False awakenings

The Awakening by Michael Hale

A false awakening is the type of thing that can totally screw with your sense of reality. By definition, a false awakening is when you awake from a dream only to discover you are still dreaming. This can happen after a lucid dream or normal dream.

As a child, I had a recurring nightmare in which a flying head would chase me around and torment me. I recall one instance where I was having said nightmare and realized I was dreaming, thus gaining the ability to fly. I flew into the crimson sky, leaving the flying head trailing behind me. I heard him scream, “you cannot escape my wrath!” as I peeked through the clouds and saw a bright light.

I suddenly woke up to my bedroom; heart pounding rapidly. I felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment, although at the time I didn’t know I had experienced one of my first lucid dreams, albeit a short one. I got up and walked to my living room to tell my mother what I had dreamed about. There I saw my entire family frozen in ice! Out of nowhere I heard the flying head’s sinister laugh. I panicked as I saw the head round the hallway corner and come dashing toward me. I woke up again, but this time I was truly awake. A quintessential false awakening.

There have been instances where I’ve had 4 or 5 false awakenings in a row and wondered if I could ever escape the vicious cycle or if I had ever truly been awake in the first place; maybe my whole entire life was a dream! I don’t believe false awakenings are threatening to your health though, everyone wakes up eventually (or maybe some don’t, we just never have had the opportunity to ask them…).

I sometimes wonder if false awakenings are good for lucid dreamers. I often find myself caught completely off guard when experiencing a false awakening. It would be a paradox to be lucid dreaming and experience a false awakening because if you knew you were dreaming, it wouldn’t be a false awakening. But it is possible to become lucid at the instant you discover you aren’t awake and then begin controlling the dream. The problem I have is that once I realize I just experienced a false awakening I’m too shocked to start controlling the dream and immediately wake up.

Using reality checks can definitely aid in preventing false awakenings, as you’d be accustomed to anything askew and wouldn’t fall into the trap of believing you are truly awake. It would take some effort every morning after waking up to make sure you are awake. I rarely have false awakenings so I don’t think it is anything worth the extra effort but if they happen often to you then this method might help prevent some.