for most people most of the time, but not for all people and not all of the time. That's why most people have to practice in order to learn how to have lucid dreams. A big part of learning how to become lucid in your dreams is teaching yourself how to recognize when you're dreaming. That sort of lucidity or critical mind comes naturally to some people but not to most people. Some people have to practice for weeks or months to reach that point. Consider yourself very fortunate that you're already able to recognize when you're dreaming.
~ Kris
Oct 20th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
reality shifter says:
Adam wrote: "Correspondingly, if everything seems perfectly normal, you probably aren't."
That's the problem with false awakenings. They usually seem perfectly normal, or at least my false awakenings do. The events in a dream of a false awakening usually resemble the events that occur when I wake up for real. I turn off the alarm clock, get out of bed, use the bathroom, get dressed, brush my hair and teeth, etc., exactly as I normally would if I was awake. And eventually I wake up for real and realize it was all just part of a false awakening, a dream of being awake and doing all those things, and now that I'm truly awake I have to do all those things again for real this time. That's the part that's tiring.
Thankfully it doesn't happen often.
~ Kris
Oct 20th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Ryan Hurd says:
my interest piques precisely here, where it starts to get wonky!
do you have a take on the relationship between OBE's and lucid dreams? back in the 80s, keith hearne suggested that inducing false awakenings might help determine if the two states are coupled - and as far as i know no one has followed up.
Oct 20th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
reality shifter says:
Hi Ryan,
You wrote: "my interest piques precisely here, where it starts to get wonky!"
Mine too.
You wrote: "do you have a take on the relationship between OBE's and lucid dreams?"
I don't have a take on the relationship between OBEs and lucid dreaming, if only because I've never had an OBE that I could prove without a doubt wasn't just a dream. Then again, I don't think anyone has ever been able to prove they had an OBE, which is part of the problem with researching OBEs.
I've had experiences that *seemed* like OBEs — floating above my body, looking down at my body lying in bed, moving through walls in my house, etc. — and those experiences had a distinctly different feeling than my dreams usually have, but in the end I can't really prove they were anything other than dreams. They may just have been unusual dreams that resembled OBEs.
I've read many books about OBEs, including books by Robert Monroe (who is also considered one of the pioneers in my field of brainwave audio technology) and books by Robert Petersen, William Buhlman, Robert Bruce, David Black, etc., but most of them include only anecdotal information rather than details of comprehensive research into OBEs. If someone who could have OBEs at will joined with other people who could control the experiment, even a simple experiment could turn out to be very interesting. The controllers could select images or other items and place them in a locked room, and the subject would have to travel (while out–of-body) to the locked room, observe the items, and report on them after returning to his/her body. That wouldn't necessarily tie into lucid dreaming, but I'd love to see the results of an experiment like that.
~ Kris
Oct 21st, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Slugbonz says:
Interesting article - I'm curious if this false awakening experience might in part be responsible for bed wetting - particularly in children who may not have the experience to be able to differentiate waking from dreaming. If as you say, one falsely awakens and goes about their daily routine, including toilet - then maybe there's a failure to perceive true reality before eliminating.
Anyone out there experienced having to "reality check" before they let go?
Oct 22nd, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Ryan Hurd says:
Kris,
thanks for your thoughtful responses. I don't have a "position" either but anecdotally it seems that people who have OBE experiences tend to have false awakenings as well. and apparently some people talk about inducing an OBE while in sleep paralysis…. all of these have the air of "world simulation" issues as susan blackmore would say. not that they're not "real" - but once again what is real? do we need a circle of white coats (our hermeneutic circle of shamans) to verify reality before we make our own judgements?
and in response to slugbonz, i can say from personal experience that false awakening/urination can definitely be an issue. hey, i'm not proud, but yes, i make a habit of doing a reality check every time i go. and a reality check at 3am, standing and swaying, is a difficult thing sometimes. i stood there for several minutes once, still not convinced i wasn't dreaming. and if it can happen to me - a grown man who is reasonable adjusted - then it definitely can happen to kids.
Oct 22nd, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Klaus Munk says:
I loved this article, and I've been thinking a lot about this lately actually. I recommend for everyone to see the movie called "Waking Life" by Richard Linklater.
Oct 23rd, 2007 at 4:20 am
t says:
When I dream about going through my normal morning ritual I usually wake up when I start peeing.
Oct 24th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Greg says:
Hey,,
Very interesting article. It struck a chord with me, I believe I have been having false awakenings as of late - but in mine I do not feel normal, as you mentioned you did in the comments. I feel as if I am only 1/3 awake and in my dream, have a very difficult time seeing, walking, and in functioning in general. My left eye is always completely shut and I can only see a blurry image out of my right eye. You can imagine how scary this was when I was out driving in one of these!
