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. I started having sleep paralysis a couple years back and at first it happened a lot but not so much anymore. It really freaked me out and I would stress about it a lot. I found I started having false awakening dreams in which it just felt like I was waking up in a state of sleep paralysis. Even worse, every time I would think I was starting to move or come out of it I would start over a new dream where the same thing happened. Also I couldn’t use the regular methods I used to get out of sleep paralysis to get out of this, like trying to wiggle my toes or closing my eyes and falling back asleep. I’m very fast at recognizing if I’m dreaming now and I just try to picture something else like a cartoon character or something not so scary, but usually it’s not effective. The worst part of it is that if I’m dreaming of sleep paralysis it’s much more frightening because my hallucinations can talk to me. I just woke up from a sleep paralysis dream and went looking for answers, has anyone else experienced this?

  2. I usually don’t dream when I sleep, but when I do, the dreams are incredibly bizarre. I often enjoy his crazy they can get. I have had only 3 episodes like you describe in the article in my lifetime. When I was 11 years old, I dreamt that a man came into my room and stabbed me. I could not move or scream, so I thought that I was dead. All I could do was watch him leave my room and I stared at an empty doorway for what felt like maybe 10 minutes. This same dream happened again when I was in college. Only thing that made it so terrifying was that this was not my childhood bedroom, but my present bedroom in a shared apartment. I could hear my roommates from down the hall. I assume these are sleep paralysis. Last night, I had what you describe as a “nesting” version of false awakening. It is hard to count but I believe I “woke” to some bizarre and terrifying event at least 6 times! Each time I quickly realized that I was just dreaming, but only to wake up from another dream, and another… The conditions in which I opened my eyes each time was the same. My head was even in the same position on my pillow. Thank you for your article and useful tips! I would love to explore the idea of lucid dreaming, but those two sleep paralysis experiences still haunt me. It is amazing how much a dream can affect a person! Last night, I grew more and more anxious and scared. I am having difficulty getting the experience out of my head!

  3. Happened a lot of time with me. What works for me is after I realise I’m in a dream and I need to be awake, I shake my head rigorously towards left and right. This works most of the times.

  4. Ive had these before but tonight they scared me lik not by what i seen but what i felt….
    I was sleeping woke up in my dream with my two year old niece crying it was dark in the house i sat up and i heard some little kids voice laugh like above me or around me she grabbed my hand and still crying to take me in the kitchen when i walked into a flood of water then the kitchen became bright n i could see all the water i kept hearing the little kid that wasnt there giggling i made myself wake up.. i woke paralyzed i couldnt move n within a second i was waking up with the nightmare starting all over again just as scary. I tried to make my up as soon as they repeat over n over it was like a start button. The last i woke myself up n i was half awake going bak in so i went to stand up and my eyes were completely sealed shut n body paralyzed standing up. Like something in my dream really wanted me n the more i went the stronger it got it wasnt letting go. I then was powerless started blinking my eyes as hard as i could feeling both awake n asleep my eyes were in the back of my head i got them open realized i was laying down not standing up n scaried to death to go bak to sleep right now.
    Now i do believe in finding out what the problem is or hidin messages but it is really had when its like a paranormal feeling of fear n eerie situation that has kids apart of it. I dont even know what to think all i know is sleep isn’t an option rite now.

  5. Someone please help me understand this. Nearly every night I have these false awakening dreams and most of the time, whatever happens in them happens in real life. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME. Am I anxious?

  6. This happens to me all this time. It’s so frightening, I always feel trapped inside my dream. I will wake up 5-25 times in my dream before I’m actually awake. It usually takes me 10 minutes after awakening to convince myself that I’m not dreaming.

    It makes me feel so tried and stressed out when I wake up. It feels as if I haven’t slept at all. I think this might be because I spent a lot of my resting time fighting to make my body wake up to get out of what are sometimes terrible dreams. Hopefully some of these tricks will work

