This morning I've been doing some research on lucid dreaming online after another false awakening, paralyzed, intruder dream in which I know I'm dreaming. I almost always have these dreams after my husband says goodbye to me before leaving for work and if I have waken up to brush my teeth before I go back to bed. I have Pure-O OCD, which often makes me think of the worst scenario, so as I'm trying to fall back to sleep I keep thinking about the possibility of an intruder. I remind myself to stop thinking about this because then I'll dream it, and try to think of positive thoughts, though they are few in between because I've just got myself scared. So I fall asleep and have a dream in which I know I'm dreaming, in bed half paralyzed, trying to wake myself up. I'm so afraid to not wake up because many times these dreams lead to an intruder or a dream of my husband coming home but it not really being him. I finally wake up when I've gotten myself onto the floor off my bed, or something of the sort. At that moment, I can audibly hear a tune I've never heard before that's not coming from anywhere in real life (like an alarm), and a few seconds later I wake up. I could remember the tune for a little while after waking up, but now I don't remember it. I just don't like being stuck in my dream. But the problem is is that I cannot go back to sleep if I'm woken up in the morning because I'll most often have these kinds of dreams. So I think the solution is to learn how to face them and control them so that I can rest. So I decided to join this website to learn from other people's experiences and post my own.

Ever since I was a pre-teen I've had hypnagogic hallucinations--hallucinations that occur upon waking up but still being in a dream state. I am awake and not paralyzed, as I jump out of bed and point at the hallucination, and my husband witnesses me reacting to it. Turning on a light will make it fade after a few seconds. I mostly hallucinate spiders, sometimes other bugs such as centipedes, on two occasions of animals and very rarely a human figure. At first, they were extremely frightening. But now I actually like to observe them. Unless they jump right at me and I have no time for logical thinking, I end up realizing that they are just hallucinations, and watch them for a moment until they fade. My most recent was last week, when I saw a creature in the shape of a ball with thousands of spidery legs between me and my husband, and then it teleported to the corner of the wall and faded. Wasn't scared. First time it had been of something that's not a real creature. If I could gain my level of confidence with these hallucinations in my own dreams, that would be great. I'm wondering if any of you also have these kinds of hallucinations.

I'm also taking an online anthropology course on dreaming right now. It's so fascinating.