Type 2 False Awakening and What You Can Do About It
False awakening is, unfortunately, a common occurrence when it comes to dreaming. Even if you can’t remember them right off the top of your head, I’m sure that at one point or another you’ve experienced a false awakening. A false awakening occurs when a dreamer is in the middle of a dream and they dream that they wake up. What’s usually the case in terms of a false awakening dream is that the dreamer will think that their current surroundings are a part of their everyday lives no matter how bizarre some aspects of the dream may be. That’s a normal type of false awakening dream. That type of false awakening is known as a type 1. But what about the other type of false awakening? What makes it so different from type 1?
The first difference that you’ll see when comparing a type 1 false awakening with a type 2 false awakening is that a type 2 is very rare. Unlike a type 1 false awakening, a type 2 false awakening is also very easily remembered. A type 1 will usually depict scenes and actions that could be taken out of your waking life. You’ll dream that you woke up late for school again and had to get your mom to drive you. There will be odd moments in the dream where you realize that things aren’t as they usually are, but the sense of wrongness is easily ignored for the most part. In a type 2 false awakening dream, that sense of wrongness is all that a dreamer will notice.
They will ‘wake up’ in a dream and immediately the idea that something is not quite right in the world takes a hold of them. A feeling of suspense and even fear is often prevalent in these types of dreams, and very rarely do dreamers realize that what they’re feeling is all the product of a dream, no matter how strange or frightening a situation the dream has placed them in.
What makes a false awakening dream so stressful is that the person going through the dream thinks that they are experiencing a real-life situation. This makes any sense of fear or dread that a dreamer has that much more intense than what they would normally experience in a garden variety nightmare. When you start to experience one false awakening after another, no matter what type of false awakening it happens to be, you’ll start to see just how much these types of dreams can affect your waking life. A false awakening can be both scary and frustrating, but they don’t have to become a nuisance as long as you know a few tricks to stop these types of dreams in their tracks.
One of the first things you can do to either alleviate or stop a false awakening, no matter if it is a type 1 or 2, is to exercise regularly. At this point, it may seem as if people are recommending exercise to fix just about everything, and if you’ve noticed that, then you have a good eye. Exercise can help with your skin, your weight, your blood pressure, and in this particular case, your dreams. When you wake up, before you go to sleep, or just in the middle of the night before you drift back off into la-la land, try getting up and doing some light exercises. You want something easy that you can finish in about ten minutes or so.
Another possible solution for false awakenings is to have a snack before you go to sleep. Something small and full of carbs usually does the trick and, if you feel as if you need to do the whole warm milk before beddy-bye thing, then go right ahead. I won’t judge you…but that’s mostly because I won’t be able to tell who does it.
Also, for those who suffer from frequent false awakenings, try to relax before going to bed and also refrain from things like alcohol and caffeine before you go to sleep. False awakening seems to occur most often in people who are hyper aware, so if you ease that awareness you should be able to get a decent night’s sleep without having to ‘wake up’ in the middle of it.
Further Reading:
- Dream argument: Evil daemon, False awakening, Lucid dream, Maya (illusion), The Matrix, Reality in Buddhism, Simulation hypothesis, Simulated reality, Solipsism, Voltaire, Waking Life, Multiverse (ISBN 9786130263294): Frederic P. Miller, Agnes F. Vandome, John McBrewster
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