false awakening

[shadowofwind]

So....Maybe I'm the last person to notice this, but I think that false awakening is generally the same type of phenomena as astral projection. Superficially, its just a lucid dream of being awake when you're not awake, just as astral projection is a lucid dream of being tactilely where your body isn't. But both phenomena are the same in that you're 'waking up' in a way that is in some sense misaligned with the physical reality of your body, and sometimes there's content in the dream that seems to be acquired in some extra-sensory manner. The other similar kind of dream I've had, which so far nobody else has mentioned having, is one in which my audial and spatial sense was inverted, so that everything I would normally think of as being inside my head seemed to be outside, and the rest of the world was inside. That happened one hemisphere at a time, sometimes both together, sometimes just one. This felt very much like an astral projection dream, with the same intense sensate experience that seems more real than waking life or most other lucid dreams. I'm not sure I believe in 'parallel worlds', I think we use that idea to try to explain astral experiences that we don't understand, but the idea isn't quite right. That said, if there are 'parallel worlds' that we can contact, then I think these dreams extend into those other worlds, and the 'extra-sensory' information is coming from one of them, not from ours. Its like waking up into the wrong world a little bit. The reason I don't think this 'extra-sensory' information isn't simply imagined, is it sometimes contains content that's true in our world that we couldn't possibly have known or guessed through other means. The reason I think its not quite from 'our world' is the way it matches and yet doesn't quite match. I'm out of time and don't feel like trying to explain that better though.

[DemiDevil17]

I think false awakening is your mind trying to grasp how you live when your going to die so if you die in a sense that you would just become endless lucid interval until your subconscious could grasp its mind of its own so how do we know that were not countless dreams over an over building how we predict how you live in the after life as me saying this I think a false awakening if us dying to keep dying to live again that's jus my theory

[Sageous]

Unfortunately, I have a feeling that FA's stem from far more mundane material than what's being discussed. Based on my experience (and what I've come to know about dreaming over the years), I think FA's are the result of your brain producing dream imagery when no dream imagery is available. I know that sounds odd, but not if you think about it. FA's tend to occur after you've been dreaming for a while, and very often after you've been lucid. In both cases I think your brain -- which had just finished its work providing you dream imagery and is winding down its imagery engine -- registers your desire to continue dreaming, even though your dreaming program has ended, and obliges you by grabbing the nearest/easiest possible imagery it can find on short notice... and that imagery tends to be something extremely recent, like what you saw when you went to sleep (aka, your bedroom). And of course, as with any dream, the imagery is usually imperfect (which makes an excellent dream sign, BTW). Not too exciting, I know, but it could be all they are. FA's tend to be short-lived as well, especially if you are able to recognize that you are in one, because, given a few moments, your brain will find more material and spool up new dreams.

[DarkestDarkness]

I think I agree with Sageous here. Not with the intent to disrespect anyone's views of course, you are free to believe what you like. My personal experience would indicate as well - especially of living with a condition that affects sleep in general to a large extent - is that the brain works a lot like a "machine" (loosely using the term) due to its electro-chemical nature. What chemicals are present and in what quantities, certainly seem to influence a lot of aspects of sleep, and indeed dreaming, as I can attest from taking several different supplements and indeed prescribed medications. It is highly likely that false awakenings and other false experiences like deja vus (false memories of the "present-future") are simply parts of the brain mis-firing or assuming data that is actually not correct or is only partially correct. I'm not a researcher so I can't speculate with confidence on the subject. If anyone is interested in this, see the following for appetisers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_perception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscious_inference And also search online on these subjects, more specifically on research papers if you can understand the lingo, if you wish to know more. Recent-ish (I believe) studies have looked into how much information the brain is guessing at all times, versus how much of it is actually being fed in directly through the senses. My own personal experience of false awakenings is limited, as I've only ever had a few, but in waking life, due to my constant fatigue, it is difficult to pay attention to most facts, most of the time; and by contrast, I've actually had many many deja vus, sometimes lasting several minutes... Despite having very good recall, especially of facts in general, because of my fatigue I have forgotten (i.e. not registered entirely, probably) events in my life that only family and my partner have reminded me of; i.e. when they mention it, I feel like what they are mentioning has really never happened at all, but I trust their judgment, since I have noticed a trend of memories simply going absent. Sometimes they do come back, but much later and for no consciously perceptible reason. I hope to have contributed something of interest to this discussion.

[dolphin]

I think other than their subject matter, false awakenings are not any different from other dreams. I think the faculty behind the content of all dreams is the imagination. By imagination, I mean Google's definition of imagination: "the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses." Dreams seem to be initially based on new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses. So, I think the reasoning behind false awakenings is the reasoning behind the subject matter being produced by the imagination. As Sageous seems to imply, this subject matter can also be a result of a relatively inactive, tired, or uncreative imagination. Sometimes, the imagination is so inactive that no dream imagery is be produced at all. The subject matter behind false awakenings can also have anything to do with imagining waking up, both in a literal and metaphorical sense.

[LighrkVader]

If everybody is throwing in their to cents on FA's then I'll better join... I've had a ridiculous amount of false awakenings, and the thing I can tell you for sure is that in my case it's very much triggered by any awareness to the possibility of waking up.. Thinking about waking up for even a second has on many occations led to a false awakening following soon after. Very frustrating, I'm good at catching them, but it is a really challenging "expectation trap". Another interesting idea that I read somewhere recently, is that false awakenings in LDs are some times caused by a "nihilistic" perspective that can come upon the dreamer if he interprates the implications of being in a dream in certain ways. The false awakening could then be viewed as a kind of defense mechanism to deal with the perceived meaninglessness of the LD experience. This could be avoided by having a plan for your lucid dreams. "If I don't have anything to do while lucid I'll do so and so...."

[Occipitalred]

And another thought, sometimes my "FAs" are about remembering previous dreams. This could be a consequence of having the habit of remembering dreams after waking up. But half my FAs are not waking up in my bed, but rather actively thinking about my previous dreams, knowing they were dreams, not knowing I am dreaming now so the dream becoming an FA. So maybe some have something do do with activation of short term memory, remembering previous dreams and just going to bed?

[Dthoughts]

My addition to the discussion, FAs are almost as vivid and memorable as real life memories. Sometimes more. Anyone agree? Even if strange monsters sometimes live just outside my dream bedroom. Which is a strange feature these memories/experiences have. Certainly helps to give life more of a fairy tale feature (since these memories feel so vivid) as opposed to a roman. Because of this FAs are also a great way to start a LD since memory and vividness is usually very high. I think it has to do with the way memories are formed in waking life. Since we are already more closer to real life. It's easier for our brain or mind to store this memory. Hence, since we are already closerly "frequenced" (To use a interesting word) to waking reality. Our memory is more readily capable of storing information. This theory probably matches Sageous theory more-so than the OP

[acillis]

i had me some interesting experiences while i was in jail