stuck in a dream.

I have always had extremely vivid dreams for as long as i can remember.

recently i have had the disturbing experience of multiple false awakenings in my dreams, kind of like what you see in inception. But when i 'wake up' im in my normal surroundings and everything is how it should be for the most part.

usually there is some event that trips my awareness that i am still dreaming and i will once again 'wake up'. rinse and repeat a few times.

the most disturbing part is that i have started to experience time in my dreams as what feels like normal waking time.

last night i had 2 false awakenings that then turned lucid and that's all gravy but once i realized i wanted to wake up, i couldn't and was 'stuck' in a dream state.

you might be saying "so what, its just a dream". but from a subjective point of view it is very unsettling to have these false awakenings and lucid dreams that feel like days sometimes.

ill wake up tired and a few times i was sure it was days later, only to find out i had been asleep for only a few hours.


does anyone have any experience with dreams like this? or am i going crazy?

i can imagine it MIGHT be possible to get 'stuck' in that loop for what seems like years or even a lifetime to only really wake up hours later.

scary.

a reply to: penroc3

I have experienced this a few times myself. The half/wake half/sleep where I feel I am in my room looking around or having awareness of being in my bed after waking from a very vivid dream only to startle awake after realizing I was not awake. It never seems to last long very brief awareness and it is not the same as realizing you are dreaming. Very odd sensation indeed but being trapped in a loop would certainly be unpleasant. It is however a phenomenon known as FALSE AWAKENING

a reply to: penroc3

Hi,
I do not have such dreams myself, but from your description, I can absolutely imagine how downright scary it could possibly be...

I don't know if what I have 'to offer' here could be of help or not, but I want to share it, just in case it could help (it's kind of complicated though, so if I don't explain it well - just ask and I'll try to clarify)

Okay, you know how in the movie "Inception" they had these 'talismans' that they trained themselves to 'carry' in the dreams to help them know whether it was a dream or not?

My idea is kind of like that, but it's not an actual 'thing'...it is something you would have to 'work on' during waking hours though...

Ugh, I'm trying to think how to put this in words -
- Okay, right now, this minute, you're awake - you're on ATS reading this post...
...now, stop right here and 'assess yourself' - really notice how being awake 'feels'

And now comes the 'key' to the whole thing, because you have to ask yourself, while assessing -
- when you really, really 'know' for sure that you 'are' awake -
- does the question "Is this a dream?" actually even exist as a possibility?

See, I can tell you that for myself, when I'm awake - the question of whether or not I might be dreaming, is not even a viable possibility - the 'question' simply does not 'exist'...
...For me, there is such an intuitively 'real' quality to 'waking reality' that, no matter what might be going on - there's absolutely 'no question' as to my 'waking state'..


Of course, that's what the whole "idea" hinges on - whether you 'experience' awake'ness' in the same way I do..

So..mmm...you know what? I really hate typing, hate trying to compose my thoughts linearly...
...so, I am going to wait for your response to the above, before I attempt continuing...

...though, you can probably figure out where it goes from here - I'll be happy to elaborate further, if you'd like me too..

a reply to: penroc3

Yes, it is very unsettling. Had a series of these last night/ this morning.

I thought I had awakened in an old bedroom I lived in as a kid. Not until I finally woke up for real did I realize I was trying to wake up in the past

I had this happen a number of years ago. It was when I was going through a particularly stressful period..not sure if there is any relevancy.
But anyway...
It happened fairly often for a period of a number of weeks. Pretty unsettling at the time.
Within the dream state there was a menacing under the surface kind of atmosphere..also most of these dreams began with me wandering around my house at the time. Although everything was a little off in the rooms and just didnt look quite the same as my real house. .. and once I became lucid it was a struggle to get " out " of the dream. There were false awakenings usually followed by a feeling of panic that I was stuck.
I read up on it at the time to see if it was a common thing and how people dealt with it. Then I read someone else's advice..and this actually worked for me.
During the lucid dream I would try to flick on a light switch. Because I was dreaming the light would not come on and it was a message from my subconscious self to my conscious self to " wake up ! You are dreaming again !
This worked for me..and I didn't have any more stuck dreams again.

a reply to: lostgirl

When I dream for the most part they are very very strange

But when i wake up in a dream it will be very mundane and normal. The only way i know im still dreaming is I will see people I know can't be there like dead friends or family members.

For example from time to time I'll see my grandma on my mom's side that I was super super close with but I will see her as a younger version of her, like her late 20's. That will tip me that I must be dreaming.

My normal dreams are very vivid and out there so when I have a false awakening until I see something like I said above it seems plausible.

As crazy as this sounds my sister and I have had very strange experiences like seeing ghosts or people in the corner of our eyes. My sister has heard family members that are dead whispering to her as she is falling asleep.

