Hello Robert,
I’ve been having false awakenings since I first began lucid dreaming about a decade ago. Over the years they have gotten less scary, but still somewhat unsettling. The other night I had about 15-20 in a row, though I lost count at a certain point. About 3/4ths of the way through that series I went into my roommates room and said “I can’t wake up.” She responded “Well, what else are you going to do but roll with it?” I’ve done a fair amount of meditation in my dreams because of my Tibetan Buddhist practice, so I did that. Eventually I watched the dream desolidify and woke up. I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that worked. Only to look down at my hands and find I was still dreaming. This really shook me, but only for a moment since I woke up for real. Your book briefly mentions that you took a break from lucid dreaming because of false awakenings, but not how to work with them. I’m curious what you would suggest both in practice and in the impact it has.
Another quality that has been happening is how dreamy waking life gets at times. I’m talking really dreamlike. Everything starts to synchronize, inside and outside start to become irreverent. Archetypal experiences. This is in part related to meditation practice (I do about an hour a day and have done about a year worth of mostly silent retreats), but I really feel is amplified by my dream practice mainly. I’m also in a transpersonal counseling grad program and doing gestalt dreamwork in class really evokes this waking-dreamtime vibe.
Really curious how you work with these two things and also how you guide people through the insecurities that arise as you deepen you dreamwork/lucid path, which I hope to incorporate into my counseling career.
Hi Braxton,
Thanks for sharing your experience with lucid dreaming and false awakenings.
When it comes to false awakenings, it helps to look at the “process” by which they occur: 1) Normally, something happens and we ‘expect’ that the lucid dream is ending and we will wake, 2) The energy of that ‘expectation’ (of waking) serves to ‘create’ a waking-type experience or false awakening, 3) And then, either we wake to physical reality or we get caught in a bit of a loop, and keep ‘expecting’ and ‘creating’ and expecting and creating ‘false’ awakenings.
For myself, I think false awakenings happen at a certain stage of the lucid dreaming’s life (that period when they know enough to learn when a lucid dream seems likely to end, and therefore they ‘expect’ to wake). However, since you are in the midst of it, I think you may want to do a ‘reality check’ (e.g., pull your finger, try to float) whenever you feel like you have ‘wakened’ from a lucid dream.
Altogether, I believe that you will eventually move through this phase (and then false awakenings will be exceedingly rare).
To your next point, that sometimes the waking state gets very dreamy or dream-like. For someone who is going deeper on the lucid dreaming path, this happens. I encourage everyone to do these things: 1) Get outside and take a walk, sit in the sun, get involved in something (even if it is throwing a frisbee), 2) Do not sit in your home all day listening to music, or meditating, 3) Get together with other people — call up your friends and meet them for pizza.
Finally, in my second book’s final chapter, I mention a waking technique whereby you can see how this perceived experience of waking gets ‘projected’ outward into the waking world. By doing this waking technique, you will get a glimpse into a more basic understanding of the creativity of perception. This may help you develop realizations for a stronger foundation, along the path.
Lucid wishes!