false awakening

comment dream lucid

Thinking a lot about dreaming before falling asleep.

Ramp
Driving a motorbike off a ramp, jumping into the air. It was supposed to test something, maybe how someone got killed. Beaches all around and low tide.

Walk with V
With V in the forest, talking about how often I go out. I told him I help my family walking their dog.

Hair
I was talking with someone about which hairstyle I would like.

False lucid
I was walking down a path, playing some game. I think I did it for a second time and in an opposite direction, but that was just a vague memory. The rules were that you had to be lucid and do various tasks.
There was a corner of a rock where the path led along a narrow ledge and I met a boy and a girl there. I offered the girl if she wanted to sit with me for a while and we crawled into this grassy alcove, letting the boy pass.
I asked her what her name was and she told me her name. I told her I was Indigo. I asked how it was going so far and she said good, but she actually wanted to go so she wouldn't waste her time. So we said goodbye.
It occurred to me that I've been lucid for a long time, that I've never had a LD this long, like 2 hours. But good for me - long LD = better chance of winning for me, while others have to do it in parts.
I checked the paper with the tasks and it said to rubb our hands, so I did it, even though I thought I didn't need to, but I saw the organizer in front of me, so I wanted to get points.
Then I saw more organizers around the corner and there was a fridge and I climbed on it and rearranged some food. I suddenly knew they were evil and decided to confront them - I told them I knew who they were and that they were serving the dark lord. They had a gun. I said they could kill me, but I had a plan to escape by waking up
I closed my eyes and opened them and nothing, I was still there. That surprised me. I tried again and failed again. I remembered the reddit poll "can you wake up from a LD" and my answer "yes, reliably". That's what I get for that.
I tried blinking really fast again, but it didn't work.
Then I was in this labyrinth of big metal cabinets. I felt like I'd been lucid for an awfully long time, hours. I asked the organizers what they had done to my body in reality, that I was still asleep. They grinned, which worried me. Maybe I'm in a coma or something. But maybe not, and I have to wake up sometime. I figured there was probably a purpose for me there, something I needed to do. Somehow save everything and defeat them.
I had this stick in my hand with some roots on the end. I've been poking around under the cupboards with it, seeing if there's some object that will allow me to save everything. I must have a reason to have that stick for...
I felt myself waking up, and I thought "finally".
I knew instantly that I was waking up from a false lucid.

I logged keywords for the dream because I really liked it and wanted to remember.
I felt confident that there could be a LD after this. I reiterated the intention to lucid dream. It took me some time to fall asleep again.

Train to Birmingham
I was at the station and it was about trains. Z said there was a train leaving for Birmingham and she was going to take it. I said that the train to Birmingham was useless to me, that we usually go via Manchester, and she was surprised.
I walked with her on the way to the trains and there was the time and the Birmingham sign by the steps to the platform and it was flashing as if the train was about to leave. I hesitated for a moment but let it go, it wouldn't do me any good.
I went back to the main concourse to look at the departures board to see what else was coming. The board was just changing. That's all I remember - the next was probably the transition into the false awakening.

Real lucid - Meeting my dream guide
I woke up in our bedroom and immediately suspected it was a FA. But as soon as I realized it, my vision got worse and I could only see two blurs. I was afraid I was going to wake up, but I knew I was still in a dream. It occurred to me to start picturing a deck chair and a beach or something, as what people do when they have sleep paralysis.
Suddenly something disturbed me and I opened my eyes and I was awake and it was still a FA. Yes!
I sat on the bed and R was awake next to me and there was also J. I knew I could ignore them, but I wanted to make them disappear with a snap of my fingers like in the daydream rehearsal, so I tried, but it didn't work, which I guess amused them a little.
I started looking at what was the same in the room and what was different. Almost everything looked the same to me. There were these shelves and these pictures. I noticed that the frames of the pictures were a different color than they were IRL (actually, almost everything was different and we had no pictures or shelves IRL).
There was also a wall cabinet with a brown fabric curtain and I had the feeling that something green was peeking out - an iguana. I went to look, but my cat came out.
Goals! Verbal commands and then meeting my dream guide. I try "Clarity now!" but the dream already has great clarity, so what can improve? On the contrary, it gets slightly worse. But only for a moment. I leave the room and try "Increase lucidity", but nothing noticeable happens. I see a green jacket on the rack and I try to make it disappear. Might be easier than with humans. But nothing. I try again and the whole hallway to the living room disappears in a blur.
I use the door to the second bedroom and walk into a large room that looks like a gym. There are mats, exercise equipment, and large windows facing the city street.
I try to do a somersault on the mat, but I stop halfway through and just roll. The movement feels realistic.
Goals! I walk across the room and shout "Dream, dream, give me my dream guide".
I turn around and there's a curtain to the left of the windows (probably a mini room with more equipment) and my guide comes out from behind the curtain. She's a black woman, in her fifties, maybe early sixties (probably not, her hair is still dark brown/black and not grey), curvy but not obese, with big boobs. I met her once before in a daydream and she was an old white woman but I know it’s her.
I said, "You've been here the whole time." She nods.
We go and sit down on the leather upholstered couch that's appeared there for us. I said I didn't know how much time we had, or maybe she asked, either way, I knew she wanted and needed to know.
I replied, "I'm not going to lie to you. I didn't come straight here. But I tried not to linger too long."She nods.
I asked: "Will you teach me something?" She smiled.
I started to wake up. Maybe she wanted to teach me DEILD? But more likely I was too excited