  7. Ive experienced it a few times and to me theyre worse than nightmares because sometimes I know that I am in a sleeping and I wake up but in a dream and it hapens multiple times in that one dream and each time I wake up the dream gets more and more scary and more messed up .I never woke up from a dream to another dream its always a nightmare and I honestly think that my brain is punishing me because I figured out I was in a dream, a lot of times when I’m sleeping and I figure out that I’m in a dream weather I wake up in it or not I immediately feel like I’m being pulled down and then I wake up in a nightmare . Once I was dreaming about some good stuff that happened in my personal life and at the end of the dream I said to my I said to myself this is a dream, I’m going to wake up now. I immediately get pulled down and I wake up paralysed and I could barely move any of my muscles and a shadowy figure kept getting closer and closer and I screamed for help as hard as I could eventually I woke up I was all sweaty and I was in shock and panic. And tonight I woke up in a dream I went in a room and my mother was sleeping and I said ok I don’t want to wake her up ,then I woke up again and this time I knew something was wrong .I try really hard to wake up and eventually I wake up again I know something was wrong and I bight my thumb and I don’t feel it then in quick succession I wake up and each time the world is more and more distorted and each time I bight my thumb I barely feel it once I tried to bight my tongue but then I think , I probably shouldn’t do that because ill do it in real life too. And the last time I wake up in a dream I went into my sisters room and I expected something scary , then I noticed that I was in a mansion and that wasn’t her room and it was dimly lit and there was a monkey for some reason it was late and she was on her phone and the last thing that happened was I asked my sister is this real life and I my eye sight was getting blurry and she said yeah everything is normal. Then I woke up

  8. I’ve had this ”False Awakening” for 2 years straight (everyday) and they are always lucid for me..
    Always nightmares, i wake up in my dark room, something always happens, sometimes i float, i can move around my house of course there’s never anyone there, lights never work and i usually wake up when someone grabs me or i see a dark figure in front of me.. this can’t be normal, right?

  9. Oh wait there this one other one I had which scared the crap out of me and I drew a picture. I don’t know if it’s sleep paralysis or false awakening.

    So i went to bed and fell asleep. so my bathroom door was locked. I didn’t feel numb. But in my dream I was sleeping and I woke up and this white Demon Humanoid with black wings with no face/beak. comes through my window and get up and walks around my room while I was hiding underneath my covers and went to my bathroom and opened my door and then it scene me and screamed and jumped towards me.

    So I actually woke up and my bathroom door was open. And was still little bit dark but barley turning day time.
    Has anyone else experience this?

  10. Part 2
    This false dream was very bizzare and emotionally missed me up Bc I couldn’t sleep and when I did it went back to more deaths. Like I was at work and my hands were shaking/felt sick/nervous/Sad.

    So Now on to The Dream.

    So my Dream was mix with Inception and live Die Repeat type.
    Started Off in A building were Hulk and Iron Man were fighting and I was caught in it. After countless tries iron Man lost but barley lived.

    So I left the building and an started to go to McDonald’s and this girl I like was coming back to college to go to work at McDonald’s and said hi to me. So I started talking to her and then there was a plague going around and people turned to zombies and out of nowhere I got jumped and was eaten alive.

    Woke up Scene Repeats. But This time I was At a Grocery Store instead and was talking to the same girl but she worked their instead. Then I seen a lady outside looking back scared leaving to her car. After that I told my crush that something doesn’t feel right and I told her we need to leave but was to late people were screaming and we ran outside and some guy got eaten alive inside of me and we escape in her car.

    Scene Repeats but I was talking to a guy this time and this time I didn’t leave out alive.

    P.S. I just remembered I had another false awakening yesterday right after this Bizarre dream but won’t talk about it to much

  11. I had two this whole month.
    One was where I was at my house and I got up it was 8am then I told myself that I had to get my dog inside Bc it was windy so I did and then I went down Stairs and I seen my garage door opening. At 1st I thought it was my dad but when I entered there was a guy stealing my dad tires and stab me in the neck and then I woke up telling my dad having that experience.

    Then I actually woke up and it was 8am but was Sunny so my dad called me to get my dog Bc it might rain and I went down stairs everything seem normal the door was closed no one was home. Then my dad got home and I told him about the dream.

  12. At least three times a week this happens to me, I wake up think I am really sitting and watching TV and then something horrific appears, like one time i had a shadow of a man standing beside me when i tried to get under my blanket he made a growling noise, i woke up for real and i was scared to move because i thought i was dreaming again. although i am sleeping through these episodes, i don’t feel rested. I have had PTSD since I was twelve, never had I had dreams like this until now. These dreams have really caused me some problems with school because when i really wake up and i am aware of my surroundings, i don’t want to go back to sleep and have a scary dream again, so i just stay up all night. And I don’t want to tell my parents because i feel like they wouldn’t understand. Never have I had a nice lucid dream, but a horrific nightmare. i am mentally drained, its like A nightmare on elm street, kruger just hasn’t come for me yet.

