Overcoming False-Awakenings

By: Jerry A. Greene

There aren't many drawbacks to lucid dreaming although this one is a major one. "False Awakenings" can be one of the most exhausting ways to spend your time asleep.

How Exhausting!
If you have ever experienced a lucid dreams before, you probably know what a false awakening is and probably know how exhausting (and frightening to some people) it can be.

The Problem
This experience is characterized by feeling that you have woken up, but find a few moments later that you are STILL in a dream. Sometimes this can be great.heck it's another lucid dream! But most of the times the phenomenon is not a singular event. It usually occurs once, then over and over again in the SAME DREAM! You try and try to wake up, but find that you keep ending up dreaming.

A couple of years ago, I had talked to my sister-in-law about lucid dreaming. She had never had one before and was fascinated by the idea. Well later that night, without even trying, she had one! (Something that is very common for people just learning about it. Just knowing that it is possible tends to get some people to experience one the very next time they sleep (lucky!!!)). At first she thought it was pretty cool, but then something started to happen and the dream became more of a nightmare. She couldn't wake up and was terrified. She remembered sitting in the corner of the room trying to prop her eyes open and much as they could go with her eye muscles and fingers. Unfortunately, I never told her that this is the exact opposite of what you need to do (not thinking she would have one since she didn't seem like she was going to try it).

Doing the active things that she was doing was only making the lucid dream more real since she was stimulating her objective mind's senses. These sort of actions are more a way of staying in a lucid dream then getting out of one!

The Solution
If you find yourself in a lucid dream like this one and can't seem to get out, try to relax (although it may be rather difficult) and close your dream eyes. Usually you will feel your body tingling and wake up. If again, you find yourself in another lucid dream, just close your dream eyes again until you do wake up.

If you have never had a lucid dream before. and this article scares you a little bit, please don't shy away from learning to have lucid dreams. One great experience with one, will make you realize that it is definitely worth the uncomfortable false awakenings from time-to-time.