This morning I had a dream, right before waking, wherein I needed the toilet, but the only toilets available were those ones that you needed a license to use. Similar to a TV license. This was just assumed knowledge in my dream. “Everyone knows about them”. I ended up taking a chance and using the toilet unlicensed (no I did not wet the bed). As soon as I woke up, I began to doubt the existence of such toilet licensing and took me a few minutes to become certain they did not exist.
Anyone else have similarly absurd beliefs from a dream that caused uncertainty upon waking?
About 10 years ago I was doing a tolerance break (not smoking cannabis for a few weeks to decrease tolerance). I never remember my dreams, but during t-breaks I dream vivid dreams and often remember them.
So I had a dream where I won a Mega-Billions Lottery drawing. It was so cool. I bought homes for friends, bought a jet/pilot to fly me around, looked up old friends, etc. It was one big party. I’d walk into my favorite bar and buy rounds for everyone. Everybody was happy.
Then I woke up, complete with a smile on my face. For roughly a minute I was exhilarated. Then it hit me that it was all a dream. I was seriously depressed for a few days. People kept asking me what was wrong but I couldn’t tell them.
That is rough 
Many years ago I was sharing a place with other shift workers. One morning I woke up and had the place to myself. I got up, made myself a cup of coffee and sat down to drink it. I continued to work out how I was going to get way when the police arrived to arrest me; out the back door, over the fence into the laneway. Suddenly I realized that, not only were the police not coming to arrest me, I had not done anything to be arrested for. I could almost feel my tough guy gangster persona being washed away, leaving just plain old ordinary me.
I once had a dream that when I’d hold a small, torn piece of cardboard in one hand, and wave the other had over it, the material would turn into a faceted diamond. I was a kid, but it seemed so real, and over fifty years later I remember that I was pretty upset when I woke up and realized it wasn’t true.
To answer your question, yes I have but my waking belief lasted for only a few seconds until I realized it was a dream.
My college roommate had a tooth fall out in the middle of the night while sleeping. It took several hours to realize it was only a dream. I had the same dream about ten years later. In my case, I immediately remembered the college incident, so I stuck my finger in my mouth to see whether a tooth was actually missing.
Every now and then, I have a dream where I wake up and I’m checking whether I have just dreamed something or whether I’m remembering something from real life. I’ve likely had this happen with dreams similar to the one above - I often have anxiety dreams.
Is there any other kind? My gf dreams she’s at the airport and can’t find her gate. I dream I’m in college, can’t find where I need to be for a final exam that I haven’t prepared for.
I had a dream like @kayaker 's. I won the lotto but told myself i would NOT quit my job until i had the money in my hand and KNEW this wasn’t a dream.
Well, i got the money in my hand and was so excited i woke myself up to great disappointment.
Most of my dreams are obviously dreams while they’re happening, and I remember them for a few seconds after I wake up, then they quickly fade. Only a few dozen have felt intensely real and stuck with me years later, but I’ve realized they were all dreams upon thinking about them; except for one years ago:
I don’t remember how I got there, but I remember being in a dark secluded forest-like setting and slowly murdering a smaller weaker person by strangulation. It was scary-real and I had a sickening rush and sense of power that this person couldn’t stop me, and excitement that I was going to get away with it. My victim eventually expired, I knew they were definitely dead, and that no one had seen me do it. All that remained to do was to bury the body, but my crime scene was so secluded that there was no rush and I had plenty of time to take a rest first, so I laid down and relaxed.
Then I woke up (for real), and thought “Oh shit! gotta remember to go bury the body! Everything went perfect; I can’t mess this up right at the end”. So I got out of bed and started to think where I needed to go, what I needed to bring with me, and realized there were gaps in my memory. Where did I do this again? How far away was it? What day of the week is it? Do I need to call in sick to work first? I was getting anxious about all these details I couldn’t recall. Then slowly started to think… maybe this was all a dream?
The thing is, because of those memory gaps and where I lived at the time, I can’t prove to myself that it was impossible for me to have done this… nobody at the time was reported missing, but in the “dream” this person was someone who wouldn’t have been missed anyway. I drank quite a bit at the time as well, and although I never left the house when doing so, it is possible for me to have blacked out and not remembered something that really did happen.
Now, it’s absurd to believe I’d have actually done something so out of character for me for no memorable reason, and that I’d just gotten away with it by luck. But the reality of the dream, the very real anxiety I had about needing to finish the job when I woke up, and the possibility of it to this day flashes through my mind occasionally. Honestly, I can only say I’m 99% sure it was a dream.
Not absurd, but simply counterfactual. I was dreaming that it was raining. Woke up, triple-essed, got dressed for PT, left the barracks, fell in. It was only at that point that I realized it wasn’t raining, and hadn’t been at all. The powers of sleep deprivation…