False Awakening: Dreaming About Waking Up

photo of a woman dreaming of being awake

Have you ever started your day, only to suddenly wake up back in bed and realize you’d been dreaming about waking up?

Perhaps you got out of bed as normal and started your morning routine, but then snapped out of an imaginary breakfast or journey to work to find yourself back in bed, probably feeling a bit confused by what just happened.

If this sounds familiar, you might have experienced what’s known as a false awakening.

What are false awakenings?

False awakenings are particularly vivid dreams in which you feel like you’ve woken up even though you’re still dreaming. It’s often only when you wake up later – for real this time – that you realize your previous waking was just a dream.

I know from personal experience how confusing it can be as I’ve had false awakenings on numerous occasions. I jokingly call them mini Groundhog days – they don’t tend to last as long as Bill Murray’s day in the movie, but do have that odd feeling of repeating the start of the day sometimes.

a man dreaming he is awake

Thankfully, I don’t have false awakenings as regularly as some people do, but have had several during the last few years.

In this article, I’ll be discussing false awakenings and suggesting some potential ways to cope with them if you find them upsetting.

I’ll also cover some interesting techniques that you could try to help you gain awareness that you’re dreaming. That way, you might be able to use your false awakening as a stepping stone to the fascinating world of lucid dreaming.

False awakening poll

I asked 557 readers about their experience of false awakenings. 59% said they found it distressing. However, 17% said they enjoy it or find it interesting. A further 11% found it can lead to a lucid dream.

infographic showing the results of a reader poll into false awakenings

Too real to be a dream?

One of the fascinating features of a false awakening is just how lifelike it can seem. Even if you have some vague awareness that you’re dreaming, the fact that you’re dreaming about your normal routine might stop you from questioning it further.

The experience often takes the form of waking up and doing something familiar and normal. For example, you might get dressed, go to the bathroom, or sit and have breakfast.

Nested dreams

Some people experience more than one episode before they eventually wake up for real. Repeated false awakenings, a kind of Russian doll of dreams, can happen in one night. This is something that many readers have described in the comments below since first publishing this article.

This extended version of multiple false awakenings is sometimes referred to as nested dreams, or dreams within dreams.

It might sound a bit like the plot of the movie Inception, but these dreams within dreams do happen, and can leave you feeling like you’re trapped inside your dreams.

False awakenings can seem so real that perhaps even on finally waking up, you might need a while to be fully convinced that you’re actually going to eat breakfast this time.

What causes false awakenings?

There isn’t a great deal of published research on false awakenings and what might cause them. When I started investigating the causes of my own episodes, I was surprised to discover a lack of information about them in medical sources.

As if to mirror its own nature, information about false awakenings is often buried inside articles and research about dreaming in general, lucid dreaming, and other sleep disorders.

Let’s consider some ideas that might help explain why they happen.

Worry and anxiety

If you’re thinking or worried about a past or future event in your life, you might find it’s incorporated in some way in your dreams.

For example, the threat simulation theory of dreaming suggests that we sometimes rehearse events in our dreams, particularly threatening events. This can lead to dreaming about possible life events rather than having more fantastical dreams. So it would make sense that we might dream about waking up and going about our everyday life rather than flying about in a fantasy realm.

Some also argue that expectations play a key role in dreaming. If you’re feeling anxious, you might expect to sleep badly and wake up in the night, or need to wake up early for an important day. This anxiety could influence your dream and create a false awakening.

Real events and everyday life

An interesting explanation could lie in the dream protoconsciousness theory. A study in 2011 looked at false awakenings in light of this theory, suggesting that our innate schemes / daily lives feed into dream content. Since we wake up every day as part of our normal routines, waking up itself becomes a concept that we sometimes dream of.

Another fascinating study published in 2021 looked at the content of 528 dreams that people had while in a sleep lab. They found that the sleep lab itself featured in people’s dreams in 40.7% of cases, either as lucid dreams or false awakenings.

Mixed brain states

It’s argued that your brain can be in more than one state of consciousness at once. So it’s possible that the part of your brain responsible for dreaming and also for waking consciousness are both active.

This could then lead to vivid dreaming of gaining consciousness and waking up. Some sleep disorders can lead to this state, as well as environmental factors such as sudden external noise.

This shares some similarities with sleep paralysis, in which we gain some consciousness while waking up from the REM sleep stage, but there is some overlap between the two. To put it in simple terms, we are neither completely awake nor completely asleep, but a bit of both as the same time.

False awakening or sleep paralysis?

False awakenings are sometimes confused with sleep paralysis, which can occur either when waking up or falling asleep. During an episode of sleep paralysis, your body is paralyzed, but your brain is conscious and aware of your surroundings.

What some people experience is a false awakening in which they dream of waking up and being unable to move. This can also be frightening, both in the dream and when you wake up and remember what just happened.

The key difference is that physical paralysis does actually occur during sleep paralysis to protect you from injury if you act out your dreams in bed.

On the other hand, the paralysis during a false awakening takes place purely within the dream. You will usually then wake up in your bed and be able to move normally.

Treatment

If your false awakening episodes have gotten you worried, the good news is that they aren’t thought to be an indicator of mental illness. In fact, they are quite common and it’s thought that many people experience them during their lives. So in that respect, they don’t usually require treatment.

If they are frequent, distressing, or affecting your quality of sleep or daily life, it’s a good idea to speak to your primary care doctor about it. They might consider the following options:

  • Practical advice to help you sleep better.
  • Investigating if there is an underlying sleep disorder.
  • Dream rehearsal therapy.
  • Anxiety or stress management.
  • Medication – in certain circumstances.

It could be that the best option is not to worry and try to accept it as a normal part of dreaming. Alternatively, there are two interesting self-help options that might help: trying to stop them from happening and using them as a tool for lucid dreaming.

Self-help for false awakenings

It’s one thing to wake up properly after a false awakening dream, and then lie in bed thinking about how strange it was. It’s an altogether different experience to become aware of it whilst the dream is still happening.

How do you gain that awareness though? If you realize that you’re still asleep and dreaming, do you then try to wake yourself up, or just ride it out and see what happens?

The answer to the second question is a personal choice, but it will also be dictated by whatever level of awareness you manage to achieve.

Let’s take a look at some techniques to consider for the next time it happens.

1. How to wake up during a false awakening

If you have a false awakening, a moment of awareness within the dream just might not happen. It’s often the case that we are simply a witness to our dreams, not an active participant.

Even if you do realize you’re dreaming, it doesn’t always follow that you can simply decide to wake up.