    • OMG, I just had one last night with the shadow man. I thought I was awake and experiencing a home invasion. A whole hour passed (in real time) while I was experiencing it. I was so confused when I woke up “for real” because I didn’t feel that mark of delineation.

  13. Hi! I’m 21 and in the last year’s I’ve been experiencing this a lot. I mean, I thinks it is this. But normally what happens is that I try to wake up but I can’t open my eyes but I can’t, I have to make a tremendous effort to be able to move, normally I awake by rolling down the bed or sofa I was laying. Then my head feels really heavy and I fight to stay awake as if I had taken an aderal , and I do stuff like going to the bathroom, or other normal activities around the house. And then I notice something is off and I’m like f*ck I’m still asleep and it happens ALL OVER AGAIN. It can happen like to 3/4 times and it’s not just when I’m really sleeping but also when I’m napping. And sometimes it feels like I was in that loop for hours and I’ve been asleep for half hour. It’s nightmarish and my head hurts after it. Is it normal?

    • Maria,
      I have the exact same dream that i cant open my eyes and it’s so frightening.
      I’m glad someone has same experience like mine.

    • This legit happens to me too!! I get it all the time!! I know sometimes in my dream state that I’m actually dreaming but I feel so stressed after!

    • This is the same exact thing that has been happening to me for years. It scares me every time. I usually wait awhile before going back to sleep if I do at all. Like right now having just woke up from it happening. I wish it would stop.

  14. I had a dream last night that I was in another home, not mine, there was a door there which I didn’t know anything about at first and then I found it and I went inside. I was looking for something and there was a demonic creature inside this room I was in. I don’t quite remember anything else that was in that door. I got outside of the door somehow and then while looking at the door I woke up within my dream. While I was awake within the dream I noticed my hands were changed and I had dark black claws like an animal. I was freaking out and I tried to cut the claws off and it didn’t work they just grew right back. After that I told my grandma I needed to see a church as fast as possible. So she took me to this place and I was baptized and I was up and it got better. Anyways I’m very shook about this dream.

  15. Super helpful to read so much of this. I’m a vivid recall dreamer since i was young 5 ish. Lucid dreamer looking to explore that realm but not overly successful. Nightmare inclined. Have had many “false awakenings” my go to now in these dreams is try to make a call. If i pick up my phone and i can’t work it i know I’m asleep. Almost always involving nightmares and in morning hours 5-8. Also find looking out a window to be helpful. If it’s still dark out I’m still in “it”. Have found it interesting that almost all my “can’t wake up dreams” are isolated. I have re-curring dreams/themes. But almost always when stuck and can’t wake up for real multiple times I’m in a new place usually scary. Sweet maniplulating dreams :)

  16. Hi, I have only recieved these kinds of dreams a few times maybe 4-5 times and it seems like it only happens when I am pressured to do alot of things like, homework, work, and things like that. I also would have these dreams when I just pass out, and have no control whether or not I sleep or not. Lately, I’ve been having a very messed up sleep schedule due to not being able to sleep from stress, or staying up late for personal things, or homework.

    In the end, Im just concerned because I haven’t been told that I have anxiety, and doctors say my body is well managed. Do you have any information I should know on this? Or is it just something that happened?

    • Hi Kevin
      Thanks for your comment. It sounds like you already kind of know that anxiety/daily worries could be disrupting your sleep. Everyone suffers from anxiety to a certain extent, so even if you haven’t been told you have anxiety problems, it’s still likely that some things in life will cause you some anxiety, just as they do most people.
      It might be helpful to talk to your family about how you’re feeling when you have lots of pressure such as homework. Sometimes just talking openly about how you feel and getting some support can help a lot.
      It can also help to do things that help you unwind, whether it’s playing sport, music, art or something specifically relaxing like yoga, meditation. You can find lots of great videos on Youtube with people talking you through relaxation exercises. In fact, several times a day I take a 10 minute break from my computer to watch a yoga video and follow it. It really helps!
      And if you’d like some easy relaxation techniques you can do in bed before you sleep, or if you wake up anxious, have a read of this article.
      Regards
      Ethan

  17. I have sat up in bed looking for my mother an asking my self where is she my mother died 30 years ago I have gone to the next room looking for her.then when I realize I think what am doing ? Mom is not here it feels like a dream but I remember everything cant be awake if im looking to find my mother.for real im not fully awake when this hapened I have had three episodes allwas looking for mom.

