False awakenings - my theory of what it really is

Hi all!

Today I spent some time thinking about false awakenings and my experiences connected with them. I came up with idea, and I would like to know what do you think about it

I had some false awakenings and as I noticed they were connected with gaining lucidity or have a strong though about getting up to do sth.
Once I was expecting a call in the morning, but I haven’t slept well that night so I decided to take a short nap (it was about 8 a.m.). I had a nice vivid dream, and when I started to gain some awareness I had false awakening that someone is calling me. As I said, I was expected a call, so when I “false woke up” I thought that it 100% must be reality, because I expected a call in reality. It’s like my mind was trying to make me lose my awareness by recalling a situation from reality, like it’s my subconciousness argument (very good argument, by the way).
The other situation was when I MILDed to write my dream in DJ after waking up. I was sleeping, and when I was close to gain lucidity I had FA, in which I got up from bed and write some dream in my dream journal. Again, my subconciousness used a situation from real world to have a very good argument to convince me that I am not dreaming, so I won’t get lucid easily.

To sum up: Becoming lucid in dreams is undesirable, so the subconcious part of mind doesn’t allow us to gain lucidity easily.Waking up in the middle of the rest is also undesirable, because or body, mind, organs etc. are not ready to wake up/have to regenerate their strengts/works better if their rest continuously/other reason, so the mind doesn’t want person to wake up normally.

So, the subconciousness theoretically have a choice: allow person to gain lucidity or wake the person up.
BUT the subconciousnees is so powerful that it thinks outside the box!!!
How?
You know the answer - by creating false awakenings!

It is very INGENIOUS SOLUTION: the person neither gain lucidity nor wake up! Both undesirable situations won’t happen! That’s a brilliant idea, great way of escaping this difficult choice. What is more, the subconciousness, sometimes, to be very convincing, recall situations/thought/intentions from real life to be very credible, so the person have no doubts about the truth of the false awakening that mind creates. The power of the mind, bravo!

What do you think about this theory? Do you have similar situation in your dream world? Or do you have similar thoughts? If so, please share

My explanation is that you mind expects to wake up but your body doesn’t. This makes sense since expectations plays a big role in dreaming. If you expect something strong enough it will happen within the dream. I don’t think what you talk about is the reason for false awakenings, but an effect of it.

False awakening is the effect of false awakening? Sorry, I don’t get it, could you explain it more?

Your conclusion seemed to be that we have false awakenings because our subconscious doesn’t want us to become lucid. But that’s an effect of it, not the reason we have it. False Awakening may have caused you to have less lucid dreams so you think that your SC makes you have False Awakenings. Sorry if I’m unclear.

No, my conclusion is that we have false awakening because our subconscious doesn’t want us to become lucid AND doesn’t want to wake us up. If it ONLY doesn’t want us to become lucid it could just simply wake us up, but it’s not that simple, because waking up is not desirable as well (see: the reasons I wrote in first post). So the mind makes something between, uses this ingenious solution: false awakenings. That’s what I meant

And I didn’t write anywhere, that false awakening are the reasons, I wrote that they’re effects. Like in pattern: “He’s becoming lucid (reason) —> creating false awakening (effect)”. If I wasn’t lucid there wasn’t the reason, so there won’t be an FA effect at all.

This creation is the effect of subconciousness action I hope you now fully know what I meant

About: “False Awakening may have caused you to have less lucid dreams so you think that your SC makes you have False Awakenings.” - when I FA I have a normal dreams, they aren’t less lucid, they’re not lucid at all

I think WASD is right, though. Thinking about waking up or fearing to wake up is what causes FA’s, because thoughts, fears and expectations is what shapes your dreams to a huge extend.

When I started lucid dreaming and had a couple of FA’s that ruined my LD’s, I also had the mis assumption that my subconscious was deliberately tricking me and was trying to stop me from being lucid. But after learning how dreams get influenced by my thoughts, that explanation started to make much less sense.

You may think you have to trick your subconscious to become lucid, while it’s much more effective if you try to understand your subconscious and program it to become lucid.

Isn’t it just that your subconscious mind makes a little room for the conscious mind when someone’s rested enough… I don’t believe you’re either wide awake or deep asleep, there is a grey zone. And I guess that you sometimes mess up a little by thinking you are awake while in fact you are not and the reason why you can’t distinguish reality from dreaming is due to the transmission state you’re in; you’re not conscious enough yet.