comment non-lucid lucid

The last dream of the night.

I am in beautiful mountains with some other people (at least initially). We are on a freshly mown meadow, it’s sloping and we are going uphill, there is a forest. It is morning and it is still slightly dark and it is also very cold, I can feel the cold. We consider making a fire but we want to find a more sheltered place, closer to the forest.
I go uphill, I think I am on my own now and there is a road and a crossroad, on the edge of the forest. I can see light through the gap in the forest created by one of the roads. There is a city. But it gets very foggy (as in real foggy weather) and I can’t see much, the trees around disappear in the fog. Then I see a car and I am worried how they can safely drive in this fog. The fog clears a bit and I can see a modern city with skyscrapers and there are houses where the forest was before.
That annoys me a lot. I was in a beautiful forest, I want my forest back.
I am not having this. I feel like fuck this, let’s go lucid and I say “nope, this is a dream”.
I hear whoosh and it’s like going under water. Everything gets dark and shaking. I want to stabilize but how? I can’t see anything. Suddenly I find myself squatting or sitting instead of standing and I can feel something solid in my hands, which is good, but I am confused. Is this my real body in this position? If it is, I mustn’t move. But I move my legs anyway and I can see them and they are trembling.
It starts feeling almost like vibrations and I start to feel my real body, noticing it is relaxed and in a normal position. I try to calm myself and DEILD but I am not successful, I am too awake.

1st time being lucid 2 times per night!

comment non-lucid semi/questioning lucid

Waking up at 10:00 (falling asleep around 5). Journaling 3 dream fragments.
Some problems with sleeping. 10:50 postman.

Hill and a subway
I am hiking to some hill and I take the subway on my way back. I am worried that I fail to get off at the correct station.

FA1
I am in some room, in a guest house, after coming back from the hike. It's the morning and I am putting on a long canvas dress, even though it looks weird and it is cold.

FA2
I am again in some kind of accommodation (possibly the same as in the previous dream) but the room is different. I really want to sleep but I am worried that it's too late and I don't know when the checkout time is. Then there is R and he is not worried at all. He offers me some breakfast cereals. I remember I've already eaten them and threw away the box (IRL). I am thinking that he probably hid/put aside some of them. I want him to find out when the checkout is.

FA3
I am again in the same room but this time, I am sleeping on a mattress on the ground, close to the bed from the previous dream. R is next to me, taking too much space and waking me up and I am mad because I want to sleep. Then I remember that we actually sleep somewhere else, so I should get enough sleep, even though I am not sleeping here.
Then the dream shifts to some time later and we are getting up. R is sitting on the mattress. I say "this is a FA" and do a nose-plug RC. I can breathe. But I am still confused and I can't see well. I ignore R (he doesn't exist anyway) and have the idea to find my glasses, maybe they help me with my vision. I go to the bed from FA2, trying to find them. I find it fascinating that I can be dreaming and moving at once. It's like I think I am sort of sleepwalking and the bed from FA2 is my real bed and my body is my real body. I find the glasses but I don't use them - I am thinking that this all is creating in my head so it would be pointless to try to wear the glasses.
I go to the window, thinking about jumping out and flying. But what if this is reality?
I go to the door and suddenly, my vision is much better and not blurry at all. I think I woke up (in my sleepwalking body). I do the nose-plug RC again and I can breathe, so I relax. I notice R is watching me and feel bad for ignoring him. I tell him that this is a FA and because he saw me doing the nose-plug RC, I try to show him finger-in-palm RC but it doesn't go through. I try it again, really believing it can go through, but nothing. I think I am really bad at this.
I finally remember my goal to pass through a wall. But there is no point in trying to go through a wall if I can't make my finger go through my palm.
I wake up. DEILD attempt failed.