  18. I’ve had a dream, where in my dream I woke up in my room, the room had the same setup but different flooring and carpeting and there was no closets in the room, I then walked into the hallway and I saw that the hallway was different and the room the originally is across from me is now to the right down the hall further, I looked into the room and I saw my exs parents and sister in there, I walked up to his mom and started to talk to her, all of a sudden my dream changed and instead of talking to her face to face I was on the phone with her, and the phone goes dead, I then knew I had to be dreaming so I walked to the stairs and jumped down them to try and wake up, I ended up waking up in the same dream, same room and setup, but instead of my exs parents in the room my boyfriend was in there laying down, he then called me in the room to finish our love making and as soon as we started I woke up again in the same dream, still knew I was dreaming, my boyfriend still in the room waiting for me, once again woke up in the middle of it still in my dream, I was getting scared then because I thought I wouldn’t wake up anymore, so I thought hard on waking up and I shook my head and when I opened my eyes I was finally in my own room again, I never felt paralyzed though

  19. I have false awakenings all the time, they can be normal activities or can get very lucid. I can direct myself, ignore myself or find myself totally paralyzed. Many times I’ve got a huge piece of gum in my mouth and I can’t scream for help or get the gum out, that is very repetitive dream. I have many false awakenings that involved having sex with my husband and then I wake up right next to him. I can stretch in my dream, feel things, I normally can tell, some times they don’t bother me, others they bother me like crazy. In the dream I can feel, let’s just get up now. I also have nightmares, vivid and complex stress dreams, lots of water and strange forms of transporting my body around. So very weird. Very bad lately but I just moved and got a new job. Normally I don’t mind too much, except the night mares, hate them but I’m so tired lately as a result. Does dreaming make you tired?

    • Hi Bobbie
      Thanks for your comment. I don’t think dreaming in itself makes you tired, but if you wake up regularly during the night because of them, that can leave you feeling tired. But so can anxiety and stress, which you might be experiencing more of because of the combination of the major life events you’ve just gone through and the worry about your sleep.
      Hopefully things will settle down again soon as you get into the new rhythm, but in the meantime try to keep a stable sleep schedule, do all the right things to help yourself sleep, paying attention to good sleep hygiene, and try doing relaxation techniques before bed and if you wake in the night feeling stressed about your dreams.
      Regards
      Ethan

  20. I just experienced sleep paralysis then… I have never encountered such a terrifying thing in my life. I constantly tried to gain composure but my stress wlevelswere through the roof. I eventually did the scariest thing possible during the experience. I closed my eyes. I could hear things that I do not want to explain. But after that I was fine. Thanks for the article. Pray I don’t need it anymore.

    • Sleep paralysis can be caused by certain medication, but in reality, it is normal. There is a moment (up to several minutes) where your brain paralyzes your body while it puts you into a sleep state. Sometimes you aren’t actually in a sleep state yet you still cannot move. You can bring it up with your doctor, but it is pretty normal.

  21. Ahhh needed to read this to prove to myself that im not insane. A few years ago i read about lucid dreaming and tried some of the techniques but gave up on it a looong time ago as it never worked. However a few weeks ago i had a crazy ‘inception’ false awakening dream where i kept waking up in my dream but eventually realising something wasnt right, although sometimes i actually thought i finally woke up to then ‘wake up’ again and again, it was at least ten false awakenings in one dream. I would usually figure out i was dreaming by either simply realising it after something weird happened in my routine or by doing a reality check (my reality check ended up being trying to chhange wallpaper in my head and it worked), or some of them repeated my routine like a deja vu which also made me realise. It was completely insane and i was dying to wake up desperately, and almost brought myself to tears with the anxiety of not being able to wake up, especially at those times where i’d wake up believe i’m finally awake and then BOOM realise im still dreaming, it was quite terrifying. Also in my final ‘false awakening’ before the real wake up, i found myself realising and hen remembering all my previous false awakenings and somehow putting them together like a puzzle with a clue to what was about to happen. Now that i’m awake it doesnt make sense anymore but it did in the dream, that they were all kind of alternate realities to my day. When i realised that in my last false awakening suddenly i was getting attacked and i was running away and trying to remind myself that im asleep to stop the attackers chasing me (all i managed to do was just make them slow down or miss me) and then eventally let them kill me because i knew i was asleep (however it felt very weird to get killed) and that finally made me wake up for real. However I never truly believed 100% that i’m awake. A few weeks later now and i still question it. It honestly messed with my head, but only happened once in my life.

