False Awakenings and Lucid Dreams

False awakenings are a curious phenomenon for lucid dreamers and non-lucid dreamers alike.

They are essentially ultra vivid dreams in which you are convinced you have woken up in physical reality. They are most likely to happen when you are excited about a big day ahead.

There seems to be a switch in your brain that determines how aggressively you question your reality. Lucid dreamers aim to have this switch in the "on" position as often as possible, day and night. That's how they realize they are dreaming. Everyone else has the switch in the "off" position pretty much all the time.

In a false awakening, the brain assumes you have woken up, and flicks this switch firmly off. It says: "no need to question this reality, I'm definitely awake." Like real life, you have control over your actions (you may get up, eat breakfast, get dressed... all the things you do every day on autopilot). And also like real life, the dream can appear perfectly real and solid. You will only truly appreciate how real when it happens to you. It reveals how remarkable the human brain really is, with its striking ability to emulate reality.

'Waking Up' from False Awakenings

Eventually, you will start doing a more complex task in your dream that draws on part of the conscious brain that is still asleep. Maybe you look in the bathroom mirror, or attempt to read a signpost on your way to work. This exposes the illusory nature of the dream and BAM! You wake up.

Or perhaps not. Some people report having multiple false awakenings in succession, doing the same things over and over, never knowing when they have truly woken up. They keep unconsciously rebooting the waking dream scenario...

As uncanny as it sounds, if you have just had one false waking experience, you are much more likely to have another. The conditions are already ripe.

One guy reported seven multiple false awakenings in a row! Needless to say, he was pretty frustrated about it. In fact, I'm convinced the movie Groundhog Day is based on a series of multiple false awakenings. In it, Bill Murray gets caught in a personal time warp on the worst day of his life. He wakes up on the same day again... and again... and again... The story bears all the hallmarks of a dream-within-a-dream scenario (with the exception that he can think straight!)

My Experiences

I've never had multiple occurrences, as far as I can remember. That may be why I rather enjoy false awakenings. They are exceptionally vivid and lifelike, and reveal a lot about semi-conscious logic inside a non-lucid dream.

Sometimes these dreams drag on for several minutes then I abruptly wake up; other times I realize I'm dreaming and become lucid. (Although that's not always as easy as it sounds!)

In one such dream, my reality switch was so firmly "off" that even while I did my reality check and tried to push my hand through the glass window, my brain refused to accept the possibility of it passing through. Instead, my hand bounced off the glass realistically.

I was dumbstruck. Being unable to rationalize what was happening, I clumsily explored my house, knowing that something was wrong but unable to define it.

I use very tactile reality checks, so I went around touching everything, unsuccessfully trying to put my hand through things, experiencing the most vivid dream I have ever had. Eventually I found my partner in the kitchen cooking dinner at 7am. Logic bomb! I instantly became lucid and flew away.

False awakenings can be very minor (you dream of waking up in the morning, then quickly slip out of the dream and wake up for real). Or they can be long, drawn out affairs. The great news is, they can often lead to lucid dreams!

The key to becoming lucid in this scenario is to remember to perform a reality check early on and be persistent. Here are some easy ways to do so.

How to Turn False Awakenings into Lucid Dreams

1. Use your alarm clock for reality checks - whenever you look at the time, ask yourself if you are dreaming. The best part about this technique is that numbers and letters are hard to read in a dream, because the language centers of the brain are shut off. So words are prone to changing or turning into unreadable symbols after a few seconds. Your alarm clock will expose this.

2. Look at your reflection in the mirror - since the first thing people do in the morning is go to the bathroom, this is an ideal reality check. Allow yourself a few seconds to examine your face, check that the reflection of the room is normal, and see if you can push your hand into the mirror itself.

3. Leave notes for yourself around your house - frequently prompt yourself to do a reality check or simply ask if you are dreaming. Put the notes in key places (like door handles, light switches, and banisters) and don't ignore them.

4. Test your reality while you eat breakfast - false awakenings can often involve eating breakfast so this is a prime time to perform a reality check. If successful, you will suddenly be able to taste the food you are eating!

5. Perform a reality check when you wake up - make lucid dreams the first thing you think about every day. If you get used to doing reality checks when you wake up, go to bed, and stir in the night, you will put lucid dreams firmly in your subconscious - and recognize false awakenings immediately.

Related articles

Sleep Disorders

False Awakenings

Escaping from Nightmares

Sleep Paralysis

Sleepwalking and Sleep Talking

Night Terrors

Lucid Nightmares

Fatal Familial Insomnia

The Man Who Never Slept

The Weirdest False Awakening... Ever!

What's the weirdest false awakening you ever had? Did your dream-within-a-dream turn lucid? Or perhaps you had multiple false awakenings that made you feel like you were spiraling towards insanity?

The Weirdest False Awakening... Ever!

Click below to read other people's most weirdest false awakenings.

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