Time: 12:40
I can't sleep. Some unstable minidreams.

MiniWILD
I can't sleep and I am feeling earthquake-like vibrations. It's annoying because I want to sleep but I am familiar with them and prepare for a separation attempt.
I stay at our garden door. I slowly sit down, remembering that I need to take things slowly and slowly try to separate. Then I realize I am not in my bed anymore, which means I am already separated.
The dream collapses.
Then there is another wave of vibrations. But nothing afterwards.
I can't sleep...

I wake up at 13:25, I want to get up. I take another cushion, put my glasses on, trying to find the will for journaling my dreams. But I feel too tired. I put the glasses away and close my eyes... ten more minutes... or maybe a WILD? Falling asleep feels easy.

PseudoWILD
I watch HI and daydream a little bit, interacting with the HI and dreamlets.
At one moment, I notice there is instrumental music in the background. I realize it is in my head and not outside, so I could use it to get into the dream. I focus on the music, trying to raise the volume.
Through small gaps in my eyes, I start to see a room. It works. But it fades a little bit and I feel my body in the bed (dream body, dream bed). I focus again and I can almost see through my eyes but also not really. I have the idea that my dream eyes are closed and I try to open them. It works. I close my eyes and open them again and my vision is very good.
I get up, slowly, worried about the stability of the dream, but it's fine and I walk a bit. I am in an unknown room, my dream bed is there and another bed/sofa. And R is here, I bump into him on my way to the door. He blocks my way out, I almost pass through him but not fully. I tell him "you are just a DC, you don't exist" (really meaning "you shouldn't be blocking my way"). He says nothing.
I take his hand, leading him to the sofa, sitting next to him. He now looks like my brother, J. I say "and that's why you look like J". I feel sorry for him but skip to the only idea I have how to use this dream. "Do you want to have sex?" I ask. He is silent. "Do you want to do something else?" He shakes his head and gives me and an empty look.

I wake up. The time is 1:51. Interestingly, I feel well and not tired anymore.

Notes:
- I struggle with fake insomnia. It can manifest as dreams about not being able to sleep (as above) or I can be in a conscious NREM sleep while thinking I am awake. Basically, my ability to tell the difference between conscious NREM and being awake is almost non-existent.
- I can't tell if the pseudoWILD was WILD or not. I obviously dreamed most of the "transition". What I perceived as my bed and my body was a dream bed and a dream body (most probably). I can't tell if the music was a HH (then it would count as a confused WILD, I guess) or if it was a part of the dream (so technically not a WILD). But if I lost my self-awareness, I was out for a minute or two, probably not much more. The whole thing took between 20 and 25 minutes.

Finally, some time to catch up with the DJ here.
No lucidity this time but I am including this because the dream - daydream confusion is somewhat important to me.

dream comment

O and a lake
A dream about my friend O and a frozen lake. Trying to cross the like and worrying about the thickness of the ice.

A&P
My friends, A and P, have a bunch of rings, some are their wedding bands, some are other rings, we talk about them. There is a stone, blue and gold, with a labradorite-like effect, very heavy. I like that.
In this dream, I think it is a daydream and not a dream. Later, I realize this was a dream.

Grandmother
I am with my grandmother, in her garden. There are some weeds. I am thinking about possible spaces for planting roses.
I think this is a daydream and not a dream.
Then we go inside and I log my previous dreams (O and a lake, A&P) in my DJ.
For some reason, I don't wear any top. Some girl wants to see what I am writing but I tell her it was personal. But I show it to her anyway.

Gravel road
I am lying on a gravel road, trying to sleep. I decide there is no point in trying to sleep. I decide to log my dreams.
Then I go down the road.
And again, I think this is a daydream!
There is a blanket and my husband and I sit next to him and think about my dreams. I remember I forgot my DJ up on the road but forgot it after a moment.
Right next to us, there is a house and a door and I get inside with some female DC. It is a house of someone rich and important but they don't live there anymore and artificial intelligence is caring for the house. The girl DC let them to serve us and care for us. We are there for days or weeks (it doesn't feel like that but it the knowledge behind the dream).
Then we are outside again and they catch us and someone is surprised by our behavior.
I slowly wake up from this, struggling to believe it was a dream, but remembering that I already logged my dreams twice!