    • I know exactly what you’re talking about… that just happened to me last night again… when. I realize I cant wake up I try to scream and move and I’m unable to!!!! Then when I’m finally able to wake up after a while I realize I was still asleep and so on and so forth…. I wouldn’t mind but every single time I have this happen to me it’s always a Demon messing with me and I’m unable to wake up!!!! I thought I was alone until now

      • My sleep paralysis is always marked by demons or some dark shadowy looming figures near me, lying in wait to attack. It’s absolutely horrifying. I try to move anything, eek out a sound from my mouth, and struggle until I finally am able to do so. As soon as I can either make a sound or move, I wake up and it’s over. I also have been having so many false awakenings. They are ridiculous. I recently thought I had laid in bed for several hours trying to sleep, when I reality I was sleeping. I know this because I received 5 texts during the night, with my phone right next to my head, and didn’t feel or hear them. I also have fallen asleep on the couch while watching tv with my boyfriend and thought I was awake, listening to the tv show. But then he told me I was snoring. Like SNORING. So I obviously was sleeping. Not hearing myself snore. I wish I knew what was going on with me. There are several more examples I could give!

  22. I’m 28 and I have terrible night terrors. Sometimes I wake up screaming or knocking stuff over. I sometimes have lucid dreams I can control. I also have false awakenings. I’ve had multiple false awakenings in one night. Most of the time in my false awakenings I recognize I’m still asleep because the surrounding size is off or a door or item in my house is off by a few inches and I know it’s not real. Recently I have to pinch myself within my dream to know I’m not awake. Sometimes I’m in sleeping paralysis within my dream of false awakening. I try to scream for help but I can’t scream or move. And I try to tell my real self to wake up by screaming or trying to move myself aggressively within my dream bits it’s really hard. I don’t know why I have such bad dream or dreaming habits. I fall asleep very fast and sometimes can have a night mate within 10-15 minutes of falling asleep. I’ve had night terrors since I was 5. Most of my dreams are apocalyptic type dreams. Any insight or help would be appreciated.

  23. I’m glad I came across this article. I actually googled this just after experiencing a false awakening dream. I’ve had these multiple times before, but they are usually not distressing, just me doing normal things like getting ready for school. This one however, was not like those times. I dreamt waking up in my room and starting to get ready for school. I start to realize that my room has become something I do not recognize, and I cannot find any of my normal belongings in the places they should be. My decorations are gone, my once brown carpet is now blood red, and my bed spread has changed into a strange beige/gold color. I begin to go into an overwhelming state of panic and a deep sense of fear overwhelms my body. I run into my bathroom only to find my bathroom walls have become this strange blood red color, and my old mirror has been replaced with a new, modern looking one. I stare at myself in the mirror, terrified and confused. Then I realize, I am dreaming. I look at myself and say “This isn’t real. You’re asleep. You’re having a dream.” I thought that this realization would rouse me but I remained, stuck in my own nightmare. The strange fear starts to grow, like something is about to attack me. Like I’m in danger. I go to my moms locker bedroom door, and start banging on the door. I try to scream, but I know I can’t. I’m dreaming after all. I bang on the door and try to scream and cry and shout. I hear someone get up and walk slowly to the door, but it doesn’t sound like the familiar tread of my mother. I hear their hand touch the door, and right as it opens, I awake. As you can tell, this dream was truly awful and terrifying. It’s comforting to know that I’m not alone.

  24. I dreamed this morning at 6 am that I couldn’t wake up I was struggling. When I wake up to go see tv in the living room I stayed up nd then I drink water, I went back to sleep nd while I was dreaming I dream the same thing. Like 3 times but in my dream was like it was real but in my same room but it was also weird because I dream that I was fighting a cat but it was something evil. So I was trying to kill him but I don’t know but I really got scared because it was attacking me a lot. It was a gray stripped cat I don’t know if whoever is reading this would help me. Because this is my first nightmare I dream about a cat attacking me. It felt that the cat had something evil nd I was trying to kill him cuz he attacked me. But before I felt asleep I saw someone standing close by the tv nd then when I felt asleep is when I started to have that nightmare it felt so real that I was in the same room but with my best friend. Nd I was trying to tell my best friend(Jennifer) that to tell my mom that I couldn’t survive because it felt like I was kind of dying nd well later than that I woke up nd I didn’t went to sleep no more. I’m explaining this because I’m confused on what I dream nd I need help.

