It’s a common phenomenon in lucid dreaming.  You are lucid, enjoying being fully “awake” and aware inside of your dream, when you wake up.  You might tell your spouse about your lucid dream, then go on to start your day.  Then, you really wake up.  Abashedly you realize you were fooled in the second half of your dream by a false awakening.

There is a mechanism in the dream psyche that, for lack of a better description, tries to trick you back into unconsciousness if you get too aware.  False awakenings (thinking you’ve awakened, you go back into believing what you are seeing is reality, and you are sucked back into the dream, back into unconsciousness) are a powerful trick.  False awakenings tend to pile on…If, after one false awakening, you begin to suspect that you may still be dreaming, another false awakening is supplied, satisfying your suspicion, and putting you back to sleep.  There are other tricks, appropriate to and appearing in certain stages of awakening or getting lucid, such as dream characters telling lies to convince you that you are awake, and your own dream ego rationalizing odd events as normal.  Hence, you remain believing that the false reality (the dream) is real, and stop applying your critical faculties to your perceptions (remain asleep within the dream).

Now, in my waking life, as I’ve expanded my mindfulness practice, I have the experience of “waking up” many times.  It seems as though I am bringing a new amount of consciousness to my life, and seeing more of the reality of what is…But am I?  Are these false awakenings?

Let me do a thought experiment here.  I am going to repeat the second paragraph of this article, replacing "dream" with "wake-dream".  This is the first time I’ve tried this, so let’s see:

There is a mechanism in the wake-dream psyche that, for lack of a better description, tries to trick you back into unconsciousness if you get too aware.  False awakenings (thinking you’ve awakened, you go back into believing what you are seeing is reality, and you are sucked back into the wake-dream, back into unconsciousness) are a powerful trick.  False awakenings tend to pile on…If, after one false awakening, you begin to suspect that you may still be wake-dreaming, another false awakening is supplied, satisfying your suspicion, and putting you back to sleep.  There are other tricks, appropriate to and appearing in certain stages of awakening or getting lucid, such as wake-dream characters telling lies to convince you that you are awake, and your own wake-dream ego rationalizing odd events as normal.  Hence, you remain believing that the false reality (the wake-dream) is real, and stop applying your critical faculties to your perceptions (remain asleep within the wake-dream).

You know what?  I’d be willing to stand behind that new paragraph.  My multiple “awakenings” in life sure fit the pattern of repeated false awakenings.  The people and events around me do have a way of sucking me in and making me lose consciousness.  My ego does convince me of its reality, distracting me from what is.

Awakening?  I have my moments. 

But, fully awakening?  Nope.  In that sense, I absolutely am having false awakenings.  In fact, I am having a false awakening right now!

Still…

Is it a false awakening if you know you are still dreaming?