I have had a few very very close encounters with black triangles(I think the are human) and one time on a camping trip before I got in the tent with my girlfriend I took our dog out for our nightly walk and pee(I was a smoker at the time so it worked out well for the dog and me, plus we got to spend time together. I rescued him from a very abusive owner he is the sweetest 80lb blue nose pitbull) as we went down the path the dog sat down and wouldn't move and he was looking up and right above us was a basketball sized orange orb.

And a few other high strangeness things but they come randomly and far apart. So I don't know if I opened the door for strangeness by experimenting with visionary plants and chemicals, but I haven't done that type of thing in a very long time.

As far as totems go it sounds like a easy thing but in my dreams I usually wake up in the middlem of a story line that i cant diverge from in a meaningful way, I can change small things but for the most part it's on rails.

Allot of times I will know the people in my dream but in real life have no idea who they are, or I will continue a dream I haven't had for weeks or months. It makes me wonder if the dream world is real from a certain point of view. I have been places and seen people I ha e never seen in my life or would be very hard pressed to come up with.

I have been reading about training your self to do reality checks when you first wake up like trying to count your fingers or read a clock so any advice I welcome.

I'm stuck in real life. Trade? I know, I know, grass is greener and all...

a reply to: DictionaryOfExcuses

careful what you ask for, you might get it.

its fun for a bit when your lucid and can be very enjoyable but it can also be the essence of true terror and fear.

originally posted by: penroc3
a reply to: DictionaryOfExcuses

careful what you ask for, you might get it.

its fun for a bit when your lucid and can be very enjoyable but it can also be the essence of true terror and fear.

I was mostly being flippant. Not meaning to mock your situation.

a reply to: DictionaryOfExcuses

so was i

but sometimes when i thought i wanted something, like seeing a UFO and when it happened it came with allot of baggage.

being trapped in a dream could be bliss or terror


you should look up lucid dreaming and try some of the suggestions to achieve it

a reply to: penroc3

I've definitely lucid dreamt in the past but mostly on accident. I have been interested in techniques to achieve it. Perhaps I will now.

Definitely agree...be careful what you wish for.

Seems like most of the time, when my wishes come true they are accompanied by lessons in irony.

a reply to: penroc3

Oh wow - you've had some fascinating experiences, especially the one with your dog (I have a rescue too - half pit bull, half shepherd, and also a real sweetheart).

And "reality checks" (well one specific 'method') is exactly what I was laying the ground work for in my earlier post..

...so, if you wouldn't mind rereading the second half (starting where I was 'bolding' text) of that post, and keeping all that in mind, here's my question:

Have you ever (especially considering your 'high strangeness' experiences) during an actual, definite 'fully awake' experience, truly 'not known' whether you might be dreaming?

(For example - the cliche in TV shows where something really great is happening for a character and they say, "pinch me, I must be dreaming.")

Because if your answer to the above question would be "no"...
...then the 'reality check' you can train yourself to utilize is whenever you 'wake up', ask yourself -
- "Does the 'question' of whether or not I'm dreaming 'exist' right now?"

See, it's only when we 'are' dreaming that the 'question' of whether we might be dreaming even 'exists'..

Believe it or no†, this whole concept of "Does the 'question' exist?" came as a result of some deep thinking sparked by a "Doctor Who" episode..

And while I've never had to deal with 'false awakening' type dreams, I can tell you that shortly after I had concluded the basis of what I've been explaining (badly, I admit) to you...

...I did one night have a dream in which I became just lucid enough to wonder if it was a dream, and then actually did remember to ask myself 'the' question -

- whereupon, I realized that the very fact of my even 'wondering' whether I was dreaming, constituted the 'answer' that indeed the 'question' did 'exist', and therefore, I must definitely be dreaming!

Okay, sorry to get so long winded, not to mention convoluted, but I don't think it will seem nearly so complicated once you you are able to fully extricate the concept from my poor descriptive abilities..

a reply to: penroc3

“Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream”

Happen to notice that you are given problems to solve? The “stuck in a dream” thing for me is always trying to solve a problem multiple ways.

Actually, those dreams don’t leave me feeling rested the next day either. I also had a “download” uh... “dream” that left me feeling like I just came out of an epileptic fit. So I wonder if it really was a dream.

The whole experience makes me wonder about Astr0 and the whole BBT thang. Some seems like BS but then I get a binary string downloaded to my head one morning!

I am not scared as much perplexed as to why me? I am not a mover or shaker out there so... why??

Don’t be scared! Learn how to peel the illusions away. And once you can do that they don’t mess with you as much!

Maybe you are a Foreverman of ATS!! Could be worse I guess!

I think you totally made sense... the POSSIBILITY of whether or not you may be dreaming would only be probable while in the dream state.

a reply to: lostgirl

I don't want to scare you but remember reading about a person that woke up from a coma after many years. He said whilst in the coma he would wake up, get out of bed to go to the bathroom to shave then instantly wake up again and the same process would repeat, time and time again, for years.