If you do become aware that you’re still dreaming, here are some actions which might help you wake up for real:

  • Tell yourself that you want to wake up now – you might as well start with a direct and simple approach!
  • Try to focus your mind on moving a finger or toe. When you gain control of that, move to an arm or leg if you still haven’t woken up.
  • Try blinking rapidly.
  • Focus your gaze on one thing in the dream.
  • If there’s a mirror, try to look at yourself.
  • Try and do a complex action, like running, jumping or dancing.

All of those techniques require a certain level of awareness though. You’ll either have it or you won’t in any given dream. If you’re having regular false awakenings, it might help if you remind yourself of these possible actions just before you go to sleep to cement them in your mind.

Let’s now look at what you can do if you’re not in such a rush to wake up and like the idea of exploring your dreams a little further.

2. Turn a false awakening into a lucid dream

artistic image of a woman dreaming

If you’re the adventurous type, the idea of lucid dreaming may be an exciting and fun one.

False awakenings are often reported by those with a strong interest in lucid dreaming (for example, World of Lucid Dreaming) as a potential bridge.

In some ways, it’s a fairly straightforward concept. First, check that you’re dreaming and therefore become aware that you’re still inside the dream. Then get moving and explore to your heart’s content.

How exactly do you start checking that you’re dreaming? The theory goes that you need to plant the idea in your head that you’re going to start doing ‘reality checking’ in your dreams. Then cross your fingers that it happens.

Reality checking

Here are some techniques to do what’s known as a ‘reality check’, and find out which side of the dreamworld your feet really are:

  • Try and remember facts or figures. It can be difficult to recall factual information, such as your address, phone number, or someone’s date of birth. If you find it difficult, it’s a sign you may be dreaming.
  • Try leaving the room in your dream. The next room or hall might change into something which shouldn’t be there.
  • Try to read any writing in the dream. Reading can be difficult in dreams, so words or numbers might blur or morph.
  • If in doubt, you probably are asleep. Despite the fact that your brain can create incredibly vivid scenes, if you’re not sure if you’re dreaming, it’s more likely that you are than aren’t.
  • If you’re doing a complex task in your dream, perform a reality check. If you’re in the bathroom, see if you look normal or not. If you’re eating breakfast, check if the food tastes as it usually does. In bed, check if the bedding has the right texture or feel.

The theory goes that any of these reality checking behaviors can trigger awareness that you’re still asleep. If that doesn’t wake you up, then you’re free to explore a whole imaginary world of possibilities.

If you’ve never experienced the kind of awareness that doing these things would require, don’t worry about it. Perhaps reading this article and remembering the concepts might help trigger that awareness in the future.

Please keep in mind though that the various suggested methods to induce lucid dreaming still don’t have strong scientific backing.

For example, a review of the evidence for lucid dreaming techniques, conducted by researchers at Heidelberg University in 2012, found that the techniques don’t work on demand. They concluded that:

None of the induction techniques were verified to induce lucid dreams reliably and consistently, although some of them look promising.

However, lucid dreaming does happen, so there is hope. A German study in 2011 found that 51% of the 919 participants had experienced a lucid dream at least once in their life.

New research into reality checking and false awakenings / lucid dreaming

In 2019, researchers analyzed an older web survey about false awakenings and lucid dreams. They found that 62% of the 90 people who have regular lucid dreams also had false awakenings, transitioning from one to the other.

They also found that people who are regular reality checkers tended to have more false awakenings (76% of respondents who reality check).

Moreover, people who check their state with such reality checks were more likely to transition into lucid dreaming from a false awakening.

This research lends some initial support to the technique of reality checking as a way to both cope with false awakenings, and theoretically turn it to your advantage in the form of the opportunity to enjoy some dream control.

As the researchers say:

This appears to be the first empirical datum in support of the frequently self-reported ability of lucid dreamers to turn “actively” their FAs into lucid dreams. 

Buzzi et al.

3. Can you prevent false awakenings?

The idea of lucid dreaming understandably won’t appeal to everyone. If you have bad dreams, stopping them in the first place might seem like a more beneficial option.

In this case, there are some techniques that might help prevent them. At the very least, perhaps you might be able to stop them from happening more than once in a night.

Please note that these ideas aren’t guaranteed to stop your false awakenings specifically. In many ways, they are suggestions that are thought to help with sleep problems in general.

  • Avoid caffeine and other stimulants, especially in the evening.
  • Avoid alcohol in the evening.
  • Try to calm your mind before going to sleep. If you struggle with anxiety or stress at night, you might find it helpful to do some relaxation exercises in bed.
  • Do regular exercise. It might also help to go for a short walk in the evening before bed.
  • If you have a false awakening, get out of bed for 10 to 15 minutes before going back to sleep.
  • Stick to a regular sleep pattern, and try to avoid becoming sleep deprived.

Your thoughts

Have you experienced a false awakening or a series of nested dreams? What happened and what did it feel like?

Feel free to share your story and views in the comments below. I’m sure other readers will also find your experience useful and interesting.

931 Comments

  1. My name is mayela: I’m very scare, I mean I had dreams of knowing I was dreaming in a dream, and not been able to move, but this time was different . I went to take a nap but when I lay down I fell tired but I felt that sleepiness fell difrent wierd, so I lay down and started dreaming that my mom and sister came to my house but in my dream I knew my mom and I were mad at each other I open the door and they came inn but in my dream I dream that I went back to sleep and also in my dream thinking that that was mean then as I lay down my sister comes in my room to wake me up but I was mad I was been waken up. Then the dream change and my daghter was also in my house with my granddaughter I couldn’t see her but I asker where she was and in the Dream I could feel my daughter been ether mad or sad at me then I went back to sleep in my dream, and that’s when I realize I was awake in my dream and stated panic and running around apartment asking avery body that was in apartment to wake me up but they just laugh at me not in a crazy one so I ran to kichen and grab a glass open water foster and fill it with water and throw it in my face but nothing so ran out side grab water hose and I wet my whole buddy ran inside but I could not wake up , so I slaps my face and nothing then I went to kitchen again I panic and my sons friend was there I ask him to wake me up but by this time I was in full panic then I’m in my room with him and asking him to wake me up he looks at me calmly and with a smile and tells me that that happens to him. I started screaming asking him to take me to my son over and over. So I don’t know why but when I looked in to his eyes I knew I was dying then I remember thinking to my self to just go back to sleep and it all be over. Then I said to him ( so this is how it feels to die). Then do ask him to untie my bra cause I felt like I could not breath as he was to do so I woke up in a scream it took me a while to realize if I was really awake. I got up from bed and still feel very tired and sad and started crying. Help me I don’t want to have that dream any more it’s horrible!.

