waking up is quite easy. I have an unintentional lucid dreams where I am in a nightmare and realize I am dreaming. In this case usually I am so frightened that I don't bother with changing the dream, I just want out. So I think to myself that I want to wake up and like Robot said, I open/close my eyes a few times. I do also find that when I force myself awake quickly like this I experience sleep paralysis. Don't worry meta it really is not that scary if you know what is going on. About two weeks ago it happened to me again, but I knew it was sleep paralysis and eventually I would come out of it, so I managed to stay pretty calm and within a few seconds I woke up completely.