Quote Originally Posted by Zoth View Post
That's an interesting part of the discussion I wasn't aware. Do you guys feel like false awakenings present specific dream content (apart from the innate characteristics it already possesses)? I honestly just picture a false awakening as a kinda of mental shortcut to prevent the individual from waking up and as a "bridge" that connects to the rest of the dream process. I mean, did anyone here experienced a false awakening where the whole rest of the dream was in the context of waking life behavior, as opposite of the dream taking another different direction/plot?
Though I tend to agree with your description of a FA, I must admit, Zoth, that I've had many FA's that went on, in their own context, for quite some time. I once had one that had me waking up, going about my morning rituals (or at least remembering during the dream that I did so), and then going outside and having conversations with neighbors. Now, those conversations were completely abnormal, as was the atmosphere of the dream (wrong season, my house was all wrong -- though very cool, people who were strangers in waking life were familiar to me), but my mindset was clearly focused on being up from sleep for the rest of the dream, which could have lasted an hour or so.

Also, I've had many FA's where I lay there remembering the dream I was just in, in a very un-bridgelike manner; almost a break from the dream process. As if to further the destruction, after these FA's went on for quite some time, they often ended in another FA (and another, and another...to a point where even lucidly I couldn't break the chain, but just had to wait around for the real world to appear).

So I guess I see your point that FA's are a bridge -- which sort of coincides with the note I made somewhere above about a momentary laps of creativity. But there may be exceptions to this rule ... or perhaps we are attaching the term "FA" to more than one type of dream phenomenon.