    • Hi Mayelena
      Thanks for your comment, and I’m sorry to hear you’ve been having such disturbing dreams. I can appreciate why you’d be upset by it. I think the main thing is to try not to stress, thinking that you’re going to have the same dream again. It’s not often that we have the same dreams, so you’ll probably find it was just a one off. Take the advice in the article, and perhaps try some relaxation methods before sleep and also if you do wake up feeling very anxious again.
      Regards
      Ethan

  2. I have this dream about 10 times a year, it’s always the same thing. I think I wake up for real, I’m still in my bed, and I see and feel some ghost-like black figure creeping towards me. I am frozen still and it’s about when it is a few inches from me that I realize it’s the reoccurring dream and I close my eyes, repeat “this isn’t real, this isn’t real,” and try to wake myself up. My heart is always racing when I wake up. I’ve never experienced a dream like this where it is not a nightmare. It’s awful. Sometimes when it happens, it will happen for the next few nights, so I dread going to sleep.

    • What you may be experiencing is something called sleep paralysis, and you may still be waking up but unable to move. Talk to your primary doctor about it.

    • I’ve experienced this many times before. It’s horrible! I also feel a loud sounds in my ears like when you are yawning.
      I haven’t experienced it in s while… thankfully! Good luck with those crazy dreams! <3

  3. I’ve been having these really often lately. I know that I’m dreaming, I lay in bed and try to move in order to wake up but can’t, my members feel like stones. But then suddenly I can move, just can’t wake up, I move around my house and control my dream and try to calm down and wait until I really wake up, but there’s a problem: I can’t breathe. My nose blocks and it is truly scary because I feel like I’m dying. I don’t know what to do. Does anyone else feel something similar???

    • Exactly same happens with me too…i m scared with this problem…and this happens occasionaly or rarely..but it is really scary.

  4. I will have 8 or 9 of these false wake-ups normally when I set a timer to wake me up then i snooze it, my brain seems to then get confused and false wakes me up, the weird thing in these dreams is that I feel like I can’t breath , and have to think to myself Breath deep. I am not sure if this is maybe related to sleep apnea but it worries me.

  5. I have these quite often, sometimes multiple nested dreams, and I find them interesting but not usually distressing. Although I’m weird and enjoy a majority of even vivid nightmares. Overall I have very vivid dreams, sometimes recurring. What I find interesting about these false awakenings is that I have an unusual sense of being myself, meaning I retain my identity and sometimes self reflect and even contemplate real life issues in the dream. For example, I just awoke from a dream in which I was thinking about some new and challenging job positions that I’m applying for (in real life), and contemplating whether I could handle the stress and responsibility. I was also reflecting on my laziness and lack of motivation, which is also a real life struggle as I’ve recently gone through periods of depression and substance abuse. This self-awareness is actually unusual for me as in most other dreams I don’t have a sense of my identity or I’m someone else in a surreal or unfamiliar situation (it feels familiar at the time but when I wake up it is bizarre). At best, I retain my personality and have a vague sense of being myself, but only with these false awakenings do I really feel and even look like myself, and have the capacity for introspection and self awareness of issues that actually match waking life.

  6. this happens when i take a daytime nap, not at night. i can’t make myself wake up. i feel like i’m awake, and nothing bad ever happens, it’s just like i see my dead mother and talk to her. it seems so real. sometimes i think my kids are still at home and im talking to them.

  7. During my false awakening. I woke up in my bed to the sound of my husbands footsteps at night time. He works third shift so as I lay in bed panic fell over me as I realized he already left for work and an intruder was in my home. My heart started to pound so loud and it seemed so real as I felt sweaty. All I thought of was I had to get to a drawer next to my tv and get a gun. I woke up for real before I ever got to the gun and I never saw who the intruder was. I was really freaked out about this and don’t want it to happen again. I texted my dream to my husband at work and he told my to try and relax.

    • Wow, my experiences have been almost the same. For me it has been recurring for around 10 years. It only ever happens when I’m home alone- if my partner has gone to work early or if I nap during the day.
      I feel as though I’ve woken up, I’m in my bed and hear footsteps, sometimes voices, doors opening etc… I realise that my partner is not home and panic as I think it must be an intruder.
      Before I ever see anyone, I realise that Im still asleep. I have the realisation that I know what’s happening, it’s happened before, but I still feel panicky and I try to wake myself up by shaking my hands, or shaking my head back and forth and eventually wake up.

  8. I usually have the nested kind but didn’t know that’s what they were called. It usually goes down like this : I wake up, go do something unimportant around the house for a while and then I realize I was asleep, so then I wake up and proceed with the same thing I was doing before…. Until I realize I was still asleep, so then I wake up and go on with the things. It can be up to 6 times before I actually wake up in fear of going back to sleep. I often cry after I’m actually woken because I cannot tell the difference for a few moments. Sometimes I even cry in the dream as I am unable to wake up.
    I had never read anything about it before and I’m glad I’ve found this article to help me understand my dreams better.

  9. When I dream, I usually know I am dreaming and can wake myself up by lying down in the position I fell asleep in, closing my eyes, and letting my brain “spin” (that’s what it feels like) until I open my eyes in real life. I did what I normally did a couple nights ago when I realized I was dreaming, but woke up in my parents bedroom. I pinched myself and I felt it, but when I plugged my nose I could still breath, so I knew I had “woken up” in another dream. The same thing kept happening, each time in a new place, each time turning super creepy (once a man jumped out of the shadows and stabbed my mom to death), until I “woke up” in my bed. Everything was normal, so I didn’t question it. But as I was walking to my bus stop, a stranger walking by said to me “how’s your dream?” Then I plugged my nose and sure enough, I could breath. Then I screamed. Then I woke up for real, and was so scared. I had “woken up” about 5 times in total and didn’t know what reality was. Lately all my bedtime prayers have been “Dear God, don’t let me dream!”

    • Hi there
      Thanks for your comment and for sharing your story. Have you spoken to your family about it? It can help to get these kind of worries out of your mind and into conversation. Worrying things usually feel better when we speak them out loud. And your family can hopefully give you some reassurance before bed that you’ll be fine. Try not to become scared to sleep or dream, and if you can, see every night as a new, fresh opportunity to sleep well and have nice dreams.
      Regards
      Ethan

  10. Last night I just had a terrible dream of waking but the happened 5 times. Each time I was sure I was awake and went about my day until something unusual happened and I would realise it was a dream and wake myself only for it to happen again. It was so vivid that when I did eventually wake for a long time I was checking things to see if it was real. Even now a couple of hours later I can feel the fear of realising it was a dream over and over and I’m a little scared it will happen again. Each dream was so real I felt I was making choices. I hope it doesn’t happen again I was exhausted when I did wake.

  11. I’m so relieved to read this. Thought it was just me! Just had another ‘dream then ‘woke up’ and thought yep I’m awake. Then I woke up for real and felt a bit ‘foggy headed’ took a bit to convinced self that I was now Actually awake?!