  25. I have been experiencing something quite odd it’s a mixture between the two this morning my boyfriend went to work early and I find it hard to sleep in the bed alone so I moved to the couch watched some t.v then fell asleep only to have a very wild and vivid dream of me doing normal things around my apartment like cleaning and cooking and so on but as I began to wake up it all became very different it was like I was in a daze everything was blurry I tried multiple times to sit up and even call for help as much as I tried to no avail I realized I was still dreaming and became frantic so I was still lying there trying to sleep but it was so uncomfortable I really just wanted to wake up and snap out of it. When I woke up I realized I had only been asleep for not even an hour and it felt like it had been 5. I learned some techniques like not to fight it and try and ride it out but it does make it very uncomfortable to sleep and takes a number on my mental stability since it’s such a strange thing to grasp and understand at times I feel like I am not in the right world like I am still dreaming. I do suffer from anxiety and depression but when I go to sleep I really try to relax I believe this helps ward off strange dreams and the sleep paralysis but sometimes it just doesn’t work it’s really hard to explain exactly what it’s like and how it feels but I just wanted to share my story because it makes me feel a little better getting it off my chest.

    • That’s exactly, how I am. I get that a lot and when I do actually awaken I’m not able to move afterwards and it’s such a scary feeling when you’re actually up and not even know it

      • Yep I’ve never experienced feeling a presence in the room or any scary hallucinations but all those together are just as scary as not being able to wake yourself up or move.

  26. I get these frequently .. I’m fully aware that I’m not awake for real as little objects in my dream let me know. I find it extremely hard to wake up for real and become distressed I had one today one were I was dreaming then thought I’m dreaming wake up then I thought I was awake and was at my mums I then proceeded to make myself a cuppa and the cup was really strange so I knew I wasn’t in reality I then became distressed I tried and tried to pull myself to consciousness luckily my phone went off for real and brought me back to earth at my house on the sofa. I get terrible headaches from these dreams ?

  27. I’m pretty happy to come across this article. Just hearing that other people have similar experiences makes me feel a little better. I get false awakenings pretty frequently. And when I do I would get like 6 in the same night. Waking is each time being convinced that it’s real and that I’m awake and then something odd would happen. For instanse there would be a rooster in my kitchen which would start talking to me. But then I would feel this pull, low all my mussels would tense up really hard. Kind of what I imagine being electrocuted would feel like. And I would wake up again. And again and again. Each time with that pain. And each awakening would get shorter and shorter until I actually do wake up. Does anybody else get any pain on their dreams?

  28. I’ve had just normal false awakenings happen a few times. More recently are nested dreams that are particularly scary, though I’m aware that it’s most likely a dream there’s nothing I can do to change it and the events end up playing out without me being able to do much of anything until I wake up. In fact I just had one tonight and when I first started reading this I wasn’t even sure if I was awake or not. I was only asleep for an hour tonight, not even before I woke up. I found that it helped to move to a difference space from my bedroom, my living room is more open and I can dim the lighting so it’s not harsh. Petting my cats and focusing on their fur texture and the background sounds they make help. In doubt I received all of my personal information to myself, name, address, Birthday, the names of my loved ones and multiple phone numbers. That helped me confirm that I’m awake. Thank you for that. I’m going to finish calming down now until the sun comes up.

  29. Usually i get false awakening when i try to get up, but i end up in dream awakening. Sometimes i even dreamt of dreaming in sleep. Its so hard to wake up for real

  30. I’ve had false awakenings before but lastnight was the first that was that was this bad I had 5 to 6 times I thought I was awake but wasn’t it was very confusing and when I did wake up I was exhausted and wasn’t sure if I was actually awake or not I do have alot of anxiety that’s been really bad recently so I suppose that could be why

