false awakening troubles

**neeve43** · 03-07-2013 09:42 PM

Right, I'm 16 and ive been lucid dreaming for a couple of years. For a month or two I've been having false awakenings but just realise this when I wake up. Last night while having a false awakening( it was just me walking around my house), I realised I was dreaming then started panicking a bit and I can't explain it well but when I was turning my 'vision' went blurry and the whole of my dream was sort of ripping apart. Despite trying to calm down as I've done when first having lucid dreams, I woke up in cold sweats having a bit of an anxiety attack. I love having lucid dreams but this was utterly terrifying. The worst thing was that this lasted about ten minutes and I couldn't wake up. In another forum I was told it was sleep paralysis but I've had that before and it was different. Please give me a bit of help. Cheers.

**Rozollo** · 03-08-2013 12:22 AM

The best thing to do is make it a habit to reality check randomly. You should always reality check upon waking up or getting out of bed. Next, try adding a mantra before bed of "When I wake up, I will be in a dream." If you are doing enough reality checks, this will do it.

**paigeyemps** · 03-08-2013 01:58 PM

Welcome to DV! I agree with the previous poster. As early as now, make it a habit to reality check every time you wake up, no matter where you are. This greatly increases your chances of catching false awakenings in the future.

As for the terrifying dream where you couldn't wake up, well it does sound like sleep paralysis to me. Or perhaps just a really bad lucid dream where you had no control, and that could have triggered the anxiety while you were in the dream. And once you get on that negative train of though, the emotion gets magnified. I wouldn't worry too much about it, unless it happens again a couple of times.

Good luck