I Had My First Proper False Awakening!

Though I haven't yet experienced full lucidity, this morning I had my first experience of a different dream phenomenon that I know can lead to lucidity: The False Awakening!

I think that what might have prompted it was my change of location; I was sleeping at a friend's house on their sofa, rather than in my own bed. When I awoke the room was an almost perfectly replica, at least at first glance; as I'm not really in the room very often it wouldn't have been easy for me to pick out any discrepancies had I thought to do a reality check.

In the dream, my friend came downstairs; when I asked her what the date was, she told me that it was 27th February. Though I think I thought it odd for a moment, I quickly accepted this; after that she asked me if I was going to an "Equestrian Sport and Archery Event" with her the next day; I agreed despite this being my first knowledge of it, but looking back I think I had felt confused by the proposition as it just came out of the blue. After that, she pushed me off the sofa and started rolling me up in a blue gym mat; the ridiculousness of this situation made me snap awake, and it was a very disorienting feeling to wake up in the exact same spot I had just woken up in moments before.

Weirdly enough, my friend then came down the stairs within the exact same time interval after my awakening as she had done in the dream; I asked her if it was 2nd November, and when she confirmed this, I thought back to what day it had been the day before, and the day before that, then performed a discreet RC to confirm I definitely wasn't still asleep. I told her about the experience, which prompted her to ask me what I'd been smoking; I felt disoriented for a good ten minutes after.

I had drank quite a bit of alcohol the night before; does that have an effect? I usually don't remember my dreams after drinking, but tonight's experience was especially vivid.

Congrats on the FA! If you want to work on catching them more readily, it helps to get into the habit of doing a RC whenever you wake up, whether something is out of the ordinary or not. It's simple, takes a few seconds, and can help you catch quite a few lucids you wouldn't normally get.

As for the alcohol bit, I find that it makes it kind of harder to get lucid, but by the time you get into the longer REM periods later in sleep where you're most likely to have a lucid dream, you're most likely sober (I don't get super drunk so I wouldn't know). Maybe I can use it as an excuse :-P