Dream of the Week: This is Not a Lucid Dream

This week's dream is an experience of False Awakening, which is when you dream that you have woken up, but you're still asleep!

This experience happens quite often to those with high dream recall and lucid dreamers. It's always good practice to ask yourself if you are dreaming each time you wake up so that you have a better chance of catching these False Awakenings.

Anyway, this is a funny little dream to help demonstrate how our minds can trick us out of lucidity!

Dream #1533
This is Not a Lucid Dream

I wake up slowly from a vivid dream I was just having and sit up in bed (though not my real life bed or bedroom - the first clue!). I take in the scene, but nothing unusual strikes me. My partner is sleeping soundly next to me, and everything seems in order. I lay back down intending to become lucid in my next dream and quietly count my breaths.

Soon, I feel entirely relaxed and know that I will soon be in a dream. I imagine rocking my body without actually moving it to help get me into a lucid state. It works! The vision of motion becomes the dream, and I'm able to get out of bed even though I'm aware I'm still asleep.

I rub my hands together to further stabilize the dream (a common technique in lucid dreaming), hold my hands on the floor to "ground" it, and shout out loud, "Stabilize! Stabilize!" I want this dream to be as clear and stable as possible, so I do all the techniques.

My partner sits up in the bed and says, "What are you doing? Why are you yelling?"

"Wait. What? You can hear me? I'm not in a dream?" I ask.

"No, this is not a lucid dream."

I sheepishly get off the floor and crawl back into bed, feeling pretty silly about yelling into nothing and being caught for it.

And then I wake up for real. 🤣

Note: I took a lucid dreaming supplement called Galantamine on Saturday night to boost my chances of becoming lucid. It’s quite effective for me!

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