And I guess that the reason why you dream of waking up specifically is because if you are half conscious-half subconcious, you recognize the state of almost waking up. And since you experience this every morning, it has become a sign that’s easy recognizable for your almost awake mind and this then tricks you into thinking you’re awake.

That’s very clever point of view, thank you very much! But just to be sure…

@BeRightBack
I get it, that thoughts are powerful and have a huge influence on dreams world, you are right, I didn’t think about it. You’re right!
But… I was thinking that all LD methods are about “tricking” mind, i.e. when I WILD I’m trying to keep myself conciouss which is abnormal because I should just let go and fall asleep, so it’s kind of different way, an other route; or when I do RC - isn’t that something “different” in dreams world? I mean, I don’t do it always, usually, just sometimes, and when I do an RC I nearly always wake up, so it’s undesirable in some way… So how can I change my way of thinking to, as you said, understand my subconciouss? I was always thinking about like a game - there are methods, trick, which I should use to get to another point, another path… Looks like you know other ways, please, if you could Write me sth more about “if you try to understand your subconscious and program it to become lucid” - it made me very interested!

@Bird
Yep, right, there must be a grey zone! So you say there is a “state of almost waking up”, and my false awakening reffer to this state? I mean, when I half conscious-half subconscious I could either wake up or have FA, and my mind get an advantage of me in this state and create this FA? If so, let me just please ask you a quesion - when I have FA am I still in this half-half state, or get into a dream? Should I try to do an RC every time I wake up to prevent this kind of sittuations happen? Thank you!

@WASD
I think I somehow get it right now. Maybe I’m too much about biological and chemistry sciences ('cause I’m studying biotechnology), so I look and these things in other way. But with small steps I am going to get more knowledge, and I’d like to thank you very much for your conclusions!

Hmm… I have to argue on one basic point. I don’t think that the subconscious mind actively wants you to or not to become lucid. It only operates based on expectations and signals that it receives from the conscious mind. Let’s look at your two examples. One you said that you had an FA about getting a call. You said yourself that you were expecting the call irl. I would put forth that rather than your mind going “oh no, must not let him be lucid,” it was simply reminding you of the things you were supposed to be doing that day. The reminder became an expectation, and the expectation became a reality.

The other you had built the intention to wake up and write a dream down. Your mind was simply doing what it was told. You were expecting to wake up and write down those dreams, so that’s what it let you do. I don’t think it has anything to do with it wanting you to stay unconscious in your dreams.

I used to think my SC was out to get me and did not want me to be lucid. However, one night after a DC basically opened my eyes to the concept of lucid living, I realized it was simply working off of the mixed signals I had been sending it. Your conscious and unconscious mind are designed to work together. Rather than keeping the expectation that you’ll literally have to fight with yourself to become lucid, I would suggest you try working with yourself instead.

You explained me something like genesis of these FA, I mean, why I had FA about receiving a call and FA about writing a book. But my question, and my main topic, is why these happened in the specific moment in dream - why these happened when I was gaining lucidity.

Looks like you’re not reading carefully - read this situation again. Or let me quote myself: “when I was close to gain lucidity I had FA”. I felt like I’m very, very close to achieve awareness, I felt sort of “tick” like “there’s something wrong”, and then I had FA. Not earlier, not later, exactly in the moment when I was, hmmm, seconds to become lucid. The same works for the FA with call: “when I started to gain some awareness I had false awakening that someone is calling me”. Exactly in this moment!

Do you see the connecion? If it was just normal FA, in not specific situation, I wouldn’t even bother about it. But these two false awakenings took place exactly in the moments when I was very close to gaining lucidity, when I was thinking to myself “there’s something wrong, is it real?”. Why these happened just right then? Not why these kind of FA, but why right then? That made me wonder.

I agree with you, all you say is truth and very possible explanation why I have this kind of dream. But it doesn’t explain why I had this FA, like I said above, short while before becoming lucid.

Ok, I’ll try to be a little more clear on my main theory then. You began to have consciousness in your dream, a.k.a your waking mind was coming into awareness. I would put forth at this time the SC realized this and began to remind you of things you were either expecting or planning on doing.

Now, as to the cause of the FA. There are a lot of possibilities I could give. The one I most agree with is what BeRightBack and WASD are talking about. It’s the programming your SC has. It knows you are becoming conscious and as far as it knows that means you are supposed to be waking up. However, I don’t think by any means it’s a malevolent action by which it is attempting to keep you from becoming lucid. No, instead I think it is only doing what it thinks it is supposed to do. You, however, can reprogram it through autosuggestion, MILD and other forms.