  31. I was on vacation staying in a hotel when my false awakenings with extended episodes happened. I woke up in my dream like I was coming out of my bed in the hotel room. There was a party going on outside the door so my friend Caroline and I decided to venture out. Once I walked out the door it was a completely different place. We wandered a bit but I can’t remember now what we saw. Then we find our way outside I turn my head to see Caroline looking drunk and worn out. I said “how did you get like that we just came outside?” She said, “you’re in a time worp, it happens when you over sleep. You’re seeing me as I’ll be later on.” She then pointed to the caroline I had came with a hundred feet in front of me. I ran to her and told her and she acted unphased saying that that happens to everyone. I then wake up again into everyone awake in the hotel room, I try and tell them about what happened but they don’t listen to me. So I venture out again, this time in search of my boyfriend who was not on this trip with me but I thought he should be there. I go door to door asking people if they’ve seen him. I go in one room to see a group of people sitting on the floor, I ask, “have you guys seen cole?” They start smiling at me and laughing. Then these guys start pulling my arms trying to bring me down with them but it frightens me and I run back outside. Someone comes up to me and points to a arch way covered in pink roses. I can seem him standing there. I walk towards him while people are handing me pink roses. Once I finally get close enough it’s him..but as a 40 year old man. He hands me a ring and says he will be my friend forever. I take another look at him and I realize that I’m dreaming. Bc I knew that this man was not my Cole in reality. He had details on his face that cole doesn’t have. I then ran screaming “this is my dream! You cannot control my dream!” Only to wake up again in my hotel room. Except this time I couldn’t move my body. Or hardly open my eyes. I see the girl who had been sleeping next to me. & I see an unknown man in the corner of the room smiling at me. I could mumble out the words, “Lexi wake me up! Lexi please wake me up” she just looked at me frightened. The guy started saying “don’t have her wake you up, you can’t leave” I was so frightened that I felt like a mentally jumped to across the room where my other friends were. Still unable to move my body. I look at my other friend screaming for her to “slap me awake! Please slap me awake!” The man come over grabbed onto my legs saying “don’t have her wake you up you can’t go” repeatedly. I then was seeing on dark. Feeling like if I open my eyes again I will be in the dream. Now terrified I kept my eyes closed. I tried to think of anything that would wake me up. My alarm going off or a knock at the door. I imagined my alarm going off which awoke me into my hotel room…for real this time. Shortly after my friends alarm went off and there was a knock at the door. I was sweaty and shaking. I would be interested in lucid dreaming, but this time it was creepy and felt off. I didn’t feel safe in other words in my own dream.

  32. Hello Ethan, I emailed some time ago detailing the distressing nocturnal experiences that have been occurring, did you receive it? I cannot find an answer from you on your forum. Kindest regards, Mark.

    • Hi Mark
      I just had a look back through the comments and can’t see one with your name and matching email address. Did you read many comments before posting reply? Sometimes people reply to long comment threads by accident instead of starting a new one and it kind of gets lost.
      The other thing is that on this particular article I don’t always reply to the comment personally. I read them all, and if someone asks me a direct question I try to answer. But I’m a bit constrained by the time it takes to read and reply to all the comments on the site as well as research and write new articles I’m afraid!
      But if you’d like a persona response, feel free to write out your thoughts again (sorry!) and I’ll reply when I see your name pop up.
      Regards
      Ethan

  33. , I go to sleep I go to sleep and I see TV shows and movies which I have never seen before and I hear radio broadcast just just thought of you and I can’t turn them off so I have no control over getting any sleep last night I got maybe half an hour and that was it I was trying for like 10 hours I don’t know what it is I don’t know how to stop it but it seems to be worse if I’m laying on my side either right or left it doesn’t make a difference

  34. i had the same dream last night 3 times, each time was exactly the same, i was pinned down by dark figures couldn’t make out what they were, and it honestly felt real i can even now while awake remember the feeling, of like a heavy pressure feeling over my body stopping me from moving and getting up, then all of a sudden i gasped for a breath and woke up. 1st time it happened i thought nothing of it, then just went back to sleep then it happened again. any1 else had anything similar to this and can any1 tell wtf is going on with me, my family laugh but its actually worrying me

    • Hello, my name is Karmela and I am 16, yeah I know what’s a kid of my age doing here… well I have the same thing; I am in my bed and I wake up (I’m still dreaming) but I barely open my eyes and they immidiatelly close and I try to open my mouth to scream or call for help, there’s nothing! My voice is gone and my mouth just like my eyes lose control and they close too, my arms and feet are so heavy i bare lift my arm up and as there is a wall next to my bed I punch it and the wall and nothing. I get so scared and I cry myself to sleep (still in the dream) and then I wake up. It’s so weird, it happened to me maybe 10-15 times now and it’s really worring me because I’m afraid to sleep.

  35. I experience false awakenings. I just had one..woke up and started googling. As I type the left side of my head feels heavy or groggy? Everyone I have one of these dreams I have the same sensation. Most of the false awakening I’m screaming and fighting to wake up. Or I’m trying to hit or move or scream to my boyfriend…parents …kids…anyone to just wake me up. It’s funny because one time I was in a false awakening…room looked the same, house was the same but I open the front door and it was snowing. I see my brother on the porch next door and I tell to him and say can you please wake me up? He doesn’t hear me so I panic. I go back and lay in my bed and try to calm down I try to yell out for help but cant. At that moment a loud knock at the door and it is my brother for real. I felt like subconsciously I knew he would come and wake me?? I’ve had them where I false awaken twice. My son has narcolepsy. I’ve always wondered if i had a sleep disorder as well because I’m always having terrible dreams.

