Quickly awoke from a lucid dream, from double dreaming, what to try next?

**michaelwoodcock** · 10-08-2012 12:29 AM

Hey guys, I'm new here and I know the topic title may not make any sense

But I have only once or twice been in control of my dreams. Last night, or this morning I was in control for only a brief moment. I realized I was dreaming, and decided to look at my hands, which I did efforlessly, and I quickly began thinking about what to do with my new found time! However, it was at that moment, I began to think I was not in control of my dream, and that I was seeing my hands because my eyes were opening, and I began seeing my hands as if my eyes were just opening from a night of sleep. When this happened, in my dream, I awoke, and saw my hands stretched out infront of my face. But then, I really woke up, and my hands were by my side. In effect, I had a dream I was dreaming. When I woke up in one dream I woke from the other shortly after, any tips for preventing the thought of "I'm not really dreaming, I'm just waking up" from occuring, and thus waking up?

**makeastar** · 10-10-2012 06:21 AM

How come there are 127 views on here and no one's replied?

You had what we call a false awakening. I've had those once or twice while lucid dreaming, and when I "woke up" I didn't realize I was still dreaming either. I woke up for real after a split second and got real angry at myself for not making sure it was a dream.

The only tip I can think about giving you is making a habit out of reality-checking whenever you wake up (every time you wake up, even if you're thinking to yourself, "This isn't a dream, I'm just waking up"). If you do that, you'll just start reality-checking on autopilot and thus, you'll probably catch yourself in a false awakening the next time it happens. There are a couple of reality checks people use more often (the nose-plug, finger through the hand, digital clock) and, if you want, just hit the Wiki to learn more about false awakenings and reality checks.

Hope it helps. Good luck!

**AURON** · 10-10-2012 07:20 AM

Makestar is correct...FA all day. Grats on the temp lucid though. Just make sure you stabilize as soon as you get lucid, and whenever the dream ends....RC again. You don't want to end up writing two paragraphs of an epically long lucid only to find out you were still dreaming. Trust me...it happens.