I am happy that I rarely remember my dreams.

That scares you, but that is not the same level as being terrified. Next time try laying down in dream and falling asleep again. You will be blasted very far into depth of dreaming that to return is possible only by a matter of luck or will. Don't fight it just go with it and try a walk down the street to a shop and read the news paper to check the date and headline. If its the future find the lotto numbers page.

originally posted by: penroc3
a reply to: DictionaryOfExcuses

careful what you ask for, you might get it.

its fun for a bit when your lucid and can be very enjoyable but it can also be the essence of true terror and fear.

penroc3… perhaps your deeper self is 'toying around' with getting trapped in a dream-state... maybe like falling into a Coma or else flirting with an involuntary 'Astral Projection' happening in your Livid Dreamscape


the OP sounded like the situation being 'outwardly coordinated' but with your reply post content that I emphasized---
perhaps you are engaged in a weird type of Russian Roulette Game with trying to be being trapped in the Dream-Loop in some way....but actually recovering in the Normal, Waking World Reality I, somehow



be careful, friend

a reply to: lostgirl

that is an interesting question, being truly awake i have only had one time where i can truly say i had to ask myself if i was dreaming. but in the dream realm anytime i have had the presence of mind to ask myself if i was dreaming it 9/10 times wakes me up.


my false awakenings usually end in panic because i do in fact ask myself if i am dreaming and i realize i am and can't wake myself up.

the one time in my waking life where i really honestly questioned if i was dreaming was my girlfriend and i were just laying together on the couch watching a movie, she had fallen asleep and was resting on me when all of a sudden she sat straight up and started talking to me and telling me some extremely scary things and i could FEEL something wasn't right.

like in a bad dream you can feel the sinister atmosphere and energy. I actually started to think i was dreaming because of the extremely odd energy and actions of my g.f. it got to the point i had to yell at her to snap out of it. her eyes were open but it was like no one was home.


TEOTWAWKIAIFF: I have noticed that i will time and again go to the same place and i will have a 'mission' of sorts, or a problem to solve in the world around me and these are the dreams that can be months or even years apart and i will snap right back to where i woke up from the last time. these are some of the most vivid dreams i have.

as far as the BBT thing i have a reoccuring dream i've had for years and years before even reading the astr0 saga. in my dreams it is always dusk or night time, but in this dream my mom and i are in her house and we are standing at a window looking into the sky and there are 3 points of light.

they grow in size and intensity, my mom starts to panic and i tell her not to leave me so she stays, it's at this moment i KNOW they are coming and they are coming for me. three large black triangles are now at roof top level and closing in a slow speed but because of their size seem to be getting close very quickly.


right before they are outside the window we are looking from i wake up. happens the same way every time and like i said i have had this dream for YEARS.

i have also had a reoccuring dream where my sister,mom,grandma and i are all in a car going to a carnival or fair. and we pull of the road and park in this grass lot where there are other cars and people milling around.

i notice there are spent 5.56 shells in the grass and when i look up there is a girl walking towards me and she asks me if i am ready to go. and for some reason i start walking with her and we are flanked by men in what looks like USAF dress uniforms.

its night out and the group of people and their escorts and i are led into a open field where a large white rectangle of light opens in the air right above the ground and we are led thru the light/door and we are on a tropical island and there is a gray alien in a 'flight suit'/uniform. She walks up to me and i instantly know who she is and that we have know each other for avery long time and are in fact good friends.


i get a tour of the base they are working on and i realise im not on earth anymore but there are normal people there as well as a few of these gray alien type people.

during the dream i was tricked into providing a 'dna sample' and it upsets me allot because i tell her if she asked i would have given freely she apologizes and we walk to the same light door and as i step thru i wake up.


and i have seen smaller black triangles in real life very close so who knows, there is definitely something going on with the whole astr0 thing but i try not to read allot into any story i cant verify my self.

a reply to: St Udio

sometimes i have wondered if that place is where i really belong and here is just the illusion.

originally posted by: penroc3

my false awakenings usually end in panic because i do in fact ask myself if i am dreaming and i realize i am and can't wake myself up.

Oh gosh, I'm so sorry! I was so busy blathering to get my thought expressed, that I didn't realize I had missed the above point...

I don't know if this will help, but when I was a kid, I learned that I could wake myself up from nightmares by concentrating on screaming as loud as possible...

...I mean, in a very 'deliberate', exaggerated way - I throw my head back (from within my dream 'body'), open my mouth as wide as it will go, take a deep breath, and just scream at the top of my lungs until I wake up (oddly enough, not really screaming at all)

Wow, that was a freaky episode with your girlfriend! Did she remember anything afterward?

And that recurring dream with the alien sure sounds similar to various 'abduction' scenarios...dna sample and all..

I do hope you can find a solution that helps with these dreams you're currently having - if you feel comfortable keeping the thread updated, I would like to hear how it goes..

Take care