That’s very good and clear point! I think I know what you mean!

Normal cycle looks like this:
I am sleeping and dreaming (so I am unconscious) → I wake up (I became conscious).
But with trying to LD it looks like:
I am sleeping and dreaming (so I am unconscious) → I starting to lucid dreaming (so I’m becoming conscious) —> my mind receive “getting conscious” signal so it is doing what it is supposed to do, pretending it’s normal state —> FA.

You’re very clever, thank you!

I’d like you to ask you two more questions, please answer if you can:

1. Why FA instead of normal waking up to RL? Because I gained consciousness in dream world?
2. The goal of the subconsciousness is not to prevent me from lucid dreaming, but just to recall normal programmed states, as you said… so it’s only side-effect that it doesn’t let me be lucid? SC doesn’t mean to stop me from being lucid, it only does it because it happens simultaneously with things “what it thinks it is supposed to do”?

1.) Well, that’s the million dollar question isn’t it ? No one can really say with certainty why it happens since there’s few ways to prove anything (I would like to point out that your original theory could even be right), so it’s really speculation either way. What makes the most sense to me having experiened FA many, many times is that it’s the expectation of waking up. Even if you’re unaware of it, the expectation can still be there. However, the body/SC are still in sleep mode, so transitioning to an FA is the best way to fulfill this expectation.

2.) Yes, that’s what I think on the subconscious. However, like I said before intentions and expectations are basically commands that can be given to the subconscious. If you haven’t already, I really recommend this article by BenDrummin and it’s follow up article.

Oh, and I thought you might like to see the epiphany I had on the subconscious. I actually thought basically the same things about it using DC’s or even FA to stop you from becoming lucid. Here’s what changed my mind.

Masterpiece! That’s clever, almost obvious, You made me pondering about it all right now, you know? Nothing’s going to be the same again, this different point of view you showed me is very interesting, I feel like I have bigger knowledge and maybe finally I will understand some things and and have epiphany as well! it didn’t ever crossed my mind that the subconscious is part of me SO it can’t be other entity and thinks on its own. That’s nice explanation, full of logic. But…

One thing still can’t get out of mind. I hope you’ll find a nice riposte to me!

Namely, I disagree with the fact that SC it’s not the other entity. To me it is, maybe not other entity, but some kind of “hidden guide”. All the unrevealed or even revealed desires, lusts, sexual drives, instincts, fears, phobia are situated in our subconscious. And sometimes, if we want it or not, subconscious directs us in the way it thinks is the best for us (even that it is not good).

I mean, for example phobia determine our life, so we can’t go to higher altitudes, look and tiny spider or touch dirty surface etc. If one’s would like to get rid of the phobia, shouldn’t one just fight the fear, ergo fight the subconscious invention? Well, I know I could say that one’s should “cooperate” with SC, but in my opinion when we deal with something undesirable and bad it’s nothing more that a fight, am I wrong?

The same works for lusts. Animals doesn’t have free will, they works in harmony with their sexual drives and lusts. Homo sapiens, as the better unit with abilition to thinking on high intelectual level, knows that lusts, desires etc. should be controlled. It works - we have interior breaks which keeps us away from doing undesirable things, we doesn’t work based only on instincts, but also on logical thinking. Our will is stronger that our instincts. But not always. Sometimes people want or do things they regret. They loses battle with their lusts or desires. So there is a war all the time as I suppose. Is there a mistake in my way of thinking?

P.S. You are like Yoda, lucid dreaming is like Jedi power, and I’m padawan

You might want to have a look at what Freud said about the unconscious. It’s really interesting and not that difficult to understand. I learned a lot about it in school, but since I’m not a native English speaker I’m afraid I would tell you something entirely wrong. But briefly (and maybe not that correct) yes, there is a war between the ‘ego’ and the ‘id’ because the ‘id’ wants to satisfy all desires immediately and the ‘ego’ has to cope with the needs of the ‘id’ and the limitations of the reality (still, the SC is something different than the ‘id’). Two links I found on Wikipedia: Unconscious mind and Defence mechanisms. Hope this helps.