I usually figure out I am dreaming after one or two of these "false awakenings" and I can always remember them fully. When they first started [about a month ago], I barely managed to get up in them.. but I have been doing more and more in them as they have been going on. And I always feel only about 1/3 awake in the dream.
..??
Kindly,
Greg
Oct 25th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Nick Hall says:
Dreaming is just your brain defragmenting to free up some RAM/short-term memory space. It takes all the random bits of info floating around and strings them together into stories which are more efficient usage of available memory.
I once dreamt that someone criticised my performance in a football game from a previous dream!
Nov 1st, 2007 at 6:38 pm
neil says:
I found this article interesting as I too have false awakenings. 1 false awakening is OK but I often have multiple ones, where I have a memory of each previous one. It feels like I have 4 or 5 and it becomes so stressful that I end up calling out for people that might be around me (I am aware of my surroundings) in the hope that they will wake me up because I can't wake my self up.
At this point I have a huge sense of fear - and often other characters appear. These characters are usually smartly dressed wise looking, but not old, men. They appear to know that I am lucid and always try to take me somewhere. It's as if they are aware I am on their plane and don't like it, or want me to stay there and not wake up.
Any idea what that could mean?
Dec 25th, 2007 at 12:50 am
zillah noir says:
i had some false awakenings last night in which i kept falling back to sleep and 'waking up' or so I thought. I was being pulled by something deeper or out of myself such a horrible feeling until finally i really woke up.
Apr 9th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Blaise says:
Telling the difference between a dream and reality is easy. If I were to bite my tongue really hard, right now, it would be extremely painful. I have never felt anything resembling real pain in any dream, ever, even when something bad like getting stung by a wasp or being crushed was occurring.
Apr 15th, 2008 at 10:56 am
reality shifter says:
Hi Blaise,
Telling the difference between a dream and reality is easy for some people, but it's not easy for everyone. (If it was, this site probably wouldn't be so useful.
)
To use your example of feeling or not feeling physical pain: in order to realize you're dreaming you would need to be aware enough within your dream that whenever a painful event occurred you would be able to ask yourself whether or not you felt any pain and then consider what the lack of pain implied. Not everyone has that kind of natural awareness while dreaming, especially since the questioning part of the mind is generally turned off when we're in the dream state. As I described to Adam in an earlier comment, the part of the mind that observes our surroundings and labels them as normal versus abnormal doesn't function the same way while we're dreaming, so even though a person might not feel pain in a dream, the person might not be aware enough to realize no pain was felt or to realize the lack of pain meant he/she was dreaming.
Also, some people do feel physical pain in dreams. I'm one of those people, unfortunately. After a night of rough dreams, I've even woken up with aches and pains that lingered for several hours into the day (which brings up the notion of whether the physical pain is somehow translating from my sleeping body into my dreaming mind or whether the reverse is true instead, but that's a topic for a whole other post). I'd love to not feel any physical pain in dreams. That would be wonderful!
~ Kris
Apr 16th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
sheedah says:
Im really glad that I came across this site…Ive been experiencing a bunch of false awakenings lately and they have been occuring more frequently than usual, along with sleep paralysis and a few "perceived" out of body experiences. My false awakenings feel so very real…like in the latest one I had, I could actually feel sensations in my body and until i actually woke up a few seconds later, I really thought the dream was "reality" as we know it…or sometimes ill be half awake and half asleep and somehow stuck in between the two worlds…ill drift back into wakefulness but it will take me a few long moments to distingusih which world im in, dream or reality, if the two are actually distinguishable…its cool, but its been happening so often lately and its scary…it almost always happens during the day. But anyway, I was starting to think I was going crazy or that I had a touch of schizophrenia, so Im grateful to have come across this sight in my research on the phenomenon, and to have found out that Im not alone in this.
Apr 29th, 2008 at 12:37 am
Camille says:
I've been having a lot of False Awakenings lately. And truthfully, it scares me. My dreams are often of a "nightmare" kind. In a dream, everything starts out normal. I wake up, I go about my business, then in a sudden change of course, I have wind up toys attacking me. Realizing it's only a dream, I go back to bed, close my eyes, and try to change me dream. I wake up again, thinking "truly" woken up, everything's normal, the next thing I know, my books are being removed from my bookshelves by an invisible hand. I go about this around 5 times. 5 false awakenings, to 5 nightmares, I woke up into the "true reality", so scared of falling asleep again. How can I make this stop? I'm so scared I'm not gona wake up anymore.=S Please help me.
Aug 16th, 2008 at 9:24 pm