Thread: expecting dreams to end

I am thinking this is why my lucid dreams are not too long. Something will happen during the dream that I will associate with being the end of the dream.

Take for example, a lucid dream I had this morning: I caught a false awakening, flew out the window of my second story bedroom to fly and saw a nice sunrise. My body felt heavy flying down to my backyard. I saw a DC, mentioned the sunrise to him and asked him why my body felt heavy. He said it was because I was thinking too slowly. He gave me a phone number so I could call him (I forgot the number). Then he asked me to put down my signature on a tablet of his. I put down my signature, thinking explicitly I had plenty of time. Immediately after I finished my signature, I woke up.

I figure I was subconsciously associating the end of my interaction with the DC with being the end of the dream.

My dreams will end similarly after attempts at dream control. I will make an attempt at dream control and will, I assume, subconsciously associate the end of the dream control attempt as being the end of the dream.

I am thinking a way to do this is to stay one step ahead of myself during the dream. In my LD last night, I never thought about what I was going to do after my interaction with the DC. Perhaps the dream could have lasted longer if I thought to myself exactly what I was going to do next rather than simply thinking I had plenty of time.

This is the longest lucid dream I have had that I can recall at the moment. It was probably about 5-7 minutes in length. I'll make bold the parts where I was thinking what I was going to do in the future during the dream.

Spoiler for "long" LD lol:

I wake up in bed. Something feels off so I do a nose plug. I can breathe! I can't quite believe it so I do another nose plug. I can breathe! I get up from bed. The dream in very unstable; I can hardly move. I must stabilize it. What do I do! Think, think, think! I summon a random dc, a young adult African American male. I shake hands with him and introduce myself. We'll call him Efrain. I feel more mobile, the dream is stabilizing nicely. I ask him where the leaves are so we can play in them. We go into the backyard and turn the corner to the left. The backyard is a good sized fenced in area with a big lawn and lots of piles of large leaves. I look for a pile that looks big enough and flop on top of them. The leaves are soft but slightly crunchy. I look for a bigger pile and gather some leaves together to make one a couple of feet high. I flop on top of them. Flop! I feel wonderful, feeling the satisfaction of completing a task which took me several lucid dreams to accomplish. I part ways with Efrain and jump up to fly. I'm in a neighborhood in the hills. I decide to crest the hill in front of me to see what's on the other side. I crest it and find a valley filled with suburbia, just like where I live IWL. I fly to the freeway and turn to left, deciding to fly along the freeway going through the valley. I'm flying with good control and speed. My dream is very stable and is getting longer than my typical lucid dream. I try to recall details from the dream, trying to avoid thinking about waking up. What was that DC's name? I reach the end of the valley to an open area. There are a few large, unusual buildings marking the gate to the valley. It looks like a couple of large rings with chains on the side? I'm looking at the building, trying to memorize the details. I wake up.