I’m curious, because I’ve heard doing various things are supposed to keep you from waking up once you get that “oh crap” feeling. I’ve tried spinning, and rubbing my hands together, but neither worked because I wake up too damn fast.
It’s like… the second I realize I’m waking up, my dream body just stopts existing, and for like a nano second I’m no type of form until I wake up in my own body.
I tried rubbing my hands together in my last LD, but I literally didn’t have any hands, no body. There was basically nothing at all (no environment or anything). And when I woke up I realized I was rubbing one of my hands against my leg (the other one was tucked under my pillow).
So, how long does it take you to wake up? Do you have lots of time to stop it from happening, or what?
I’ve been wondering about this, too. I think I exit dreams even faster than you do. The transition from an LD to awake/unrelated non-lucid dream/neither awake nor dreaming is usually instantaneous for me, and there’s absolutely no indication that the dream is ending. Thus, dream-prolonging techniques are useless to me because there’s no opportunity to prolong the dream.
I’m not entirely sure, but I think I would like to wake up that quickly! It usually takes me about 10 minutes to wake up. Sometimes my friends will hit me with pillows, but it just flows into my dream and in my dream someone is hitting me with pillows. It will be especially troubling later this year when I go to D.C. and am on an extremely tight schedule. The only time that I ever won’t want an LD.
Lately I’ve been so exhausted it can take about fifteen minutes to wake up. I didn’t realize that until recently. I heard the alarm clock and I was still sort of dreaming or rather visualizing more than just how we visualize stuff while awake. So I take a long while, tell myself I’ve got to wake up and wonder about in a sort of unstable dreamland (or a very deep thoughtland) while trying to take advantage of that state to recall all the dream I just had. When I finally stand up and look at the clock, it’s been several minutes, ten or even fifteen, since the alarm went off.
It’s been a while since I’ve actually done my lucid dreaming techniques, but from what I remember, I usually woke up fairly fast (from my perspective in the dream). Usually it would seem like just a couple seconds, from when I felt myself waking up to actually opening my eyes and finding myself in bed.
Nowadays, I find myself waking up without remembering my dreams. It seems to take me a bit longer to wake up, a couple of minutes usually.
A thing that prevents me from getting that, or at least delaying it by a significant amount of time is by paying attention to everything. By noticing the colours, by smelling the land of my dreams, to tasting the things within it. Sight and hearing are the main ones, and if you just focus on that, it should stabalize you significantly enough to avoid this for quite a while.
There could definately be a mental aspect in all of this, though. Where it happens once for one reason or another, and then in the next one, you’re like, I sure hope it doesn’t end early! And then boom. Just accept the fact that you will inevitably have to wake up from your lucid dreams, accept it as an inevitable reality, and just enjoy the lucids that you get. That alone should extend your lucid dreams for a decent length.
At my point my LD’s usually last for about 30 minutes and I have no trouble staying in them.
Also is you’re trying rubbing or spinning focus on the sensation because what you’re trying to do is re-engage your mind in the dream. If you can think of anything else that might do that then give it a go.
You know, I’ve been thinking about this some (and your answers…) here here’s what I think:
Yeah, I think my problem is that I get way too desperate when I realize I’m about to wake up. One time, I actually grabbed a hold of the person standing closest to me, just clinging on for dear life; not wanting to wake up yet. Of course, I woke up anyway.
I guess it’s the same as when people first realize they’ve become lucid and get overly excited about it; that powerful feeling then cause them to wake up. I’ve personally never had that problem, but me being so desperate not to wake up is probably the same thing. Which is why I think it happens so fast.
I need to… well, I think I need to calm down somehow. But at the same time, I don’t wanna just lean back and do nothing as I’m sucked out of my dream.
But that may be exactly what you need to do.
If you would just lean back and focus on what is happening, then you might be able to strech it out, and end up staying in the dream.
Of course if your body is going to wake up anyway, there may not be anything that you can do about it. You never said if you are waking up in the middle of the night, or when you normaly wake up in the morning.
don
Well, it was in morning time that I woke up… but early morning. Not like an alarm or anything. I woke up, on my own, and then realized it wasn’t “my time” so I went back to sleep.
But I guess trying the relaxing thing won’t hurt, at least to try to stretch it out. And if I wake up anyway I guess I’ll just have to come up with some other way.