And another one on 3rd April

I am trying to VILD. I imagine drawing numbers and colouring them. Then I daydream about being an apprentice of a master of drawing. But it doesn't last long.
I slip into a mi of short daydreams turning into dreams. I feel awake and aware of my surroundings but I don't realize that some daydreams fully turned into dreams.

Sex
I am in a room with some people/friends. I am wearing my nightie only. T touches my breasts under the nightie. I tell him that I don't mind him doing that but that I don't like not having control over it (basically, that I want it and he should continue but I don't like him not asking).
I snap my fingers and all other people in the room disappear, it's just two of us.
I love that. I think how cool it would be to have this skill in a real dream, but this doesn't count because it is only a daydream.
Then we start kissing... and other things.



Notes
I don't know why I struggle with this. Maybe because I like to daydream and my morning daydreams with closed eyes can be vivid and look the same as dreams - at least to my half-asleep brain.
About the differences:
Visualization - completely conscious, needs to be maintained with a lot of energy, needs to be micromanaged.
Daydream - telling myself a story, it can be with our without a narrative over, usually with good visuals. It's part me, part subconscious. Me steering the whole thing but micromanaging isn't needed. It stops if I stop.
Dream - 100% subconscious, running on its own.

I used to think that when anything happens in my daydream which I didn't put there (a new object, a new scenery) that it means that it is a dream. But in fact, it is not stable at that point. It needs more to become a dream.
When daydreaming during hypnagogia, a lot can happen. My dreaming mind is usually trying to distract me by changing the scenery and changing things in my dream. It is OK to let it rather than trying to keep the focus... but it is then hard to stay lucid. This often leads to semi-lucid dreams. With a good chance of regaining the lucidity later.

One more note: My FAs are never in my bedroom. It can be a hotel room, random room, or just trying to sleep anywhere, like on the road. Fragmented low-quality sleep causes this type of FAs for me.

OK, so I am going to do this, although I am not sure I have enough time to log my dreams twice - once in my DJ notebook and once here (and to translate them into English and make them readable). So I am going to keep this to LDs and the most interesting NLDs.

As someone with some LDs in past and as someone interested in dreams in general, I am often quite aware in my dreams/of my dreams but at the beginning, it was frustrating. It felt like being stuck in 0 layer lucidity and almost lucid dreams but not getting there.
Some interesting snippets from these dreams:

comment dream

12 Feb
At the airport, I see a big clock. I have the idea to check if they work. The clock arms point to 2 and 10. I think "People on Reddit were wrong, clocks work in dreams" and continue trying to catch my plane.

15 Feb
I don't like how the dream is going (someone's trying to kill me). I pause the dream and think "Really? Does it have to end like this? Can I do something to stop it? No, it's too late." I expect to wake up (I guess) but the dream resumes and shifts to a continuation in near future.

16 Feb
In a train, going down a very steep hill, extremely fast, like a rollercoaster. I am thinking: "We are too fast" but also "It will be fine". I know it doesn't matter.

17 Feb
I try to use magic against Severus Snape, it fails and I think: "Magic never works in dreams."

I am with my father in a boat and he misses a waterfall and we go over the edge. I am mad and I think: "We will 'die' and this will end. Or maybe not. Let's see." We are fine after the impact.
It's like I am almost never afraid of consequences in my dreams.

23 Feb
I 'know' this is a recurring dream. Or game. I did this before. I played this. I tell other DCs/players how it normally goes but this time it's different. A bomb explodes later because my friend makes a mistake and we 'lose' and are all dead.

25 Feb
I am hunted by some DCs and I use magic to defeat them. This time, I am more confident and I think: "Magic works in my dreams" and I create a force field and it works.
In my past, I would consider this dream as lucid... but I didn't really reflect in any way on the dream. I consider these dreams semi-lucid.

27 Feb - Trying FILD
FILD FA - my 1st FA - I tried FILD but wasn't able to find a good position for my hand so I gave up
I am lying in a corner of some town square, like a homeless. I think: "This corner is certainly dirty" but it doesn't smell. I have my blanket over me and I am trying to find a position for FILD. I can't find one, so I think: "It is a stupid technique" and go to sleep.
Later - FILD reality check
I am awake with closed eyes and I want to try FILD again. I feel like I was doing it for hours at that point and lost a lot of sleep to it. I decide to sit and do nose-plug reality check. I am sitting and my nose is weird, wet and slimy. I am shocked. But I also hear my husband breathe and I think: "This is not possible, I can't be asleep" and immediately, I am back lying, this time really awake.
I am mad and I think I got no sleep at all. Then I start remembering dreams from the last cycle - the FA and three other dreams.

In the next entry - finally a LD!