@Leijona
That’s exactly what I meant! Looks like you fully understood me! In my foregoing post I was actually somehow reffering to Freud and his theory of “id” fighting with “ego”. I have two Freud’s books at home and read them few times, so his concept isn’t strange to me In my main post and theory I was trying to refer to Freud’s theory as well, and formed conclusion that subconscious is fighting with conscious, so that’s why it is trying to stop us from lucid dreaming, as well as “ego” is trying to satisfy desires, lusts etc. I was and still am trying to find a connection between this two things, beucase I think that that they have something in common.

Thank you very much for your answer and advices, I’m pleased! I’d love to see you posting in this topic and participate, you surely could share your thought, and maybe we’ll all find out something interesting!

P.S. @Rhewin -> I’m still waiting for your answer, I admit that your knowledge in this field is bigger than mine and you have nice glance at the world!

Ah, I see. First off, I can only repeat what Rhewin and the others already said, the SC is not acting against you. If you see a DS in your dream and you don’t get lucid, well, then it’s your fault. It shows that one’s awareness isn’t high enough, the SC even was so nice to give the dreamer an obvious sign that he’s dreaming, and he missed it!

I think there’s a difficulty regarding the definations when discussing about things like this. (Sorry, I bet I’m writing about stuff you already know.) You, I, every human consists of the id, ego and super-ego. The id is unconscious while the ego and super-ego are partly unconscious, partly conscious. When you say that the subconscious fights with the conscious then this would mean that the ego also attacks itself, which would be pretty paradoxical.

Alright. Now you might say that if it’s not our SC which prevents us from becoming lucid, then it is the id. Maybe id wants to sleep and is thus fighting against the conscious part of our mind which is going to get lucid, to “wake up” a bit. Well, but what is this “us”? Neither your SC nor the unconscious part can prevent “you” from getting lucid, because it is a part of you!

Also, the id is quite wrong when it thinks that the result of getting lucid/aware = waking up. Maybe it has to learn this fact since it is something entirely new.

Now about your question/theory about FA’s which just crossed my mind: Freud said that the ego is kind of out of action when one’s sleeping. This means that the defence mechanisms it usually maintains against certain parts of the id are also enfeebled or not existent. When you gain awareness, your ego gets more active again. Now, your id says, Ah but no, I don’t want to wake up yet! It is trying to suppress the ego, the awareness. There are a few possibilities right there:

1: You gain more awareness. Your ego is fully active and can defend the id so that you are lucid. The id might be pretty satisfied with this afterwards! It kills two birds with one stone: The dreamer is still asleep, and in the dream there is no reality which keeps the id away from doing what it wants to do, so many needs of the id can get satisfied in a LD. This might result in the id not fighting against the ego the next time it becomes active while sleeping.

2: Your awareness is too low. Your ego loses against your id and you keep on dreaming a ND.

3: Something between number one and two. Your id wants to continue sleeping (the dream goes on). Your ego is active and not willing to lose against the id (the dream is a LD). Basically, the ego doesn’t want to fight, it only tries to maintain a state of balance between all those components in order to make the best out of the situation. Your ego is now weak and it wants to find a compromise even more. And what is this? You said it in your theory, it’s the middle ground, a FA. Expectations (as already said multiple times) are playing a huge role here, too. Both your conscious and unconscious parts know that normally aware = awake, and because the dream world is created mainly by your unconscious parts and the id wants to keep on dreaming, the effect of this compromise is a dream where you wake up.

I’m not sure if this has already been said, but many LD’s result in FA’s instead of waking up. One more proof of the power of expectations.

Sorry for the wall of text, I hope at least some parts are helpful and/or interesting…

I don’t miss the sing, I recognize it and became almost lucid, then I have FA

Yes, that maybe is pretty paradoxical, but maybe it’s how it works. I’m just theorizing. An example: person is addicted to nicotine by smoking cigarettes, and even that smoking is dangerous, can cause cance, heart diseases etc. our mind (psychical addiction) creates the hunger of cigarettes, and that people cannot overcome the desire to smoke. Part of the body attacts somehow part of the body - paradoxical, but true and occurs veeery often around the world. All I want to say that we cannot just remove the theory of this battle inside us just because it sounds crazy.

It doesn’t matter that it is a part of me, according to psychoanalysis. You know, part of me sometimes “tells me” that I should step on gas while driving my car because it’s nice “adrenaline feeling”, I sometimes have urge to get laid with nice girl I just met, as well I sometimes have the desire to drink whiskey or smoke cigarettes. The “id” wants me somehow to act against myself (could die in car accident, cheat on my girlfriend, waste money or health), but these are urges and desires that “id” wants me to fulfill. How do I know, that by outsmarting me by doing FA when I’m becoming lucid, isn’t just an urge the id or subconscious executes?

