Thursday, 6 March 2008
Am i awake ?
For as far back as i can remember i have been waking up in my dreams if that makes sense.I feel as though i am awake then realise i am dreaming.This can happen several times during sleep.When i do eventually wake up it takes me a while to realise im back in reality or am i ?.It used to scare me but i am getting used to it now.But a strange thing happened the other day,as i was opening my eyes the room i was viewing was not mine.It was a totally different room but i knew this was my house and my wife was lying next to me,so where was i?the multiple universe theory springs to mind.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
I occasionally have these "false awakenings," too. Recently, I felt as though I'd just woken up, and my husband was moving about the room, getting ready for work. I later woke up "for real," and discovered that my husband was in fact still asleep and hadn't been up at all. The weird thing was, when he later DID get up, he dressed himself in the same shirt I'd seen him wearing during my false awakening. It's not a shirt he wears especially often, and he hadn't set it out the night before or anything like that, so there's no way I could have known he was going to wear that particular shirt that day. (However, I wasn't THAT surpised, because these sorts of coincidences have shown up before.)
I've had other false awakenings in which I'm lying in bed, thinking I've woken up from a dream, and aspects of the room or the apartment are slightly different than they are in reality. Once, there was a whole other family having breakfast in the kitchen. Oddly, I never seem to twig to the fact that I'm still dreaming until I later wake up "for real."
False awakenings are one of the many interesting phenomena discussed in the film "Waking Life," which Hurlyburly mentioned in his post of Feb. 17 below. Like Hurlyburly, I strongly recommend that film to anyone who's interested in dreaming, reincarnation, or philosophy.
One suggestion made in the film is that we should get into the habit of asking ourselves, "Am I dreaming now?" If we condition ourselves to do this while we're awake, eventually we'll get into the habit of doing it while we actually are dreaming, especially if something unusual happens. And, apparently, once we know we're dreaming, it's possible for our dreams to become more lucid (unless the knowledge that we're dreaming wakes us up, which is what tends to happen to me).
Interesting.... I too have had the false awakenings over the years, and they used to scare me but now I welcome any deviation from a *normal* *boring* life....Susan Marie, an academic, and an astute Blogger here, first alerted me to Anthony Peake, as we in Australia do not get his books so far, and my first E mail to Anthony was re Lucid Dreams....as you so rightly say, one of the keys is to ask yourself throughout the day"Am I dreaming?".... thus said my Lucid Dreams in 30 days book and it works!!!
Anthony is finding that all sorts of subjects enmesh with others, and there is no site quite like this one!!!!
Regards, Jesamyn.
I've had so many false awakenings through out my life that i no longer consder them a big deal unfortunately. The scariest type is that of sleep paralysis, of which i have described here before:
This has happened to me many many times and you can feel the pull or strain on your brain when it does happen.
Say, for example you are lying in a certain position on your bed, you have a particular view of certain objects in the room. Sleep paralysis seems to cause you to intitialy think you're awake when you can see these objects. Then you realise you're actualy still asleep becuase you can see your body also, but it won't move. You try desparately to throw your arms and legs but your are paralized. Eventualy, after what feels like shaking your head violently, you manage to wake yourself up and re-enter your body .
Hi Jesamyn,
I'm an Aussie too, although I'm currently living in Hong Kong -- and fortunately, Anthony's book is in stores here; I came across it quite by accident.
I think there'd be a market in Australia for ITLAD, and I'm confident the book will make it down there in due course. (As I recall, other authors and speakers in related, non-conventional fields, e.g., Wayne Dyer, plus various scientists from "What the Bleep," have had a good reception there.)
In the meantime, thank goodness for amazon.com!
My eldest daughter has sleep paralysis quite often and it scares the life out of her.I have had it on a number of occasions too,Your right about trying to get back into your body,i usually try thrash my arms and legs but they just wont budge.When i have been in this state i always feel someone is watching me close by.
I've had one recent instance of false awakening (as relayed in my recent post "The Illusion of Reality" but don't remember too many over my life.
One question: I wonder if there is a significant or fundamental difference between a false awakening in which the seemingly awake dream ego ponders or reflects on the dream from which it has awoken and a false awakening in which the seemingly awake dream ego is experiencing something directly and is, therefore, more part of the dream than observer of the dream.
I've also had a sort of sleep paralysis. I went through a period where I repeatedly had the dream of someone chasing me and I just couldn't run fast enough. It was as if I was running through honey or something. It was terrifying and I vividly recall trying to scream so I could wake myself up from the dream. It was not a third-person viewing as Hurlyburly relayed. One night -- and I don't know why it happened -- but I had the dream and after trying to run away, I turned around and beat the living crap out of the guy chasing me. That stopped the dream from reoccurring.
Now that I have some Jungian concepts behind me, I really regret doing that. I think that a part of me was trying to get my attention and by silencing the dream, I silenced that part of me which needed to become conscious in my life. I wonder what I could have, would have become or achieved had I been able to confront my pursuer and ask him what he wanted.
KEN: You must beg him to come back! Or pay the consequences eternally.
Hurlyburly et al: I have had incidents of sleep paralysis for years. It is terrifying. Just as all have described it here, and the sensed presence seems sinister during it. I wonder why.
SUSAN MARIE-- I think "he" is already back but not in the same form. The main emotion that I have felt on several occasions and under differing circumstances (doing a session of body work, meditating, and just today trying hypnosis for the first time) is sadness or grief -- overwhelming, crying, sobbing sadness or grief. "He" does not need to be so forceful in getting my attention now but it is "him" just in a different guise.
I think that Jung would interpret the "sinister" presence merely that it is trying to get your attention and it is coming from so far deep inside (or so far down, or so far within) that it needs to be sinister to get your attention. The thing, perhaps, to do is -- as when we do Shadow work -- ask it what it wants, why it is here, what it needs to tell us. I can easily believe that my pursuer from years ago was trying to convey extreme sadness but when I wouldn't listen it got angry at me and "lashed out." He really did want to hurt me, he wanted me to acknowledge his feelings.
KEN: Very astute observations, and I agree fully. You would make quite a Jungian analyst yourself. And it is true, that which we repress will return, and seem sinister by it's sheer ability to do so. I suppose that is the whole point of "shadow work": to incorporate those contents so that they become less sinister, and more adaptive or helpful.
Baphomet:
Thanks for your personal post which certainly adds to the previous discussions on here relating to lucid dreaming and precognitive sub-consciousness.
I wonder if you read my post on Lucid Dreams here:
http://cheatingtheferryman.blogspot.com/2008/02/last-night-i-dreamt-i-went-to-mandalay.html
and Tony's "Mandelay Effect" here:
http://cheatingtheferryman.blogspot.com/2008/02/mandalay-effect.html
It would be interesting to get your comments on them both.
Post a Comment