Too Sleepy In My False Awakenings

[MindDaguerreotype]

First of all, I just joined so "hello everyone" ! I'll start by exposing my current LD abilities before asking about my new problem. I discovered the concept of lucid dreams 7 weeks ago, and immediately started practicing. Tonight I had my 17th LD (not all of them were interesting..), and I feel that I'm progressing well: they started very short (a few seconds) but are getting longer; I already succeeded at flying, turning a nightmare monster to an innofensive puppy, passing through a mirror (twice), and I started asking DCs to find my dreamguide. All my LDs ends by suddenly waking up (sometimes through a FA). At the beginning, almost all of my LD started by a false awakening; I do a RC everytime I wake up, so FA usually don't fool me very long. As soon as I am lucid, I would open my window (which is next to my bed) and jump to a new dreamscape. I had no difficulty doing that until now. Only recently I would also become lucid in the middle of a normal dream. I still have false awakenings, but now they are annoying because (even after the RC) I feel sleepy: my eyes are burning and want to close, and/or I can almost not move. So I can no more "jump through my window" or even leave my bed to explore a lucid dream! This night I had one, and I tried rubbing my hands to increase lucidity, but I could barely touch my fingertips. The effort to leave this state only made me wake up for real. Another time I tried to shout "Increase Lucidity !" but I was unable to talk. I know that as soon as I could leave my bedroom, this feeling would disappear (once I became lucid when, in my FA, I was already walking in my bathroom and noticed the mirror -- I conditionned myself to associate mirrors to LDs and RCs --, and at this point the groggy feeling was light enough to be cancelled by rubbing my hands). So, what would be the reason for this ? My first FA were not like that ! Does anyone have an idea how to stop this ? Maybe next time I'll try to "invoke" a DC who would get me out of the bed or something; but I have only a few seconds to stabilize before waking up, so this will be tricky.

[Alex D]

Hi, welcome to the forum. Right, I had your problem a few times when I was starting to lucid dream. All I can advise really is doing in your FA's what usually stops you being sleepy when you usually wake up. For me, I makea point of getting out of bed and that wakes me up, perhaps if you teach yourself to do this it might help? It's an annoying problem, I'll give you that.

[Sandra]

I don't know if this is true, but it is an option why you have this. Maybe you think (unconsioulsy) that now the annoying thing happened a few time it will happen every time you have a false awakening. So in order to make sure it won't happen again, you have to believe that it won't happen again. Not only when you're in the dream, but also when you're awake. Right now you should believe that it won't happen again.

[Jemina]

I had this problem all the time a few years ago. I never knew what it was. Very often when I'd go to sleep I would wake up, and I wasnt able to move or speak. I tried so hard to move my feet or my hand but I couldn't and it was so frustrating. I tried to call someone, but I had no voice, and my body was so heavy. I tried so hard that suddently I would wake up for real. But I was so tired that I just went to sleep again and the same thing happened. A few of the times in these dreams, my mother would talk to me outside the bedroom door, or my boyfriend would hug me and then leave and I wasn't sure if I was dreaming or not, and I got so scared and sad when I couldnt move or tell them what was going on. At the end when I woke up after this happening too many times I just had to get out of bed, I hated these "dreams", And I told my parents about them, but they never understood the problem. I still have these false awakenings, but now I know whats going on, and I just tell myself that I'm dreaming and then usually I use that to my advantage. I pinch myself to see if I'm awake or not, and when I find out that I'm dreaming I usually will be able to do whatever I want. Well, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't..