    • This was a straight forward one. Previous ones have had multiaeakenings and sometimes ive actually confronted them and said’ really? Don’t believe this I’m going to wake up now and believe I have! To find erm no you haven’t. Then when I do wake up I can’t understand how I thought it was real. Eg my mum, dad,brother who all died years ago were in the dreams? Wow what a mystery are our brains to us still x

  12. I’ve been looking everywhere online to see if anyone experiences a strange fusion between sleep paralysis and actually dreaming about sleep paralysis, or what you may refer to as “false awakenings”. I’m 26 and for as long as I can remember, at least fifteen years or so, I consistently seem to dream of sleep paralysis. For the majority of this time, I simply thought that I had experienced sleep paralysis but the more that I’ve written down and remembered individual instances, the more i’ve come to realise that this isn’t the case.

    Having literally just woken up from one of these episodes 15 minutes ago, i’ll recant exactly what I experienced. I had a pretty mundane dream in which a couple of things that I currently find non-ideal in life symbolised somewhat. However, disjointed and somewhere in the midst of this dream, I realised that I was asleep. I was lying asleep in bed struggling frantically to open my eyes. I’d exert huge amounts of pressure and energy trying to do so over and over again, taking short breaks in between. I’d also be mentally focusing on a limb (in this instance, my leg), trying to kick so that I gained some movement to allow me to roll out of bed and/or stand up as I understood (as I knew I’d had these dreams before) that this would wake me up. I would say it felt as though it took around ten minutes of focus, panic and stressful pressure to “wake up”. Upon “waking up”, i’d be in my bedroom or in my bathroom and calm down/be thankful that the episode had ended. However, as with all dreams, my bedroom or bathroom that I was dreaming about wouldn’t be exactly like my real life one, in fact often very different. Anyway, at some point, i’d realise that I was still dreaming and be plunged back into the situation of seeing darkness, knowing I was asleep and being in bed completely incapable of movement and having to exert huge pressure to try and open my eyes or throw myself out of the bed. Other times, i’d not realise and i’d simply dream of getting back into bed and falling asleep before the struggle started over again. Sometimes this process would repeat 3 or 4 times in one sleep until eventually one of my “wakings up” would be real.

    As a young kid and until quite lately actually, because of the blur between consciousness and subconsciousness, i’d often (relieved) go back to sleep again after waking up. I’ve come to learn that this is a huge mistake. Almost always after waking up from a dream such as this, I slip back into the same dream and the same habit of “dreaming” about sleep paralysis. This is not even likely to do with sleep cycles because there have been several times that i’ve eventually woken up for real from this type of nightmare, walked to the bathroom and washed my face thoroughly with cold water before going on my laptop or phone for an hour or two before I felt comfortable sleeping again and yet still ended up dreaming in exactly the same way. I’ve now got to a point where, if I wake up from this type of nightmare, I stay awake for as long as possible irregardless of how this affects my sleeping pattern or personal life simply because the alternative of having these awful, awful dreams is not something I want to risk happening.

    I’d say this happens to me on average once or twice a month during sleep and, as I say, has done for at least fifteen years. Sometimes it can happen with much increased regularity without any significant change in my personal life, happiness, health or general well being.

    Do you have any advice on how to potentially reduce the risk of this reoccurring? I’d rather not go my entire life regularly experiencing this.

    • Hi Matt
      Thanks for your comment. Sorry to hear you’ve been struggling with your sleep because of this. I know from the comments section on the sleep paralysis article that many people have dreams about being paralyzed, often confusing it for sleep paralysis. I think it might be helpful for you to read up about nightmares as well as false awakenings and sleep paralysis. I wrote an article a while back with advice about stopping nightmares. Perhaps you could try the techniques there? Some of the tips overlap with those in this article, and in the sleep paralysis article, and others are different. So you could try and put all of them together and see if they help.
      If not, it might be helpful to speak to a doctor and see if they can refer you to a sleep specialist for some advice and support.
      Regards
      Etha

    • Hello Matt, I read your comment and what occurs to me is very similar. Do you ever feel like you’re choking because your nose is blocked? Whenever I dream this I really try to calm down but the blocked nose is so distressing!!! Once I even tried to hurt myself with glass in my dream in order to wake up!

    • I experience almost exactly what you explained. Except I wake up utterly terrified and sometimes even get woken up by my boyfriend because I was grunting or moaning in my sleep. I don’t know how you’ve been doing it for 15 years, it’s been happening to me for about 1 or 2 and I can’t take it

    • What Matt describes is so similar to mine. 90% of the time they happen when I lay down to rest/nap, which I do when I don’t sleep well or, more often, because I’m trying to get rid of a migraine.

      Usually there is a regular dream that culminates in me trying to wake up but not being able to move. Often it’s starts with a false awakening where I can’t keep my eyes open. I strain and strain and sometimes can partly open them for a second or two. And usually I am trying to do things I really need to be able to see for.

      This will keep happening and sometimes it turns into dreams of false awakenings/sleep paralysis. Just now, for example, in my dream I was lying on the couch while my son was watching tv. My dog had jumped up to lay with me. This is important because when I fell asleep, she wasn’t there.

      The regular dream turned into me not being able to open my eyes after I woke up and tried to do things around the house. Things were still weird enough in the dream that I knew I was asleep. A few instances of this and then it turned into me giving up on my eyes and trying to move. I would feel like I was waving my hand, then struggle my eyes open to see that even though I could feel my hand moving, I could see it wasn’t. And I could see the dog was now lying with me. This happened over and over. Then I tried yelling over and over, thinking once a sound came out, I would wake up for real. It never happened and I woke up when my phone rang for real. I forgot to mention that the whole time, I was hearing what my son was watching on tv. It was like a combination of false awakening and sleep paralysis and being awake and asleep at the same time.

  13. last night I dreamed that there was a house full of trapped spirits in each.room they were different and scary some hours.some.had.no faces, trying to escape this house only to find myself back where I started like a.never ending room I’d.climb through an open window only to find it was into another room then it turned into me waking up on my matters but there was a demon face in.my matress I cut it out and smacked it countless times as.i was told burning it wouldn’t work ,with the help of an unknown Latina woman there were prayers and protections cast.upon me but all in Spanish (I also do not speak Spanish but somehow I knew it) ,I then woke up in my bed on the same matters with the same.demon face and it happens all over again but slightly different and then I woke up only to realise It happened again so 3 times I though I had woken up but had not only to find that I was doing the same thing trying to rid myself of an evil demon but in each dream the spanish lady was different.
    Once I had finally woken up I wasn’t even sure if I was awake but I remembered every detail in the 3 dreams I just had . Actually quit traumatizing I can remember each part but I new I was dreaming and.tried.to wake up but couldn’t .

