Dreams: By Tag: False Awakening

Tuesday, February 02, 2010: Strange House

He was lying in bed with his wife, trying to sleep. The room appeared unfamiliar to him. He got out of bed and walked into the unfamiliar kitchen. He pulled a chair out and away from the kitchen table and sat down. He thought to himself, Am I dreaming or am I awake? He remembered to look at his hands. He looked at his right hand, and it looked normal. He looked at his left hand, and his fingers faded. I am dreaming, he thought. Family members and friends entered, spoke briefly, and exited: his son and his daughter, his father, his friend Jeremy, his friend Bob. He stood up and walked back into the bedroom and laid down next to his wife.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008: Medusa

He stumbled out of bed into the bathroom. Dark shapes slithered behind the shower curtain. His vision dimmed until he was blind. He called out for help, but there was no answer.

He found himself back in bed. In the dark, his wife stood over him. He began to get up, and saw her face was a mass of writhing worms.

He knew he was asleep, and he tried to call out in his sleep to his wife sleeping next to him. A scratching at his leg woke him; the dog must have heard him crying out.

Saturday, April 26, 2008: Tornado, waking dream, father

He stood in a high apartment with others. Through a center window, he saw a tornado form from the underside of a hovering rectangle. He pointed it out to the others, and warned them. Suddenly, all was swept away by the tornado. He kept his eyes closed, but he could feel himself carried away by the wind.

Suddenly, he woke up, and he was lying in a bed. His father lay on his right next to him, holding him by the shoulder, shaking him awake and keeping him from falling off of the bed. “Where did you come from?” he asked. “I was tired, so I decided to lay down here. You were having a bad dream, so I woke you up.”

Monday, January 14, 2008: Waking dream of the snowstorm

I get out of bed. Looking out the front window, I see snow falling, covering the ground. Plows drive by. I want to take a look out the front door to get a better view. I open the front hall door and step into the hall. I peer out the front door window, and a spectral face is staring back at me. I feel afraid. But I know that I am asleep, so I try to wake myself up. I know that my wife is sleeping next to me, if I need to signal her to wake me. I can move the fingers on my right hand, and I can feel my rapid breath flowing in and out of my nostrils. Then I wake up.

My dream recall has dropped over the last week; I do not know why. And my dog was restless, keeping me from falling asleep for hours after going to bed.

Saturday, December 15, 2007: Sleep paralysis and seven other dreams

After falling asleep, I dreamed that I was lying in bed. The room was dark. The bedsheets were white. I could feel the dog lying on the bed at my feet, and my wife was lying to my left; I was turned on my side facing her. I could not move! I could not speak! I tried to wake up but I could not wake up. I could feel shapes sliding past me, shadows, nightmare thoughts, slipping past me, trying to emerge: a mouth, lips and teeth, fingertips. With great concentration, I moved my right hand over myself. I could feel it tingling, as if it were waking up. I tried to speak to my wife. Shelby, help me wake up! I repeated this over and over.

Finally, in real life, she woke me up. She said that she heard me while she was sleeping, asking her to help me. After sitting up with the lamp on for a few minutes, I returned to sleep.

I had a dream that I was investigating a cellar with my aunts Florence and Jeanne. It was dark, and made of old poured concrete. There was a door which we entered from the ground level. The cellar was cluttered with objects so covered with dust and cobwebs, I could not distinguish them. There were spiders and other insects crawling about. I kicked a piece of something, and silverfish crawled from under it. One spider was at least three feet across! At the other end of the cellar was a door, and stairs up to another door. Below the first door was a rectangular drop, without stairs, a ten foot cubic hollow with another door! I asked my aunts about it and they said they did not know where the door leads to. I considered how I would climb down to investigate

I had a dream that I was on a tour bus. The bus was full of people of all kinds. A group of children were sitting together. I told them the story of Jesus. When I concluded, one of them asked with astonishment if it was true. I laughed and said, no, it was not true.

I had a dream that my silky terrier was chasing rats around and bringing them back to me in his mouth. I felt worried that he would catch a disease from them. The rats he brought back had big teeth.

I had a dream that I was chewing something, and the teeth on the left side of my mouth crumbled to pieces. After, I inspected them, and they were all still intact.

I had a dream that I was walking up my street. An old high school friend, Brian, pulled over in a convertible and offered me a ride. I got in the car, and began to tell him everything that had happened since I saw him last.

I had a dream that I walked the dog outside, and it was warm. When I went back inside the house, the house felt cold. I mentioned this to my wife, and suggested we open the windows of the house to let in the warm air.

The last dream left me with only vague impressions of being at a party, and meeting a celebrity, but I can remember no details.

Monday, July 02, 2007: Capsized, Spinning, False Awakening

I stood on the covered deck of a wooden watercraft, cubic in shape, ten paces to each side. I leaned overboard, reaching towards the dark sea, and touched the bobbing green glass bottles that surrounded my craft. Suddenly, the ship rocked hard and capsized. I fell overboard, under-ship, falling into a bottomless hole in the sea.

Then I half woke and fell back asleep, dreaming of whirling circles before my eyes.

I tried to wake myself, making noises in my sleep. My wife shook my hand and woke me. I felt grateful. Suddenly, she craned her neck and back in an impossible pose, and asked, “How do I know that I am awake?” I shut my eyes and woke up.

Monday, July 31, 2006: Haunted

I walked into a small bedroom and got into bed. The room was dark. It reminded me of my old bedroom of Grafton Street. The bedroom door opened, and I could make out a shadowy outline. It was my mother. She closed the door. She approached the side of my bed. She was trying to tell me something, but the sound was muffled. I felt afraid of this apparition, and tried to wake myself without success for a long period of time. Finally, I had a false awakening, in my own bedroom, where I was still paralyzed with sleep. I tried to speak to my wife, to get her to wake me, but my voice was muffled. Finally, I really woke up.

Wednesday, October 06, 2004: Gaming Group, Waking Dream

I was at home at night with my gaming group. We stepped off the back porch for a break, and to walk my dog. The cement steps were under repair, so I had to carefully step off of them, since there was no railing. The house was unfamiliar to me. There was a green dumpster tipped on its side, and a television was inside the dumpster. I was opening a bottle of soda. As I twisted the cap, the rush of carbonated air between my fingers made a weird whistling or droning sound. I tried to demonstrate it to my gaming group, but the TV was on, and its volume was loud. The cartoon “Ed, Edd n Eddy” was playing. I asked Josh if he could turn the TV off. He tried to, but it kept turning back on. I tried to shut it off, but the same thing happened. Finally, I figured out that Jeremy had a remote control, and was keeping the TV turned on. But the carbonation had run out of the soda. “Great job,” I said, frustrated, “That’s what everybody wanted to see.”

I am often annoyed at the distracting conversations and activities that take place instead of gaming, while we are gaming.

I had a waking dream. I wake up in bed, facing a window. The window is open, and it is day. Outside the window, I see a swing suspended from a tree branch. The swing is swinging by itself. I notice a branch from an arbor vitae is caught in the swing. The momentum of the swing grows, and as the swing goes higher, the branch of arbor vitae grows. It takes on a man-shape. Finally, I realize that I am dreaming. I try to wake up, but I can’t. I whisper to my wife to help me to wake up. But only my dream-wife hears me. She shakes me a little, and I wake up.

I don't know why an arbor vitae on a swing would be so scary to me, but it was.

Thursday, August 12, 2004: False Awakenings

Last night, I had several false awakenings, where I struggled to wake up in my own bed. I imagined a lurking, unseen presence. I mocked it, and it never really troubled me.