Fell asleep, in a dream... IN A DREAM.
Fell asleep, in a dream... IN A DREAM.
I don't dream. By that I mean like 2-4 a year, but when I do they are weird. The most I've ever had was when I had a repeating dream like 3 nights in a row. Last night was one of the nights when I did dream.
So me and my dad went to a car dealership and bought a motorcycle and a cybertruck. We like to buy used cars and drive them till death to save the 'new' tax. We also wouldn't buy a motorcycle so this started off extremely strange. Anyways, I started driving the cybertruck home (it was nighttime) and I guess fell asleep at the wheel because I woke up while driving.
I am 17 and have only been driving for ~1.5 years so driving is still very scary for me, falling asleep at the wheel was extra terrifying. Some more background, my first car (a green 2016 Kia soul đź’š) has recently had the ABS and anti-slip thing warning lights turn on and off randomly, always together. My oil change is in like a week and the break fluid is probably low and nothing feels different so I was told to keep driving to school/work with it till I can get an oil change.
Back to the dream, while I was freaking out nearly crying because I fell asleep, the car somehow turned into me driving the motorcycle and going 15 over the limit at 75mph. The road I was on was going to turn into a city soon so I started slowing down, but my brakes didn't work (flashback to my IRL warning light). I started freaking out trying all sorts of stuff to slow down like wiggling back and forth on the road or pulling the emergency break (idk if motorcycles even HAVE e-brakes) but nothing was really working. I don't remember how but somehow I managed to get it down to 15mph and bailed off in some empty lot in the city.
At this point I realized it was a dream and I was like explaining it to my family the next day and laughing about it. THEN I ACTUALLY WOKE UP.
I fell asleep IN A DREAM... IN A DREAM!? It was actually so weird. There was more that smoothed it out where I wasn't just jumping from thing to thing but when I wake up my mind starts writing over the memory of the dream like a VHS tape, Is this what it's like for people who normally dream or am I just different?
Waking up in a dream is something that happened to me a few times. First time when I must've been about 7. I just remembered standing up and exiting the room to go get breakfast, then actually waking up. Realistic and all. This dream was probably inspired by some smell of breakfast that I smelled while asleep. Nothing scary there, but I was startled enough that I still remember it.
Then around 14-15, I started experiencing sleep paralysis and nightmares for a while, and then I had similar experiences, but scary this time.
Once I had a sleep paralysis episode wherein I saw a black cat-monkey-goat creature sitting on a chair in my room. Then it jumped at me and I woke up. Or did I? There was a whole moment about me talking to it in my family, I thought it wasn't the first time it happened and I was afraid to go to sleep the same night because it might happen again. But then I actually woke up. The whole thing about me not wanting to go back to sleep had also been a part of the dream. Also, I then only remembered seen the creature once even though within the dream I remered having seen it several nights, so it's a dream of which the narrative spanned several days.
Another time, it was more regular sleep paralysis, no hallucinations, but I felt very uncomfortable and was eager to wake up and there was some annoying noise, like a tinnitus. Then it stopped and I could move, so I stood up and opened the door... Then I heard the noise again, stronger, painful even, and I was back in my bed, paralyzed again.
A false awakening isn't rare, especially with lucid dreamers, but it's certainly a bizzare experience nonetheless.
My most vivid lucid dream was a false awakening loop. I just couldn't leave the dream. In hindsight I should've just enjoyed it, instead of trying to die :D
Just to say you do dream, you are just not remembering them most of the time.
I thought I didn't dream but found that if I'm interrupted during sleep then I am aware of the dream I had. You can also apparently train yourself to remember your dreams with a dream journal and alarms, although I haven't gone too far with that myself. But it intrigues me as it's a route to lucid dreaming.
What you're describing of being sort of aware you're in a dream is a step towards lucid dreaming where you are basically "awake" and in control of your dreams.
As for your dreams within dreams. I have had that - mainly as waking up and getting out of bed, then waking up again still in bed and getting up, then again. It's trippy when it happens.
you might want to tldr your final question up top, could get more answers that way.
I don't ever remember waking up in a dream and then waking up in real life, but it's such a common trope in books and TV that I'm also curious how often people falsely wake up or go to bed in dreams.
it can't be very uncommon.