  14. My false awakenings usually happen when i fall into a deep sleep. I was only asleep for about 1h30 and I dreamed normally until bizarre things started happening slowly my dream started twisting. I’ve had a lot of bad dreams and I get tired of them — so tired that I don’t even get scared anymore. In fact, I fight back. I scream or go towards my fear. I feel pain in my dreams and at that point near the end of my dream I force myself to wake up when my body is not ready to be awake.

    I am laying in bed and it feels abit strange. Everything is how it should be so I get up and walk towards the door of my room that should lead to the corridor. For some reason I was afraid of the other side and I just felt safer in my room. I was trying to differentiate the difference between real life and a dream. I laid back in bed and grabbed my phone. I felt the edges of the phone to remind myself of the shape and how it felt. I tried turning on the screen abd I could not longer see my phone in my vision. Looking lower and lower I see half of my screen lit; it was not enough to check the information I needed (time, texts, ect). Then, my phone disappeared withr feeling of its shape still in my hand it morphed into some kind of transparent blade that much resembled an L ruler. It was so sharp I could feel the edges on my hand it was thin. To be quite honest, I think I was getting interested but I did want to leave. I pressed it against my stomach not enough to cut but to feel pain or to see if I could hurt myself. It felt like a butter knife pressed against my stomach. I put it down and reached for my face and I could not feel a thing. I grabbed the blade and slapped the side of it on my forehead and fell onto my pillow.

    Note that I had a hard time to wake to begin with. My eyes could hardly open until I had my phone. I couldnt tell if it was my vision or this was really a false awakening because it happened many tines before.

    Anyway I woke up, not knowing if this was real life because I couldn’t breathe.
    I coughed which led me to believe that i am finally awake and proceeded to normally check my phone.

    If anything that I learned from this article is this:
    Fear controls my mind
    Fear controls my dreams
    Once i let that go
    The reality is all up to me

    I hope that in the future I can really make a lucid dream happen.

  15. Last night I had a dream that I woke up in the forest. It was dark I couldn’t see. In my dream I could feel how cold and panicked I was. I climbed out the bed in my dream but I felt like I was awake. It felt so real. Before looking for my phone in my dream I said to myself I was dreaming. I tried to wake myself up but couldn’t. I finally found my phone by the tree I was next to. Next thing I knew I saw my mother but she is dead. I told myself in my dream this can’t be real. I felt every emotion in my dream as if I were awake. Then all of a sudden my dream changed but I knew I was still asleep. I tried again to wake myself up but couldn’t. I final woke up but it felt like a channel was changed in my brain that wasn’t available (like a unscribed cable channel) that’s how I was able to wake up.

  16. I just had multiple false awakenings (which is why I tried to search about it). This is not the first time but today it took a lot of false awakening before I finally woke up. It was like 10 dreams in a dream which were all false awakening. I wake up and would think I was really awake and weird (bad) things happen and then I would realize I’m just dreaming… then I would wake up again (false awakening) only to find out later that I’m still in a dream. This cycle went on for like 10 times. Thank God I’m truly awake now.

  17. While I was trapped in my dream…
    after trying to wake up around four times straight, the fifth awakening felt so real and vivid, I layed in bed tossing and turning I heard my aunts voice talking to my mom, so sitting up was still nearly impossible, I was forced back down only to realize that dream ended and I was awake again in a different plot at first it was silent and turning my head I noticed a man figure by my bed he was quite tall, wore oval glasses and had a long beard as white as snow, looking at him wasn’t frightening at all, I felt as if I knew him.
    At that instant he asked me, “I shouldn’t be afraid,” I watched as he slowly reached for my hand but before anything could happen, the dream ended once more, I woke up again staring around I blinked touched my phone and checked the time finally awake from this odd dream circling my mind.

  18. I was asleep in bed with my husband, “Bob” and infant daughter. I dreamed that I woke to hear my aunt, who lived 1500 miles away, saying my name in the dark from the doorway. She said she was traveling and stopped at my house because she’d never seen the baby. She asked me to hand her the baby, and I told her to turn on the light first. She refused, not wanting to wake my housemates. I refused to hand her the baby and there was silence. Then I woke up and told Bob there was someone in the house, so he went off to search, turning the light on as he left the bedroom. I fell asleep and dreamed that he turned off the light and got into bed with me. He told me to hand him “the baby” (instead of using her name). He felt ice cold, so I said no. He said, “You know, you won’t always be there to protect the baby.” Then Bob woke me up as he walked into the room and got into bed with me. I could feel his warmth, so I knew it was him. He said there was no intruder, and asked why I had turned off the light, which I had no memory of doing.

    • BTW, this happened almost 30 years ago, and I still remember it like it was yesterday. I do not like to think about it.

      • Agree. Me too…was about 20 yrs ago for me and still makes my heart race at remembering the confusion and fear at the time

  19. I’ve had false awakenings before but none ever like the one I just recently had. This dream was absolutely terrifying and I would try to wake myself up over and over again in the dream to always realize that I was still sleeping. This happened maybe six times in a row. Very rarely can I actually feel things in my dreams but while I was trying to wake up in my dream I could feel the weight of my blanket and I would feel myself sitting up out of bed. My main goal of all of these dreams was to get to my cell phone to call my husband or go outside. None of which ever happened because if I got close to it, I would just end up back in bed trying to wake myself up again. I even had a very real feeling panic attack where I couldn’t breathe.

  20. I dreamed that I just awoke and I was in bed, I looked at the other side of my room and I could see what looked like a ball of wind as it was coming towards me it sound like wind.it sort of held on to me but it also felt like I was falling, I’ve never had a false awakening before its always been me waking up and not being able to move.I even bit my thumb to see if I was dreaming still in just glad it was short but i don’t want it to happen again especially like that.

  21. So this happened for the second time today; the first was 3 months ago. It was simple: I woke up, opened my eyes thinking it was real, but everything seemed blurry. I tried to move out of bed, but suddenly I was back in bed in the same position. Now, I realized that had been a dream and thought that this time it was real. Again, I tried to get out of bed, but I was snapped back to being in bed with my eyes closed. This repeated 5-6 times before I focused all my strength on moving my hand, which finally woke me up. I was terrified because every time I tried, I ended up in the same situation. I wondered: is this it? Will I even really wake up? My experience wasn’t as long and detailed as what others have mentioned, but I do sometimes have lucid dreams. They don’t have a lot of details or control over movement; I just go with the flow of the dream and alter stuff according to my liking. Is it possible that this is just the beginning since I’m only 20 years old?

