False awakening

A false awakening is a convincing illusion of having woken when, in fact, you are still in
dreaming sleep, so the imagery - although seemingly real - is artificial.
There is the same degree of conscious awareness in the phenomenon as in a lucid dream all one's 'critical' faculties are present and the subject can think very clearly. However, what
is lacking is the realisation of being in a dream, because the dream is recreating scenery
that is familiar to the dreamer - say, the bedroom.
The accuracy of the imagery to that of the real scene can be quite amazing - until
something gives the secret away.
False awakenings sometimes follow lucid dreams, or they can occur separately. Intending
lucid dreamers need to be aware of this fascinating situation, so to illustrate, here is such a
case from our files:
I seemed to wake up from an interesting, vivid lucid dream. My mind was perfectly alert and
I looked around the bedroom. It was morning and the room was fairly light. I got up and
walked around for a while. Then I went to the window and looked out. Incredibly, the road
outside was not the road it should have been! The surprise woke me and I found myself
snuggled in bed.
Some individuals report that they experience multiple false-awakenings - which can leave
them rather puzzled:
It is not unheard of for some unfortunate souls to apparently wake up in the morning, wash,
eat breakfast and then wake to find themselves still in bed. They get up again, wash, eat
breakfast, and leave for work. Caught in the rush-hour traffic, and while thumping the
steering wheel, impatiently, they wake up again to find themselves still in bed. And so it can
go on almost ad infinitum.
The false-awakening is more common, however, when dreamers perceive themselves as
waking up at home in their own beds, then probably turn over and - in their dream minds go back to sleep. Sometimes this occurrence can be accompanied by an atmosphere of
eager expectation, stress or even apprehension, and these feelings can remain with the
subject for some time after waking.
Celia Green, in her analysis of lucid dreaming, identified two varieties of false awakening.
In Type 1, the person seems to have woken from a dream and reflects on things normally.
In Type 2, the individual seems to have woken, but there is a somewhat oppressive
atmosphere:
I thought I was awake. It was still night and my room very dark. Although it seemed to me
that I was awake, I felt curiously disinclined to move. The atmosphere seemed charged, to
be in a 'strained' condition. I had a sense of invisible, intangible powers at work, which
caused this feeling of aerial stress. I became expectant. Certainly, something was about to
happen.
It is interesting to note that false awakenings not only precede but often follow on from a
lucid dream. If this occurs, then there is nothing to stop one from running the tests and
becoming lucid again. Some dream enthusiasts have experienced lucidity as many as four
times in a single night.

However, although these encounters appear real in every respect, the experience must be
adjudged to be a dream. We will probably never know if the spirits of loved-ones are able to
manifest themselves in dreams, or whether these happenings are the product of the
dreaming mind.
Dr Hearne also devised a method of inducing lucidity, that reportedly is successful for some
people, based on recognising false-awakenings, and you may like to try it yourself. It is
termed the F.A.S.T. technique (an acronym for False Awakening with State Testing).
In his sleep-lab research Dr Hearne observed the potency of expectation in subjects. This
method sets up an expectation in the subject which hopefully results in a false-awakening where state-testing can cause recognition of dreaming.
You will need an assistant. Every half hour or so after 6 am (when there is more REM sleep)
the assistant needs to enter the bedroom, say a few words, potter around and then leave.
Religiously, whenever it happens, you should go through some of the state-tests listed
above - no matter how utterly convinced that you are awake!
Occasionally, you will, because of
into the bedroom. At that point
elaborate dream.Then, you should
in an out of the body experience,
be somewhere else.

the expectation effect, dream that the person has come

the testing procedure will reveal that it has been an
get up, explore the artificial scenery of the building - as if
or relocate by covering your eyes and willing yourself to

We have established that it is not unusual for people to experience this phenomenon
without realising it and, for the purpose of dream interpretation, it is important that the
analyst understands that fact. Here is a typical example of the kind of letter an analyst
might receive: I have got a vague memory of getting up and going to the toilet, in the
middle of the night. However, I noticed that the light switches weren't working properly. Yet
when I got up this morning, they all worked perfectly. Now I'm not sure if it was a dream or
not. What does it mean?
Another example:
I remember getting up during the night, only to discover that the street scenery outside
my bedroom window was strangely different. I'm sure I wasn't dreaming, so can you tell me
what happened?
Bear in mind that there might be reports of the bedroom furniture being somehow different,
or perhaps the curtains were not quite their usual colour. These are all clues that the client
has undergone a false-awakening.
If any sort of interpretation is placed on this experience, it will be fruitless. As with a lucid
dream, this extraordinary occurrence is open to contamination by conscious thoughts.
If the above descriptions sound familiar, it is likely that you have experienced this curious
happening. It is probable that we all have them from time to time, without realising it. So
convincing is this dream state that one is certain one was awake.
Another aid to assist recognition is the contrast to a lucid dream, where the scene is likely
to present itself in typically weird dream surroundings, the false-awakening usually occurs in
a familiar environment, (not necessarily the bedroom), albeit a dream environment.