# Sleep and Dreams > General Dream Discussion > Nightmares and Recurring Dreams >  >  Trapped Within Multiple Dream-Layers

## ARedFezz

Holy shit.

I just had one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. It was, basically, a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream, and I wasn't entirely lucid up until the last dream.

In essence, I was trapped. The first layer was baseball. We had just finished a game and we were packing up. Something in an open parking lot with a lot of expanse on all sides, with rows two parking spaces wide in terrace form. I don't entirely remember what this layer was about, but it wasn't nightmare-ish at all.

The second layer is where it started to get odd. I knew we were in a large church area, but I was outside. I was a volunteer of sorts. The odd thing was, it was pitch black. Absolutely dark except for the fact that I could make out a few objects blearily. I asked someone for help and they directed me into an auditorium where Madagascar 3 was playing. It was incredibly odd in retrospect, but I went along with it because it was a dream.

Through this point I wasn't lucid. At all. This third layer was where it started to get really odd. I was in a K-mart of some sorts, it was in a mall-type enviroment with the major stores and the entrances to the mall on a huge facade facing the parking lot. I saw a friend there who I had had a thing with in the past but could no longer see him because of shit with my parentals. This evoked a rather depressed feeling in me, as well as a kind of nihilistic sentiment, and I went outside to sit down. Saw the person come out decided to go back in, and saw a few other people walk out as well who I didn't know. Apparently, my sister and I were at K-mart buying stuff. The grocery line was ridiculously cramped. We had to borrow fifty cents (in ONE coin... O.o) from another cashier because we didn't have enough, though I had tried and got my sister to put something back. Odd, again.

So, that's all over and done with, and then I wake up into another layer, this one which is the parking lot again. I think, this is where the order gets a little fuzzy.

Then I wake up again. This time, its a result of myself pinching myself and trying to "mind-jump" back awake. It's not working. I'm just going into different layers of dreaming and not realize. An infinite false awakening if you will. At this point, I'm at what I believe to be my house and there's people there, whom I proceed to do stuff with (_Yes! A sex dream!_). That turns into a clusterfuck as my parents come home to a house that ISN'T theirs. It's much larger and more closely resembles the houses in the neighborhood up the street. I retreat up to my room and there's a bag of books on my bed. I scavenge through them and see that they all have text. In retrospect, I should have taken time to look through them but at that point there was an inkling of doubt as to the reality of my world. I started getting a little anxious. But then there was another, really, extremely hot person there and then more stuff happened. Yes, I am an easily excitable being.

Then I involuntarily jumped. Same house, same thing, except I started in my room. The books were still there, all of it, but I didn't sense the walls. It felt like my room was in the middle of a fountain in the middle of a green space on a university campus. There was no embarrassment involved in this entire dream, just trapping and all that jazz. But I digress. So, again, the same thing happens, I find the exact same person and then stuff ensues, again in a room that extremely closely resembles one from my house. My father comes up, so I leave the person hanging and go hide in the closet whilst I cover up. He finds me, but suspects nothing and I go back into my room and the books are still there.

A little bit about the books. They were all different, at least the ones that I observed (about 5 out of 20). They had radically different covers, different colors, and different titles, and when I opened the books up they actually had text in them. This settled my suspicions. They were roused, however, by the people I had done sexual things with - these people were freaking _celebrities_.

Boom. Jump. Same starting place, in my bed in an open space, but I still THINK it's my room. At this point my vision is starting to darken, and this dream level is night, as opposed to the rest which have, for the most part, been bright. I examine the books more closely, and look at my computer, both of which convince me that I'm now in the real world but I still have that tiny feeling that I'm NOT. It's extremely anxiety inducing. I try and jump again.

I'm successful, and I'm now on a dream with the exact same starting place as the last two dream levels, but this is different. I'm lucid. I KNOW I'm dreaming. The books are there, my bed is there, the computer is there, but it doesn't feel right. The walls aren't surrounding my room. It doesn't FEEL like my room. I feel hollow, not to mention scared out of my mind like something is tugging me downwards into some depths of depravity. I see my mum and this is where it gets radically out of hand.

I am frantic. Delirious. I run up to her and grab her face, me almost in tears and her in absolute shock. "MOM. WHAT HAPPENED TO MY WALLS?!?" I said, though I don't remember hearing it. It must have been a crying yell, because I saw the petrified look on my mom's face.

"MOM! WHAT. HAPPENED. TO. MY. WALLS!?!?"

"WHY AM I TRAPPED HERE??!"

"PLEASE GET ME OUT!!!"

Her face was horrible to look at, a mix of pure shock and agony all rolled up into one. My sister was there as well.

And all of a sudden, I jumped again. I was awake. I saw the walls, I knew my bed was there, I could feel the absolute reality of my world as opposed to the slightly increasing feelings of reality of each dream layer. And I breathed a deep sigh of relief. But then I wondered... "Is this it?". I tried jumping again for a good minute. Thankfully, it didn't work. 