    • Hi Nishit
      Thanks for your comment. It’s impossible to say whether you’ll get more episodes or whether it’s just a brief patch of experiencing some. I would try not to worry about it or think about it too much. If you can put it out of your mind, it might help by reducing any anxiety you have before going to bed.
      Regards
      Ethan

  22. Hi I just want to say that I literally just woke up from a nap, panicking after feeling like I woke up “twice”… it was the scariest &*%$ I ever encountered. Like it felt like I got up and tried to turn the lights on but they wouldn’t. I then seen myself from a different point of view, as if I was watching from someone else’s eyes. I picked up my phone but it was completely black wouldn’t turn on and it felt like I was being watched not to mention, when I wactially woke up, I felt like I was struggling to wake up. I couldn’t move at all and now I’m here looking at articles online about false awakenings that’s I’ve never knew even occurred. I’m probably never taking a nap again and always sleeping with a light on

  23. I literally googled about this, because I just woke up from false dreams. I had a dream my family was moving. I woke in in a friend’s house. (Now, I realized the friend isn’t a real person. The environment wasn’t a real place either.) I went outside was able to climb up a brick wall when I can’t do that in reality. The second time I tried, it didn’t work. Then, my vision when blank for a moment and my legs went out of control. They moved against my will. I sat down and I told my phone, “Okay Google”. (Yes! It actually worked!) I typed in what was happening and spoke to it and it gave me real-like results! I felt my leg and freaked out because it felt like a big rock was inside. I woke up again disturbed, and I hugged my younger sister.

    I woke up again and felt my even younger one sleeping next to me. I had a slight headache so I realized I finally struck reality. Immediately, I pulled out my phone and googled about the dreams and came across this article. I’m still a bit dizzy.

    Geez. That was disturbing. Glad to know I’m not alone with this.

  24. I went to sleep for real, and then dreamt that I was just starting to fall asleep. In the dream (which I now think is real) my heart started to build up to a pounding rythm ( I thought to myself, Oh really…here we go), Heart now pounding in my chest I can feel the evil in the room. Something or someone not in corporeal form lifts me from the bed, turns me upright in the air and starts moving me out of the room (it’s the same room I went to bed in, in real life) and down the stairs. I can’t really move, but I’m feeling a pressure on my arm and I look at it and there’s a long indent where I feel the pressure. It doesn’t hurt. As I’m being moved through the air everything looks about right but there is a sense of total evil and I’m scared. In a very serious voice I say ” Get out of my house! I then wake up heart pounding ( well I think I’m awake) I get up and actually do go down stairs I get into bed with my husband who is awake, and tell him I’ve had a scary dream. As he’s comforting me he starts to turn evil and is being mean and is tormenting me. I take his cheek and part of his top lip in my teeth and threaten to bite a piece of his face off if he doesn’t stop. He says “okay afterall it’s 11:30” I thought to myself, it’s not 11:30 I went to bed at 1 am. I NOW know I’m dreaming and at this point I wake up again, (but not really awake). I get out of the bed to get away from him because I’m freaked out from the dream. I’m heading to the kitchen for some coffee…out of nowhere I feel a poke in my rig cage (more like someone stuck two finger between my ribs and pulled out) I jerk and am immediately awake (finally for real this time) but am really disturbed. I’m scared to look around the room, scared to move and am trying to calm myself down and be rational. While I’m getting myself together (but still freaked out) I have an involuntary muscle twitch/spasm in the exact same spot where I was poked. SCARY!!! I don’t want to go back to sleep, so here I am. I actually looked to see if there was a mark or anything (there wasn’t). I can still feel exactly where the poke that woke me was, and it’s been an hour. Not a happy camper. I’m tired and have a lot of work to do tomorrow, but am afraid to go back to sleep.

  25. Hi.

    It’s been exactly 9 days since I last had a proper shut eye…I have been getting these experiences for about 2 years now and it seems like it’s getting worse.

    I fell asleep after 12 or around there tonight and I woke up again at 01:25. I’m exhausted and my heart is beating out of chest.

    I REALLY can’t take this anymore…

    Tonight (in my dream) I was attacked by wolfs but they were outside my living room window, when my husband went to bed he didn’t even realise I was being attacked. When he didn’t respond I realised this was another one of THOSE dreams and the wolfs went away….but I struggled myself out of breath to wake up…

    It feels like I’ve been sleeping for HOURS but it wasn’t even a full hour. I’m so scared and sooooo tired.

    The techniques don’t work on me. I go into a total panic when this happens (both while I’m dreaming and when I’m awake for real)

    Any other suggestions please?

    • Hi Cathy
      Thanks for your comment. Sorry to hear you’ve been having such a hard time sleeping – I can understand how stressful it must be for you. I think if it’s been going on for this long, and is disturbing you so much, and self-help techniques haven’t helped, the best thing is to speak to your doctor about it. Hopefully they can offer you some options to help you sleep better. However, I’d still say to keep up with the self-help ideas though. Perhaps really focussing on relaxation during the day, evening and when you wake from these episodes would be the most helpful.
      Regards
      Ethan

  26. Hi :) I just wanted to share my experience

    I usually have false awakening not every night but some. I wake up 3-5 times in my dream and in each dream I’m always screaming at my sister to help because i find it terrifying. When I would actually wake up, I would be too scared to go to sleep its become a habit of mine to stay up until I feel ‘safe’

  27. I keep having a terrifying experience and I don’t know if it’s a dream or a false awakening or what it is.
    *I think I’ve woken up in bed, and I’m screaming and screaming for help. I’m screaming my boyfriends name (who I live with) as I’m trapped. I toss and turn and keep screaming. In the latest one, I convinced myself I had lost my mind and was trapped inside me and that no matter what I did no one could hear me. Occasionally I manage to get out of bed and run to the living room to scream, but it’s always dark. I pick up my iPhone, but it won’t work. This feels like it’s happening for half an hourly or so. I then wake up.* (dream in *)
    When I wake up I pick my iPhone up and it works, so I know I am definitely awake.
    The times it happens when I am having a nap, I come into the living room and I ask my boyfriend if I was screaming and he says no. He has said though that sometimes I throw myself around during the night. I’m unsure if that coincides with these dreams though.
    These are terrifying episodes and I wish they would stop. Any ideas please??

    • Hi Cathy
      Thanks for your comment. I can understand why this would scare you, but it does sounds like harmless false awakenings to me. Harmless, but obviously distressing when you do wake up. I think as well as following the advice in the article, perhaps a good goal would be to try and find a way to calm yourself when you wake up from them. If you can get yourself into the habit of doing some relaxation exercises for a minute or two when you wake up, it might help reduce how long the feeling lingers in you.
      Regards
      Ethan

  28. Hi all,

    Thought I was the only one experiencing this – have had false awakening experience and sleep paralysis a handful of times now.

