False Awakenings While Lucid

[GingivaGirl]

Hello all, Last night, I experienced my first lucid dream. It was a lovely experience. However, in between this "main dream" sector in which I was aware of my dreaming state, I was interrupted by numerous false awakenings which I was fully convinced until later today were real. I'm curious, is this typical? I wasn't even attempting a lucid dream last night, it merely happened spontaneously, so I'm almost certain it's not related to anything like that as I'm sure I fell asleep perfectly normally. Is it normal to experience false awakenings that you do not realize are false in the middle of lucid dreaming? Is phasing in-and-out of lucidity multiple times throughout the same dream typical or common? Thanks, Gingiva

[Silence11]

Half the work in lucid dreaming is figuring out how to stay lucid once you get lucid. Lucidity is awareness. You can "lose" that awareness in the same way you reached it in the first place. It's like shining a light in the direction of interest. You point the light towards the dream itself or you and realize you are dreaming. You are aware in that moment. The dream continues and along the way you forget about the light and it now points back to whatever was going on inside the dream. You are no longer lucid and have fallen back to following the dream's plot. Lucid dreaming is learning how to move your light towards lucidity and then keeping the light on lucidity. As for the false awakenings: dreams are weird sometimes, and if you like to move in dreams and lucid dreams then you allow for weird dreams to happen more than sometimes. I think lucid dreams are specially relevant to these type of experiences: false awakenings, sleep paralysis, etc. Not that they are common or anything but statistically you get to experience strange stuff the more dreams you see. They are still dreams at the end of the day and you can use them to continue lucid dreaming.

[Aprilla]

Ok, I will have a bash at this concept..yes, I agree with @Silence11 in that the weird parts of your dreams, especially the re-occuring ones, for me, should alert me to become lucid. they are my dream signs. I have had about 4 or 5 false awakenings. the first one I remember so vividly and what got me started with lucid dreaming when I was 16 (although I didnt know what the term lucid dreaming meant back then) so I called them vivid dreams that I was aware I was dreaming. LOL So I woke up in my bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, everything was EXACTLY as it was in real life.. down to the last notch. BUT, the walls were caving in, and I looked intently, I thought it was Freddie Kruger trying to scratch their was through from next door. Then, ( I had no idea why I wasn't terrified at this point, because I thought I was actually awake in my room) I walked down stairs to see if my dog was ok, and my sister was out, so I came back upstairs and I woke up in bed thinking what the hell was that all about!. I think the question for me at the time after that, was, how do I not know I am not living in a dream world after that? it seemed so damn real. No one I knew had answers...(I used to have a lot of sleep paralysis back then)And so when I came across Robert wagoners book on lucid dreaming years later and he spoke of different ways of waking up in a dream. I thought that if I get to the point of seeing very unusual things like when I am flying, seeing ghosts/zombies etc.., I am almost sure they are dream signs we can look out for to help us awaken. When I am flying I am about 60 percent lucid, I keep on to it to programme myself at night to induce flying, or pray for zombies to alert(or trick me) me to the fact I can *Lucid* myself... because I find sleep paralysis too long winded. hope that helps Good luck and happy dreaming @GingivaGirl