After being trapped within a labyrinth of dreams for what felt like days, I'm finally out and only an hour has passed.

=-=-=

Sorry if that's an incoherent mess. I'm trying to type this fast before I forget any details. 

I'm just wondering if there's any tricks for detecting that type of infinite cycle of false awakenings, or, hell, even if there could be some kind of meaning between what I'm sure could be called a bout of night anxiety or even, god forbid, a nightmare.

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## ARedFezz

Also, as an addendum, before I fell asleep (or, possibly, after I had fallen asleep, somewhere in the dreamlayers) I experienced a bout of sleep paralysis, where I was in my bed, laying down, but I literally couldn't move. At all. I then jerked myself awake with the force of a fucking bison I was so afraid, and then I'm not sure what happened next. I'm actually fairly certain this wasn't before I had fallen asleep.

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## DreiHundert

Are you sure that you were in different dream layers? 

Consider this possibility: Perhaps you have been working on your dream recall and it has improved.  Each night we actually have SEVERAL dreams.  If you're doing really well with your dream journal and you're remembering dreams better... Sometimes you will remember ALL of the dreams that you had.  This sounds like you had a bunch of different dreams, or dream scenes in one night.... Some of those dream scenes were dreams where you were waking up, or false awakenings. 

Multi-layered dreams are a concept from Inception, but we actually dream on one single layer. False awakenings can put us in the illusion that we're in multiple layers of dreaming.
You're not waking up from a dream, into another dream which contains the first dream.  What actually happens is that your first dream stops, and you have another dream that you woke up from the first dream.  

The best way I can explain it is in poorly written program logic, which will probably accomplish nothing but to go over the heads of those who don't know program logic, and make me the laughing stock of those that do... (lol... I know it's crap)

This is the inception style dream..



```
SUB "Dream1" {
SLEEP
     IF Dreaming = "Yes" THEN (You're in a dream, and you fall asleep in the dream)
         SLEEP
         IF Dreaming = "Yes" THEN (You're in a dream within a dream, and you fall asleep again within the dream)
              SLEEP
              IF DREAMING = "YES" THEN (You're in a dream within a dream within a dream, and you fall asleep again)
                   SLEEP
                   IF Dreaming = "Yes" THEN (You're in a dream within a dream within a dream, and you wake up from that dream)
                        WAKE
              IF Dreaming = "YES" THEN (You're in a dream within a dream, and you wake up from that dream)
                   WAKE
        IF DREAMING = "Yes" THEN (You're in a dream, and you wake up from that dream.  You are actually awake now)
             WAKE
ENDIF 
}
```


And this is what's really happening in your dreams



```
This shows how you are either dreaming or you're not.  You move from one dream to the next.  This logic allows for as many dreams to occur in one night as possible, but it doesn't allow for dreams to be within other dreams. 
SUB Dreaming {   
     Dreamcount = 1
     WHILE Sleeping = "Yes"  (As long as you are asleep, it constantly checks to see if you're dreaming.)
           IF Dreaming = "Yes" THEN  (You ARE dreaming, so the program lets you continue to dream undisturbed)
               DO NOTHING
           ELSEIF Dreaming = "No" THEN (You are NOT dreaming, so the program generates a new dream.  Perhaps you dreamed that you woke up from the last dream?)
                BEGIN DREAMING 
                Dreamcount = Dreamcount + 1
            END WHILE 
                PRINT Dreamcount 
                END PROGRAM
     }
```


Then again... Neither side of the story has been scientifically proven(at least I don't think).  So you're not WRONG for believing one way or the other.  This is just what I think causes this phenomenon.

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## dutchraptor

Hahaha thats really cool DreiHundert.

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## littlezoe

There's no dream within a dream. It's just the illusion of multiple dreams, you will still stay in the same one, only the environment changes.

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## ARedFezz

> There's no dream within a dream. It's just the illusion of multiple dreams, you will still stay in the same one, only the environment changes.



Well, yes, of course, because you don't actually have a brain to dream with in your dreams. But it did felt as if I was waking up from a dream each time, only to have reality shattered. It was pretty messed up.

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## littlezoe

> Well, yes, of course, because you don't actually have a brain to dream with in your dreams. But it did felt as if I was waking up from a dream each time, only to have reality shattered. It was pretty messed up.



Of course, i just wanted to clarify ^^

This does sound like a really interesting experience though  :smiley:

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## Namine207

I know exactly how this feels, I get these all the time. Usually, the best advice is to be patient and let what happens happen. A lot of the time, you are connecting your perception of time within the dream with your perception of time in real life, so you feel like tons of time is going by and you can't get up, when in reality your dream is about the same time as normal, you're just recalling more of it. So it's always good to just enjoy the dream and don't worry about the time outside. It's not going anywhere!  ::D:

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