    Still vividly remember my first ever experience, it was about 6 years ago. Woke up in the middle of the night, lying in bed, thinking what time did I wake up. Took my phone out from underneath my pillow to check and it wouldn’t turn on. Thought that was strange as my phone is always charged. Tried the bedside lamp, that also didn’t work…got up to turn on the bedroom light…that also didn’t work. There was a strange feeling that told me it wasn’t real so I tried to pinch myself..felt no pain, tried slapping my face…also no pain. That’s when my heart was beating and I knew something was wrong. I yelled out to my family members but noone heard me. I figured I must have woken up inside my dream or must have died in my sleep. Helpless and confused, I just sat on my bed and looked around. It was definitely my room. I opened my door and walked to my hallway, it was dark…and then all of a sudden, a small kid in a hoodie ran past me and I ran after him and managed to grab him in the kitchen. When I turned him around, he had no face so I dropped him and ran back to my room and locked it. Shocked and scared, I went back to bed to hopefully wake up again. I started praying and said to God, ‘I’m scared, if you love me help me get out of this dream’…next thing you know my body froze and a bright yellow light flashed into my room and I can see this hand moving towards me, and it pinched me. I woke up feeling sweaty, my heart was still beating hard…I found my phone from under the pillow, turned it on and it was around 5am in the morning…scariest part was feeling that pain on my arm from that pinch.

    I had an episode again last night and thought I check the internet to see if anyone else suffers from the same thing…glad to see that I’m not the only one.

    To those experiencing False Awakening, don’t be scared but be aware you’re dreaming…you’ll eventually wake up from it. If you want to wake up quicker from these dreams, try doing something that will cause strong pain…that would probably give your brain a kick and wake you up.

    • I don’t have any solutions, but when I go through false awakening I find my house dark and when I go to turn on the lights, they won’t work. I know when I am awake properly is when I turn on a light and it works.

  29. 19 year old male, last night when I was falling to sleep, I had a very vivid dream, basically I could see my bedroom exactly how it is, and that’s all I see but I feel like I’m forced in one place, couldn’t move a muscle, not even my mouth to enable me to shout for help which is exactly what i was trying to do, all that I could hear was a very silent distant murmur as I’m trying to shout, become very very distressed at this point because I was fully aware that I was unable to shout or move my body, the next thing I know I was threw across my room into my bedroom door in a cowering position, yet i still have no clue how any of this was happening? There was nothing there what I can remember, but it was extremely scary and I’m not a person who can cope with scary Things.. I can remember I though I was actually crying to my self to wake up, telling my self wake up wake up, it just wasn’t happening but after the throw to the door that’s when I awoke, it’s so scary I had no control over it what so ever and I don’t ever want to experience this again.

  30. I usually have nested false awakenings. If I’m waking up in other places, it’s not so bad, but if I’m waking up in my own bed, it can be intense. My last false awakening was last week. I had been actually waking up all night, so in my false awakening, i thought I was just waking up yet again, only when I turned over my worst nightmare was standing in my shower. The sheer terror caused me to attempt screaming, only nothing came out, and I actually woke up with my heart racing, head screaming, and out of breath. I used to have the ability to lucid dream, and it made nightmares like these SO much easier to handle, because I could change the outcome. I was no longer helpless in my dreams, and I thought that by overcoming my nightmares, maybe I could overcome my issues in real life. But the constant nightmares landed me on prazosin, and I immediately lost the ability to lucid dream. I also lost my nested dreams for a while, and even the ability to remember my dreams, but now they are coming back, even ON the prazosin, and I feel like I threw away my only tool to fight with. If you achieve lucid dreaming, learn to master it! It is THE best way to turn your nightmares into something much more pleasant. I am hoping I can regain the ability with time. My brain certainly seems to be fighting the nightmare meds.

  31. (55 yr old mom of 3). Have had many years of disturbing dreams where I needed to defend or save loved one from extreme violence or from cemetery (dead people)- Can wake myself by keep repeating in the dream (“this is a dream, WAKE UP, this is a dream, WAKE UP”) it has worked for me and for my children (I taught them how to get out of a bad dream- they are actually grown ups) now for years. Hope this may work for anyone with disturbing dreams,

  32. I was sleeping then woke up but was still dreaming and I was dreaming about the news. I don’t remember what was being said in the dream though the only thing I remember was a girl saying “It’s 4 o’clock in in the morning” and then I woke up completely and first thing I did was grab my phone and look at the time and it was 4:04 in the morning. I instantly started to Google to see how our bodies know what time it is when we are sleeping and couldn’t find anything but this was the closest thing I could find.

  33. I knew I was dreaming last night when I saw a man approach my daughter. He put his hands on her shoulders and slowly slide them down to her waist. At the exact time he touched her I felt the pressure of hands my shoulders and they moved slowly down. I was lying on my stomach so it was hard for me to pull my left hand down, but I did and I was able to move my hand down and back and it touched skin and I was able to pinch the skin, and then it ended. I lay there thinking about it, still telling myself it was a dream, but it was so real.I was not frightened since I felt sure that I was asleep. Also the daughter in question lives 500 miles away so I knew she was not here. This is the first time I have felt the touch of someone. I have only experienced a dream within a dream once before but I have experienced paralysis twice. I am 74 years old so I am only talking about 4 or 5 episodes in my lifetime. my first ‘dream’ was sometime a long time ago so I don’t remember what it was about. Only after talking to my husband the next morning did I realize that I had experienced a dream within a dream.

  34. This has been happening to me frequently
    lately, I am always lucid. I am screaming wake up and try to focus on something I know is around me like my baby or the tv and it works sometimes.. Not this morning though. It is so much worse than a regular nightmare when you are trying to wake yourself up over and over and 10+ keep find your still dreaming. I thought I was awake each time but when I looked at my
    Baby sleeping next to me
    She’d turn into something else it was
    Upsetting so I’d yell to wake myself up, wake up again run out of my room
    And it turned into somewhere else, finally
    To the panic of again waking up in my regular room only to realize it was all mirrored and not where the furniture should be, finally so upset in my dream I just started punching myself in the face over and over again thinking I hope I’m not punching myself in reality right now, I wasn’t at it worked but it’s very upsetting and I don’t know why this keeps happening frequently ?

  35. It’s 1228 am and I just had a series of false awakenings. Each one of my dreams were very stressful. I’d falsely wake up and was in my room and there were voices in my head. I thought I was awake and the voices wouldn’t stop. I thought I woke my wife up and she was so mean to me, only to wake up and realize I had had a false awakening. Just before this I had three separate sleep paralysis episodes. I have had these in the oat but not like tonight. This continues to happen this evening which lead me to your article. I was extremely worried before reading this and now feel a bit better. Each dream is so vivid and something very bad is happening only to falsely wake up and have something else stressful happen. Any thoughts?