This can be possible. Another theory, I see But you’re saying about “id” also like it’s other entity, even with feelings (fear of something new). It’s part of us, but it lives other life?

That’s exactly what I tried to say in my first post!!! I must have got the definitions wrong, maybe I should use “id and ego” instead of “subcoscious and conscious”? I always define id as subconscious part of mine, 'cause I didn’t have influence on both. Anyway, that’s what I said → when the id says “I don’t wanna get up yet” and it has a choice. Of course, if I was very aware my ego would overcome id. But let’s say I’m not, so the ego must decide to wake me up or not, or create the FA, the very nice solution.

Maybe I’m thinking about it wrong, but that’s how I see. You may say I’m stupid, I won’t offend, 'cause I’m surely not normal

I thank you for the wall of text, it was a pleasure to read it Reply again if you could, I like the conversation a lot! And sorry that I’m answering this late, I had a lot of urges and desires to execute

I agree with this, good example. Still, I think that mind against body is something different than the conscious part of the ego against the unconscious part of the ego because mind and body are separated from each other in a different way. Part of ego attacks other part of the ego, that would be like, you’re walking and your left leg wants to go to the left and your right leg wants to head for the right hand side.

That’s the difficulty, nobody knows, because it’s unconscious. All we can do is to set up a theorie like Freud.

In a way, yes, it is an entity on its own. Put the three entities together and you have a psychic healthy human. The point is, the id is not self-contained, it interacts with the ego and the super-ego all the time (when one’s healthy), so the id is also not an entity with its own life. I hope this makes sense…

Maybe, but how many people would then understand what you are talking about? That’s the problem about the Freudian theories I think, they are only theories and so…irrational, new and inconceivable that it’s pretty hard to imagine their whole extent. And yes, all of the id is the SC, but not all of the SC is the id…

No, of course not. I think this all sounds quite logical. FA = just another war between id and ego, in which the ego loses partly against the id/has to make a compromise, also mixed with expectations and experiences. (?)

I’m another who would post with saying that I see it as harmful to imagine internal interactions as a battle. A battle creates a state of internal conflict, an uncooperative position where there is two warring parts unwilling to compromise. It’s worse than a battle in some respects though, since you provide the energy to both sides of it, since it is a purely internal thing. I don’t feel that its an internal battle to become lucid, we must note here that with dreams especially expectations create expect a battle and you will receive one.

My perspective of the subconscious is two-fold, one part is a pattern matching machine, it identifies and deals with patterns. You devise instructions and desires in the form of expectations, and it reacts by firing various emotions and ‘raising’ thoughts as patterns are met. On the very border of consciousness suppressing thoughts can occur according to your deeply held and often subconscious convictions. It’s scary that we can actually modify our memories so we don’t contravene, or to better meet an expectation. I have observed this happen to myself and others around me, if you don’t believe me, try to honestly observe yourself for a while. The second is biological urges, hard-wired into us, but possible to be manipulated and adjusted. A biological urge doesn’t care how its satisfied, it doesn’t think, it merely wants a certain situation to manifest, or not to manifest. Sexual drive is one such urge, and probably the most powerful. Aversion to pain would be another. I don’t believe for a second there is a biological urge against lucidity.

I don’t see where the assumption that being lucid is undesirable comes from. To either your subconscious, or to your ‘id’ if you prefer. When we are in REM, our brain patterns are more or less identical to those which we have when we are awake. That for me is evidence that being aware or not during dreams, makes no difference to the quality of the rest. I believe this belief comes more from our strong conditioning and firmly held convictions that, “you don’t get anything free, there is always a price/consequence” or that “you must work for things you like.” It’s somewhat true in that it does require effort to become lucid, but I don’t believe its effort in the form of a battle with your subconscious.

To examine the pattern which forms subconsciously when you see things this way. You assume your subconscious mind does not want you lucid, it therefore tries to stop you being so. This means you try to lucid dream with the following expectation, “I will meet resistance, because I go against my subconscious’ wishes.” This is very harmful from my perspective. When expectations create dreams, expecting to wake up will wake you for example; if you expect resistance, you’re setting yourself up for problems. On top of learning how you can make yourself aware when sleeping, (Which is all you have to do when trying to LD) you have to fight your own conviction you just formed there.