  36. When I was 7 – 14 I’m often dream of something and I usually knows it is a dream. I’m doing something in my dream but I cant control my self its just like I’m only seeing what my eyes can see in dreams but its just decide on its own that’s why I know it is a dream and most of the time it is nightmare. I always struggle waking up when I’m having some dream of nightmare and I don’t know why I’m conscious in my dreams. But later on I learn to move my finger to wake up and its effect.. but in the later years I’m used to do that and it didn’t work it feels like I’m moving my finger but I’m only moving it in dreams, then that was the time my heart beats really fast I am really scared I don’t know how to wake up. When I felt like I’m having a nervous break down I try to calm my self and I go with the flow to my dreams. but it felt like its never ending, then that was the time I found a solution to my self in my dreams I don’t know if my body do the same also in reality I try to breath deeply and force my self out of the dreams its just like my soul is being pull away from my body I really cant explain how I force my self out but after I did I had or I wake up real I got headache and it hurts,,!
    and then later on I learn how to control my self in my dreams not just seeing through my eyes but still the method I used to wake up is forcing my self out,,
    I hope the finger moving method that used only make my finger move in my dream will not be like I’m forcing my self out but only in the dreams

  37. I snooze my alarm about 4 times on average so I can have anywhere from 4-20 false awakenings each morning. I hate it, it makes it extremely difficult to wake up for real. I went through a long period when I didn’t have them though, and I just figured out why. Marijuana. Which actually makes perfect sense. Marijuana is a dream suppressant (you don’t dream) which is why it is prescribed to PTSD sufferers. So even if you are against smoking weed, try some edibles before you go to bed a few nights in a row (it usually takes a day or two for the dream suppression to go into full effect in my experience) and false awakenings will no longer be an issue for you. And if you you are hyper against weed please know that from all the studies done, no major health risks go along with it. Eating McDonald’s once a week is worse for you than eating an edible before you go to bed. From my experience Marijuana has only improved my mental and physical health and now I can add false awakening prevention to it’s list of benefits

  38. I’m 26 and these scare me to death!!!

    I get these quite often and find it scary and distressing. In my what I now believe is a false awakening I will wake up multiple times (between 6 – 8 times) before I actually wake up! Every time (In the dream) my bedroom is exactly how it is from day to day. The first couple of times I can’t move, I feel a though something is pinning me down but at the same time feel aware that I’m caught in a dream. After that it’s anyone’s guess if I’m awake or not! And extremely hard to tell if I’ve woken up for real or not. My surroundings are the same to the detail. When I’m able to sit up (still in dream) I can see my tv, Xbox, clothes, everything exactly where I’ve left it before bed, even my girlfriend lying asleep next to me. I can look at my hand and move my fingers however I want. After 3 or 4 wake ups it becomes destressing and feel trapped. Still trapped in my dream I will sit up quickly shake my partner, screaming at her to wake me up. The following wake ups are more distressing … every time I sit up I’m thrown hard against the bed and pinned down, my body is shaking and I’m screaming to be woken by my girlfriend who I can feel lying next to me but can’t turn my head. After about 2 or 3 of this recurring (slightly different motions each time) I finally wake up for real but I still don’t trust I’m awake for a few moments. I’m breathing heavily as though I’ve just been strangled to near death! Now here’s the scary part, the room is like I said exactly how I left if, but my partner is lying in exactly the same position as I saw her during the false wake ups while I was asleep! I put it down to coincidence at first but it’s the same every time. And has also happened only once while she was awake on her phone next to me like she was in my dream (how could I know that!). She now knows when I have an episode now from my reaction when I wake up, but says she has no idea while I’m asleep as I look normal.

    I’m not sure if this is false wake ups or something else. But it scares me beyond belief! Anyone else experiencing it like this? Any advice?

    • Mine are exactly like your dreams and are very confusing in the sense that you do not know each time if you have really woke up or not. In the same bed you went to bed in and same environment you fell asleep in. It becomes increasingly stressful, anxious and just scary. The more times you think you have woke yourself up and have not and realize you are still in the dream the scarier it becomes. How to stop this?

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