    • Hi Seth
      Thanks for your comment – I know it can be upsetting when this kind of disturbing experience repeatedly happens. There’s not much more I can add beyond what’s already in the article and comments, I’m afraid! The best thing is to try and keep on top of your sleep pattern and practice good sleep hygiene techniques, do positive calming things before going to bed, and if it does happen, remember that dreams aren’t a bad thing – it’s totally normal to have scary dreams. Perhaps when you wake up, get up for a while and do something familiar and relaxing, then go back to bed again. Hopefully that will help you not lie in bed stressing about it.
      Regards
      Ethan

  36. I slept in our sleeping room where I work. I woke up and noticed that all lights are off. I can hardly see and saw that even the production area’s lights were all turned off. I walked not putting my shoes on and while walking along the corridor I saw someone walking towards my direction. I did not mind and continued walking till I saw her/his face. I was so frightened and woke up in bed again. I realized that it was a dream. I fell asleep again. woke up saw that the lights are on. Slept again and woke up with lights off. I know that I was back and did my est to wake up. had a hard time but was successful. not a good experience

  37. I have a reoccurring false awakening dream, and it usually occurs multiple times in a row before I wake up. This happens before a lucid dream, after its over, and I fall back to sleep, I will continue to have a lucid dream(s). The strange thing is that right before my distressing false awakening dream, I feel almost as if some external force is rolling me over onto my back; that is the only time I have these dreams. If I’m on my side this does not occur no matter how much I try to stay asleep on my side, something always makes me roll over on my back. In my false awakening dream, I’m panicked feeling that I’m not alone. So, I get up out of my bed, leaning over to my nightstand in the dark to turn on the nightstand lamp light switch, but the light does not go on. Next I move along the wall (since I cannot see in the dark) I’m running my hands over the wall trying to find the wall light switch. When I do find the switch, of course yet again, the light does not go on. By that time I feel like I’ve panicked myself awake, because by this time my panicking has become increasingly intense. This either actually wakes me up, and I go for the night table lamp again, only to find that sometimes, I’m not actually awake, I’m still having the false dream. This can happen 2 to 3 times before I actually wake up and successfully turn on the light. I have to sleep with the light on throughout the rest of the night to get any amount of sleep. I’ll continue to have lucid dreams and a terrible sleep – due to sleeping with a bright light on. I have also experienced sleep paralysis throughout my life. This began when I was 15 (in 1994), before I had ever heard of such a thing. It always felt like ‘something’ was sitting on my chest and “stealing” my breath, as if sucking in the air from my mouth (I could also hear this rush of air occurring). With all the other symptoms of sleep paralysis that you may know, from what I’ve heard through other peoples experiences, that we seem to each have our own way of ‘fighting’ through the sleep paralysis to regain full consciousness. For me, the only way to break free from this was by saying multiple Hail Mary prayers, very fast. Only then would I be released, get up and run from my room. Yes, I was raised Catholic, and as a child or young adult I would pray nightly, but I always found it odd that during my paralysis episodes that I would “choose” to use that prayer over using the Our Father prayer that I had always used in conjunction the the other, as a means to escape from the paralysis hold. I always wondered why ‘that’ particular prayer, or even prayer at all to release my hold. Is there another force present that is/was trying to ‘protect’ me from the ‘negative’ force around me? Despite all of the arguments regarding this issue, I support many scientific explanation’s of most things, while I have always believed that sleep paralysis leans more towards the metaphysical; based on the specific, detailed experiences that I have had, and conversations with other people and their sleep paralysis experiences. Neither of which came from people who were either spiritual or religious, or necessarily had a belief in any higher power or anything outter worldly.

  38. I’m a recently new mom and it’s been two months. I haven’t been depressed I have been extremely happy actually and just recently had some awful sleep experiences. A few nights ago I fell asleep and woke up I felt like it was real until I noticed something out of the ordinary I thought to myself “oh I’m asleep I just need to wake up”, So I did. Only to realize when I woke up things seemed okay at first but they got weird again and I was still asleep… this continued to happen 5 or 6 times. Each time was more scary. it is hard to give details because I can’t believe my brain would think of such awful things happening. However I remember so well and every time I fake woke up I was relived my dream was over, only to find out it wasn’t. When I finally did wake up I was in tears and I looked over to see my husband on his phone (which wasn’t normal). I then began to tell him I was dreaming and couldn’t wake up and how do I know I’m awake? He helped me. He said he couldn’t sleep and that it was okay. I sat up looked around asked questions. I then realized I really was awake now and I wasn’t dreaming anymore. I have had dreams similar in the past but never did I keep waking up in the dream. I always woke up in real life on my first try. Then this evening I had my niece over and told her I was going to take a nap and told her to wake me if she needed something. Her mom finally came and I guess my niece had tried waking me bc my newborn was crying. Thankfully my sister changed her diaper and fed her and put her to bed. During this time my sister tried waking me up multiple times. Finally she just told my parents and took her daughter home. Then my father and sister returned to my house and tried waking me again. I finally woke up and was so confused. I thought I had just slept for maybe 5 minutes. They told me what had happened and they had been trying to wake me for a while. My dad asked how I felt because my eyes were blood shot… it wasn’t until just now that I’m worried. I’m calling the doctor tomorrow to make sure it’s hormones doing this… I am so freaked out that i refuse to go to sleep until my husband gets home.

  39. I keep waking up in my dream, i look around my room, I don’t do anything else, just look around, I can only see one part of the room, the way I’m facing, I don’t move my head, don’t know honestly if I can, everything is as it should be. Then I question myself if I’m awake or not? Then boom I physically force my eyes open, I’m awake. I don’t understand, what’s going on? Every detail of my room is correct. Anyone else do this?

  40. I’ve had nested dreams along with incredibly strange dreams before. Almost all of them occur when I sleep in my car. I drive to work really early to miss the traffic, then just catch a quick nap in our protected parking lot while waiting for our building’s doors to open.

    This morning was the first time, however, that I forcefully woke myself up after becoming aware. It was during the third time dreaming after ‘waking up’ that I realized something was wrong, I couldn’t check the time to see if our building has opened up yet, everything was blurry even though I was wearing my glasses etc. Somehow I ‘woke up’ (this was the fourth time in a row now) and realized I was still asleep because everything was still blurry. I became slightly irritated at this point because I didn’t want to be late and somehow forced myself to wake up. It felt like I was ejecting myself from something.

    Only after finally waking up for real did I realize that I was lucid dreaming there at the end, which was a shame because I found it really interesting, I was just in a hurry to check the time. That finally motivated me to read up on it because I never ‘woke up’ at least four times before, usually only two or three times.

    Now I know that this is in fact common, thanks for the info. I’ll probably read up on lucid dreaming next.

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