Can telling yourself not to wake up make you wake up?

**Pops715** · 09-15-2011 01:13 PM

I had my second ever lucid dream last night and it was bittersweet because my Dad was in it. He passed away this past February. Right after I became lucid, though, I thought to myself, "Okay, this is a lucid dream. Don't wake up." And it seems that right after I thought that, I did in fact wake up. Should I not have told myself not to wake up? (ie, did I make a mistake?)

**Puffin** · 09-15-2011 01:34 PM

Thinking of waking up tends to do the opposite, whether you want to or not. You may also enter a false awakening, so be sure to do an RC after getting out of bed.

**Darkmatters** · 09-15-2011 01:47 PM

A little confusing... "Thinking of waking up tends to do the opposite" - This makes it sound like if you think about waking up it'll make you stay asleep, and I don't think that's what she means. I've seen her and others say that thinking about your sleeping body tends to wake you up. Probably rather than say "don't wake up" it would be better to think about a goal you want to achieve in a lucid, or to stabilize.

**Puffin** · 09-15-2011 01:49 PM

That was definitely a confusing sentence, all thanks to my lack of sleep last night. What you're saying does make sense though.

Listen to Darkmatters.~

**Darkmatters** · 09-15-2011 01:59 PM

... And thank you for spelling my name right - everybody wants to capitalize the M. It's one word - Darkmatters.

**Arch** · 09-15-2011 04:00 PM

Don't even think about waking up, just think I've got to stabalise, set goals, stay focused.

**CrimpJiggler** · 09-15-2011 05:38 PM

I can wake up instantly at any time just by thinking about it. Keeping the dream going isn't so easy for me. A trick I've found is to keep moving. The best thing to do I find is to hop in a car and start driving. Its as if by keeping your brain busy coming up with new scenery, you keep it focused on dreaming. I'm just a natural lucid dreamer, I'm not very skilled since I haven't practised any of the techniques, I bet people here have loads of tricks for keeping dreams going.

**Pops715** · 09-16-2011 01:13 PM

Thanks for the advice. I'll try to put it into practice. Been kind of hard doing anything this week because I'm on vacation in Roatan, Honduras and between my system not agreeing with the food/water and pulling a muscle in my right shoulder while scuba diving, I haven't been sleeping very well. Lots of tossing and turning and trips to the bathroom. : ( That's why I was really surprised when I had the lucid dream night before last.