Thread: The thin line between asleep and awake.

This is a very newbie question but here it goes. I understand that when you first awake from a sleep in order to accurately remember your dreams you should lay still and close your eyes to focus on your dream before anything else. I can’t distinguish the line of waking up and being asleep, the next thing I know I am thinking about something else and do not realize I have awoken. Has anyone else had this, or does anyone have some sort of a solution.

Originally posted by ZNOFZ
This is a very newbie question but here it goes. *I understand that when you first awake from a sleep in order to accurately remember your dreams you should lay still and close your eyes to focus on your dream before anything else. *I can’t distinguish the line of waking up and being asleep, the next thing I know I am thinking about something else and do not realize I have awoken. *Has anyone else had this, or does anyone have some sort of a solution.

Yeah, I get this all the time, it's a royal pain in the ass, because by the time you've fully surfaced and are fully conscious, you think to yourself "F#CK! I FORGOT THAT DREAM!".

It's totally annoying. The reason is because some people "surface" out of dreams quite slowly and gradually, and while ya do that, you get sidetracked by all kinds of thoughts until you fully regain consciousness. Perhaps deeper sleepers take longer to surface? Huh. I dunno.

The only thing I can suggest, is practice. You'll gradually get used to waking straight from a dream, and as you do so, it SHOULD take less and less time to surface. So... yeah. Unfortunately, there's no real quick-fix, unless you want to use an alarm clock to wake yourself up. Personally, I find that option results in loosing more dreams than awakening gradually.

Sorry I can't be of more help. But yeah, I agree with you, what you describe is a major pain in the ass.

That's a horrible thing to have...i used to be really good at waking up and recalling my dreams in full, but now i struggle to piece it all together. I guess i've gotten out of the habit of it.
Gradually getting back into it though, keep us posted on your progress!

Hey ZNOFZ -

I can’t distinguish the line of waking up and being asleep, the next thing I know I am thinking about something else and do not realize I have awoken.[/b]

I'm not quite sure I understand this process you describe. You're saying that in the morning you catch yourself thinking of things other than your dream? How do you know that these thoughts are not part of your dream if you don't know what you were dreaming in the first place?

There are times when I wake up and either have a song going through my head or have a particular feeling (happiness, sadness, anger, anxiety, etc) and I can't figure out why. When this happens it's almost always due to what I call dream carry-over (highlights from your dream that stick with you after waking up).

Next time, try to explore these thoughts that you have that you think were not part of your dream - it's possibe you might hit on something or catch a snapshot of a part of your dream. From there it's possible to remember more and piece together the dream.

Last night I was able to actually wake up right out of sleep and realize that I had just been asleep. I remembered my dream vividly, it was indeed the clearest dream I have ever had. I do believe this is something that demands practice and an awareness of your mind that you are going to be going to sleep. Thanks, ill keep you posted if I am able to repeat this again tonight.

This is indeed annoying and the solution to it is simple: waking up with an alarm.
An alarm wakes one up with a start allowing to concentrate on last thoughts, where as upon emerging from a dream without an alarm or any sudden awakening the memories fade while one isn't fully aware yet.

However, as I've experienced lately for some reasons, it's possible to wake up before the alarm goes off sometimes, waking up naturally and forgetting dream memories.
Just woke up at 6:30 AM today when my alarm was set to 7 and forgot just about everything except for a dream I had at the beginning of the night and recalled only because I had awoken after that REM period. All other dreams faded due to natural awakening, surely annoying, heh.

Originally posted by Merlock
This is indeed annoying and the solution to it is simple: waking up with an alarm.
An alarm wakes one up with a start allowing to concentrate on last thoughts, where as upon emerging from a dream without an alarm or any sudden awakening the memories fade while one isn't fully aware yet.

Yeah... an alarm clock is definitely effective, but it certainly has its drawbacks. I find that it ends up "killing" more dreams than it saves.

This is what I do: use the alarm clock as a "backup", setting it about 15 to 20 minutes AFTER you usually wake up naturally (by naturally, I mean during the middle of the night, through use of water, or watever)/ That way, if you "oversleep" the time you're trying to wake yourself up by, your alarm clock will wake you up instead.

Of course, then, you've still got to deal with waking up too slowly and loosing your dreams as you surface too slowly from sleep. This is a toughie. But, I think, with practice, it will take you less and less time to "surface", and you'll end up retaining much more of your dreams...

Ah but I've noticed is that natural awakenings cause dream recall loss usually only in the morning upon waking up for good, where as, including from my own experiences, it seems that waking up during the night is usually of a sudden character thus not requiring an alarm to be set. Not to generalize but this is what I've observed of myself and others.