Have you ever tried to wake up, but every time you tried to wake up your experience repeated itself? This is what you call a false awakening (FA). False awakenings are interesting and important to know what they are because you can become lucid of them.

What are false awakenings?

A false awakening is an awakening, often caused by an alarm that keeps repeating the awakening. A false awakening is not considered sleep paralysis and it is often caused by stress or anxiety.

False awakenings can be amazing for lucid dreamers because you can become lucid from them. A false awakening often happens at the moment you want to wake up. For example, you normally wake up at 8 am the false awakenings start around an hour before you normally wake up.

Is it like sleep paralysis?

Sleep paralysis is a state between waking state and dream state where you are unable to move, while you often experience hallucinations. A false awaking is a dream that keeps repeating itself and is not close to a sleep paralysis experience.

Sleep paralysis occurs when you move from REM (Rapid-Eye Movement) sleep into wakefulness.

Sleep paralysis is considered scary for people who never experienced it before or for people who have experienced it without knowing what it was. You can learn more about sleep paralysis in my sleep paralysis article.

What kinds of false awakenings are there?

There are two types of false awakenings. Those types are related to how you perceive them. These types are:

• Type 1: A false awakening that is type 1 is common to experience. A type 1 false awakening is an awakening that will show you what you would normally do when you wake up. This could be turning off your alarm and getting out of bed, getting your phone to see if you have some new messages, or you start writing in your dream journal the dreams you had last night but when you wake up you did not write them.
• Type 2: A false awakening that is considered type 2 is less common to experience. A type 2 false awakening is considered a scary false awakening that keeps repeating something you are afraid of. This could be that you wake up and hear scary sounds, you get a call from someone that tells you someone you know died, or that someone is trying to murder you.

People who experience type 2 are often people who have mental issues, this could be PTSD, depression, anxiety, or people who are addicted to drugs.

What causes false awakenings to happen?

False awakenings happen during stressful moments, when you suffer from mental issues, or when you have sleep disorders.

If you are worried about something that is going to happen you probably will experience a false awakening. However, lucid dreamers also experience false awakenings without having any of these issues. There has been no research about why people who experience false awakenings without having issues experience it, but my opinion is that lucid dreamers are having more dream awareness and it makes it influence your dreams to create a false awakening.

You may experience a false awakening when:

• You have a presentation.
• A difficult exam.
• Experience something you haven’t experienced before.

Lucid dreaming and false awakenings

False awakenings are amazing for lucid dreamers. They can be used to become lucid if you notice that these false awakenings are dreams. This is extremely hard to notice and it often requires a reality check to solve. That is why people who do a reality check every time they wake up will get a free lucid dream.

For the people who don’t know what lucid dreaming is. You could read my lucid dreaming guide and learn more about it and become a lucid dreamer yourself.

There is also an alternative method to become lucid from false awakenings, and that is by waking up differently every time you wake up. This could be by switching up what you directly do when you wake up. For example, you pick up your phone the first night, the second night you stay in bed for a bit longer, and the next night you jump out of bed. This could cause you to be able to notice that it is a dream.

Are false awakenings scary?

False awakenings can be considered scary, but it often represents your standard waking up routine over and over again. People who experience scary false awakenings are people who have mental issues, that could intervene with your false awakenings.

Don’t be afraid, because you can make it a lucid dream and make it less scary or you could even make it an amazing experience.

My personal experiences with false awakenings

I have never experienced a scary false awakening chain. My most common false awakening is waking up and getting my phone to write down my dreams. I have also experienced some interesting false awakenings before that were about investing money, moving away to another town, losing at a video game, and even sinking through the bed. I love false awakenings because they are interesting to experience.

Are false awakenings dangerous?

False awakenings are not dangerous for your health. However, if you have mental issues this could make it somewhat dangerous. This does not mean that you will experience pain from your experience but you could experience something you have seen in the past over and over again.

But then you could consider everything that can trigger bad thoughts a dangerous activity.

Do false awakenings have meanings?

A false awakening can have a deeper meaning but is often mean nothing at all. The only one who can interpret a false awakening or a dream, in general, is you. You could use guidance from online interpretations to find out if it could be considered a deeper meaning.

You may also like; 77 dream symbols and their meanings.

Can you end a false awakening?

You could possibly end a false awakening by making the false awakening a lucid dreaming experience. If you are unable to make it a lucid dream it will keep going until you finally wake up yourself. People who have a lot of dream awareness experience a shorter false awakening chain than people who have no dream awareness, because they are able to sort of wake up from them eventually.

Short about false awakening

There is also a short (a short movie) about false awakenings it is considered a fiction movie and not real, but it could be interesting to watch to learn how other people interpret false awakenings. I do not know where you can watch the movie but this is an IMDb link to the movie.

Final thoughts

False awakenings are amazing to experience and everyone should be able to learn from them. You could make them a lucid dream, and that is why false awakenings are special. Like dreams, false awakenings will end eventually.