Life's Recollections

Awake/explanation
Normal dream
Lucid dream

There's a weird thing that happens to me sometimes that, last time it happened I made a mental note I would realize what's happening: sometimes I guess my eyes aren't shut all the way when I'm sleeping and when it begins to get light outside, I have a false awakening where I'm lying in bed staring at my lit up wall, or can see the light from the window, and I can move my body, but my vision won't change. I can 'close my eyes' and move my body, then open them again and it will still just be the same sight. I'll be stuck in that one position, because I can't move in real life, so all I can see is what my eyes are seeing.

This morning I was having a dream where I was riding a school-bus that a dog got onto, and I helped to get it off because people were being impatient/mean to it. When I got it off I walked it up to the house it came from and knocked a couple times and opened the door, and it went inside, and out came a very pretty girl I went to school with in high-school who seemed happy to see me. I stood there talking to her for just a second about an art show or something that was happening, when she said, "Is that your bus?" and I turned and looked to see the schoolbus I had been riding was driving away without me.

I jogged after it for a little bit thinking it would stop again, then it rounded the corner and I jogged through someone's yard trying to catch it on the other side, but it passed and was long gone by the time I got there. At that point I simply turned around and started walking the opposite direction again, thinking, "I'll just walk home then." I was in kind of a rough neighborhood and other kids who had just gotten off school were roaming around looking to make trouble/have fun outside. I tried to avoid them mostly and get home as soon as possible.

Almost before I knew it, I was home, it was dark, and my dad was in the kitchen making dinner. I explained to him I had missed the bus, and had to walk home, and that this was something that happens in my dreams a lot so it was strange that it had happened in real life. Next I commented, "you know, I got home very quickly, maybe the bus thing was a dream and now I'm awake." My dad sort of encouraged this thought process, and for some reason I didn't reality check but simply played along-- but all the sudden my eyes opened and I was met with a familiar sensation as described up top: I was lying on my side in my room and seeing the light from the window, and went to stand, but my body moved and not my sight.

I stopped for a minute when this happened. Sometimes I get caught up in the confusion of this feeling like I have gone blind somehow, or at any rate feeling something is wrong and wanting to wake up. I felt this urge again but stopped for a moment, and had a thought: if I can move my body, even if I can't move my vision, I can plug my nose and reality check to ensure that I'm dreaming. So I did.

"Okay," I thought, "so I'm dreaming, but I still can't move..."

I began trying different things. I closed my eyes moved around viciously and opened them to the same sight again. I closed my eyes and imagined being somewhere else and opened them and saw the same thing. Eventually I simply imagined myself getting up and walking out of the room. At first this was a very faint imagining that seemed to happen purely in the dark, but occasionally I would notice the light from my window again and 'shut my eyes' in the dream once more. I imagined walking into the kitchen, and soon this became a real dream. As I went into the kitchen, I noticed my dad was still there, and he was facing against the wall-- the lighting in the room had gone somewhat spooky also.

I didn't like this and knew this was going to set a bad precedent, and I told him, "I just realized I was dreaming the whole time, and I want to wake up." He didn't respond to this but simply turned around and rushed across the room with inhuman speed towards me. I pushed him away and headed outside, thinking to just ignore the ominous feeling the dream was taking on and simply focus on waking myself up. Once I got outside, I walked across the deck and turned back and looked and my father came rushing out after me again, gliding across the floor almost as if in stop-motion, and grabbed me by the neck, turning his face this way and that, not saying anything.

I warned him, "I know I'm dreaming: you can't hurt me, but if you help me wake up I won't hurt you for trying to scare me" but he continued looking around and holding my neck, and I repeated, "do you know how I can wake up?"

He looked straight at me, and I didn't like it, so I gave him a gut punch that sent him flying off into the distance. He landed and rushed back, and I did it again, and a couple more times, and suddenly...

I woke up-- but I still couldn't move! Frustrated, I reached up and plugged my nose again: yep, still dreaming, still can't move because of the light from the window. At this point I began thrashing my body around violently, and soon I felt hands grabbing me all over, and I swung at what I couldn't see randomly, shouting, "Don't touch me! Get off of me!" The touches subsided but I still couldn't move from my spot.

I woke up again and almost thought I was awake for real until I tried to move, and still couldn't move! I plugged my nose, breathed, sighed, and thought: maybe if I just close my eyes, and turn myself over facing the opposite direction, then go back to sleep, I'll move my body in real life and be facing the wall. I did so, and of course it didn't work and when I opened my eyes I was staring at the familiar scene of my room with the lit window. I began thrashing around again somewhat randomly, hoping that with enough activity, I would just wake up.

And I woke up again. Annoyed by this point, I expected I was still dreaming and reached up to plug my nose, only to find out I was really awake this time.

In retrospect, it's clear I actually could dream with my eyes partially open if I could ignore the light long enough. If I had just relaxed and not been so desperate to wake up and roll over or something, perhaps I could have just had a decent lucid dream, but the dream took on an eerie quality once I wanted to wake up but couldn't. The idea of being lucid in this halfway between state was eerie to me I guess, and the dream reacted as a result by being weird and threatening (my dad DC's weirdness, and the phantom touches).

I will say: I'm proud I maintained control of my lucidity well enough to not panic in these moments or be frightened by the dream overly much. I did lash out at both the DC and the phantom touches, but I never lost the sense that I wasn't their "boss" (lol), or that they could hurt me somehow in a way I couldn't control. They were being weird and I didn't like it, but I wasn't afraid they'd hurt me and I couldn't stop them.

Unfortunately I don't know what to do when this happens. I have a sleeping mask now which I actually bought partially for this purpose, and partially for WILD practice (which I have been slacking on already). Maybe I could dream, but I keep having false awakenings because of the sight of the light. If I could just shut my eyes once I knew it was happening, but I can't. It's a shame, because it's a dead giveaway that I'm dreaming, and it's probably always going to make me lucid now if I realize what's happening, but then I'm just stuck as a result.

Perhaps next time I'll try more aggressively "shutting my dream eyes", and leaving them shut while waiting to see what happens there. That did extract me from the situation at least temporarily. If I remain positive about it and not expecting anything strange to happen or feeling eerie about it, maybe I can just have a normal dream despite the light in my eyes (though I expect false awakenings still).