Can someone help out my friend?

What causes this and is it serious? :) thank you so much for your help!

This is what she wrote:

"You know when you wake up, and you haven’t a clue who or where you are? Happens to me all the time. I wake up confused, and I say the most stupid of things in “reply” to someone who is talking to me, only to find there is no one there. I walk to the top of the stairs and I shout down to say something to my dad, and he’s like, “what are you talking about?”. I have woke up thinking I am in a hospital, I am in another country, in another house, or not in a house at all. I have woke up forgetting what my name is and sometimes even thinking I am not human. Bizarre. It’s all really bizarre. This happened to me this morning, I woke up in such confusion I was almost in a panic. It doesn’t last long, only lasts a minute. Maybe I am still “living my dream” (or nightmare, in some cases) when I awake, but sometimes I can’t even remember the dream before I woke up."

Well, "still living the dream" seems more or less like the cause.

I wouldn't know what this may be caused by but it seems that the dream indeed proceeds into the waking state, assuming we're talking about actually waking up and not mistaking it for false awakenings.

I'd say practicing awareness may help. Becoming more conscious of who she is, of her life in general and all such. That can help both with lucid dreaming (because awareness will increase) and with fully awakening each morning instead of drifting on in a dream-like state that causes such confusion.

I think it's like Merlock said that your still living in the dream as your waking up so you react as if your still there.

I'm not going to go into much detail but I suffer from the same thing. I've woken up and I was thinking that I was awake but I guess I was still dreaming but I was in a non lucid dream so it's not like I could change it. But the dreams I have when this happens are threatening ones. So I wake up thinking this is real and I starting screaming for Help over and over again basically in a ball at the end of my bed. Yeah, I'm cool. The most embarrassing part of it is my parents are just down the hall and can hear everything so they come in thinking I'm being killed and seeing me , well not In the right state of mind for lack of a better word. For me it last about a 3 minutes after I wake up.

I have no idea why this happens but I've concluded from my experience that I'm dreaming of the dream and as I'm waking up and the images are still there. I can't explain why the mind blanks out. For me I didn't even know I was screaming for help I just remember being in a ball at the end of my bed and seeing my parents coming in. I've never forgotten my name but I'm sure if they were to ask that kind of question I'd doubt I would be able to answer.

[COLOR=black]So again, I think your friend is just still in the dream and for whatever reason the mind hasn't adjusted yet causing those feelings of not knowing where you are.


*EDIT* I forogot to mention what to do to help. Like merlock siad again , to do [awareness checks. though, that I do is sort of around the same lines that whenever I get into that situation I try not to react I just try to think about where I am and thenI realize I'm awake. /COLOR]