The BIG FA topic

FAs always seemed so annoying to me. Normally cause I always had about three in a row. I thought I woke up and was ‘awake’ for a few minutes already and suddenly I was back in bed thinking ‘oh, i just had a FA…but I’m awake now’ and I get up and after a few minutes I find myself in my bed again… and again… about three times normally. I hated it. But somehow I never thought of doing a RC while having one… I’ll try to remember it next time!

After having a few FAs, I now do an RC every time I wake up… Just to be sure… :wink:

Whenever I wake up in the morning or during the night I do a RC…

I haven’t had a FA so far.

This morning I went to a seminar and the guy giving the lecture asked us to close our eyes to visualise or imagine something. I was afraid I might sleep and end up having a FA where I dream I’m awake at the seminar!

So I had to do a RC after we opened our eyes again…

I think FAs are great, mostly because they more often than not triggers lucidity for me.

However, just recently I discovered that a FA greatly increases the vividness of a LD. Once, I even induced a FA at will, and it worked. My dream became just as vivid as RL. (What I did: I laid down in the middle of the street and fell asleep).

I think the increase of vividness is because anyone having a FA would expect to be waking up into RL for at least a few seconds. Thus, by expecting your surroundings to look realistic, they tend to do so.

Have anyone else experienced what I’m talking about?

Hm yes a FA looks very realistic to me always, the key is to use it to continue your LD and/or make your LD more clear. I used it in this way only a few times yet but it seems promising.

I had a FA last night. No LD however. I was in my room and felt like I needed to go to the toilet, how embarassing.

But my room was not completely correct.

I should have made an RC… But during the dream I forgot.

But it’s promising. It means an LD is getting closer!

Hmm. I just found out that FAs can also be used to prevent real awakenings and loss of lucidity. What I do is, every time I notice the dream is fading, or I feel that I’m loosing lucidity, I induce a false awakening. Then I just “wake up” inside this newer and more stabile dream and continue with whatever I was doing.
I managed to use this technique five times during one LD last night, it really helped me staying in the dream.

Someone other than me should try this; Induce FAs either to increase vividness/lucidity or just to prolong the LD itself.

Sounds promising, but how exactly do you induce a false awakening? I tend to always wake up completely when the LD is fading.

Usually I actually wake up when an LD fades… In fact, I only remember one time that I had an FA following an LD. After that I always do RCs after waking up… :content:

That’s kind of difficult to answer… I sort of expect to have an FA, like autosuggestion (like MILD). Then I visualize myself awakening in the dream, and at the same time I have an FA.
You should do an RC upon awakening, and you should expect it to show that you are dreaming.

If you find that too difficult, you could try falling asleep in your dream, that’s another way of inducing an FA. :content:

Usually when I have FA’s I end up getting angry and forcing myself awake. Of course they’re usually about me being late somewhere, or going to the wrong place, or something equally frustrating, so I realise it’s a dream but rather than go lucid, I just wake myself up to be sure i’m dreaming.

Someone on this topic already mentioned doing a RC when you “wake up”, whether it’s a FA or a real one, but here’s an idea. In your dream journal (if you have one), put a page in the front that has in big letters “Perform a reality check”. This way, when you pick up your journal to start writing, you will see this page over and over.

Now, when you have a FA, you will most likely pick up that dream journal, and when you open it up, there’s the page! Depending on which RC works for you, you could read the page again to see if the words changed, or you could perform an RC of your choice.

The whole point of the paper is to embed it into your subconscious. Of course, if the page is missing from the dream journal in your dream, you should know something’s up…

I’m gonna go ahead and put a page into my dream journal to see if this works… FA are a rarity for me, but any opportunity for an LD is a good one!

That might be a good idea…

But keep in mind that not all FAs are “normal” like your actual awakenings. You might wake up in the middle of the street, or in a spaceship… With no dream journal to be found!

I think it would be better to remember to do RCs every single time you awake, no matter what circumstances, and you should not depend on a self-induced dreamsign like that page in your DJ you mentioned.

Feel free to correct me if you think I am wrong… :wink:

oh yeah, I guess that makes sense now. But the only type of FA I experience are the ones when I reach for my dream journal, so I guess it could be a solution to me, but not for everyone else…

Yeah, sticking to RCs whenever you wake up sounds like a universal solution. But hey, if you constantly have a FA and you reach for your dream journal, the “page” may just be the best method out there!

I don’t think I’ve ever had a false awakening. Or at least I don’t ever remember having one. Is that wierd? It sounds like a pretty common phenominon to have them.

A false awakening is just a dream that begins with you waking up as you do any other morning. The dream usually then continues with you getting ready for work (or school), and perhaps embarking on some adventure to get there. Most of my FAs involve me waking up late for work, and strugling with trivial tasks like putting on a tie, locking the door, getting in my car, and so on.

You’ve never had a dream where you wake up in your bed, before finally waking up for real?

I had a FA lastnight after a Ld, but luckily i woke up not too long after the FA so i still remembered my LD. I had the FA after i jumped in water, and i turned around and saw a giant Shark behind me :woah: . Then the Shark bit me(which hurt like a mother fucker) and i woke up, this is when the FA happened. I woke up in a movie theater with friends, so i thought i just fell asleep at the movies :smile:, and then went along with the dream. I HATE FA’s!!!

-=JaSoN=-

I had a FA yesterday where I was outside in a rain storm, It was cold as hell and the wind was blowing really hard, I started slipping back and fourth from my FA to my dream that I was having before my FA and then back to myself in bed, I tried to use this as a DS and LD but it didnt work because it was so damn cold in my room and I woke up…!!! just pissed me off alot

I think I’ve sometimes had multiple FA’s :confused: I end up wondering whether the first dream actually was lucid. It get’s very confusing.

I don’t understand why everyone hate FA’s so much. Would you rather wake up in RL? I think of an FA as a “safety net” when LDing; If you get overexcited and wake up, you just might stay in the dream, in an FA, instead of waking up in RL. Every FA you have is a chance to prolong your LD.

Having one or many FA’s after an LD does not change the fact that you knew you were dreaming at the moment. You WERE lucid, but you lost lucidity due to “waking up”.