Woke up this morning at 6:01 to the usual buzzing alarm clock and per my routine hit the snooze button. At 6:10 the alarm went again and I hit the snooze again. The cats decided that it was time to start their daily routine of bugging me to get up to feed them, prompting my regular morning routine of shooing them away from me until the next alarm buzz at 6:19. I decided, even though it was pushing it, to hit the snooze again but, a few minutes later, thought better of it and opened my eyes. To look at the clock. Which read 6:00.
The alarm had never gone off. I had never hit the snooze, the cats had never pestered me and I had never shooed them off. I had never made the (conscious) decision to hit the third snooze and then change my mind. Extremely disorienting and disconcerting.
The most vivid dream I can ever remember having. Too bad it was so dull.
One morning I, a habitual night owl and absolutely NOT a morning person, was sleeping the sleep of the just, and my wife tried to wake me. It seems she had made a big breakfast, including pancakes. She came to wake me and I dutifully got up and participated in breakfast, then went back to bed.
Except, I didn’t.
She came in a second time and woke me. I dutifully got up and participated in breakfast, then went back to bed.
Except I didn’t.
She came in a THIRD time(annoyed with me by now) and told me the pancakes were getting very cold and she wasn’t going to wait on me anymore. I dutifully got up and participated in breakfast, then went back to bed.
Can you see where this is going?
She came in a FOURTH time, very annoyed, and began to make sure I woke up this time. As I was coming out of my slumber(finally), I commented to her, exasperatedly, “I’ve eaten those damn pancakes three times now, let me sleep!”
It’s become somewhat of an inside joke with us now.
A few months ago I woke up from one nightmare only to find myself in another nightmare. It was quite disturbing. When I woke up from the second one I really had to make sure I was actually awake.
There’s a Calvin and Hobbes comic with this precise theme, except Calvin goes through the whole miserable morning and nearly makes it to school (IIRC) before being woken up by his mother.
Otto, with a touch of lucid dreaming, you may be able to turn ‘waking up’ into ‘schmoozing with a gaggle of supermodels by the poolside and lighting your cigar with hundred-dollar bills’…
(You know how you always see the people in movies waking up from nightmares and sitting bolt upright, and how it never really happens?
I once had the most vivid dream about standing at the top of the stairs, being lifted about two feet off the floor, and plunging down through the air–and I woke up and did the whole sitting-upright thing out of sheer terror. That was pretty bad.)
I once woke up, went to school, and made it nearly to lunch before waking up and having to do it all over again. This was in junior high, so I was walking from class to class. I also wasn’t paying much attention in class. It was one of a few times I can remember no knowing that I was dreaming.
And then there’s the one where he gets up, gets ready for school, and then falls off into space when he walks out the front door. He wakes up as he’s falling, gets up, gets ready for school, and falls off into space again. In the last panel, it shows his mom telling him to get up, and he’s looking afraid that the same thing will happen again.
Actually, I have. One thing that I have been known to do is to come straight out of the bed, looking possessed, into not just a standing, but a fighting position. It’s always (in my mind) triggered by something out of the ordinary, but no one else is ever affected by it. I have only been wrong once – most of the times this has happened, it was right before someone knocked on the door in the middle of the night, right before a tornado flew overhead, right before something – in my unconcious mind I guess I am extremely sensitive to tiny noises/changes. I’ve done the sit up bolt straight in bed from a dream before, too. Obviously, the sleeping-to-ready-for-a-UFC-match maneuver is much funnier to watch.
Funny enough, while things that would never wake up the lightest sleeper on the planet will send me flying to the floor in fight mode, I can sleep through a rock concert sitting dead in front of the stage (yes, that actually has happened before!). Noises that are “normal” (such as music, even blaring, at a concert) don’t affect me, but a frickin’ mouse chewing on something in the walls will have me out of the bed in seconds.
I have had those dreams within dreams before, too. They get on my last nut.
I have also launched myself out of the bed while waking up. On another occasion, I had a nightmare about having ants crawling all over me (ugh!) While waking up from that one, I leaped out of bed and started frantically trying to brush them off me. Mr. Neville was quite mystified…
Twice, that I know of, I’ve jumped up or sat up from a sound sleep.* Once was much like yours, where I LAUNCHED myself out of bed over some sort of creepy crawly (most likely a snake) that I dreamed was slithering up into my bed. Had to wait quite a long time for the adrenaline to wear off.
The other time (chronologically earlier), I was sound asleep when my older brother (I was 14, he was 19), who was sharing a room with me for a couple of months, came home from work. I sat straight up, arms waving frantically above my head, while I was screaming bloody murder. My brother (a 2nd degree black-belt in tai-kwon-do) immediately suspects there’s an intruder, drops into a fighting stance, and looks for someone’s ass to kick. I, meanwhile, collapse back into my bed.
At least, that’s what my brother told me what happened. I’d slept through the whole event. He was very
(I’ve trained myself to sleep through all sorts of noises - e.g. snoring, loud neighbors having sex at 3am, traffic, etc - or respond to minor ones - e.g. my cell-phone’s vibration, the little click my radio alarm makes before it plays music, VHF radio static from when I was working as an EMT/Paramedic. Otherwise I am a SOUND sleeper. It takes a lot to get me awake when I’m not expecting you.)
One time I dreamed I was eating a giant rack of lamb. I had the distinct feeling of chewing something during my dream. I figured it was just my pillow, but my pillow was still there when I woke up, sans bite-marks or drool. There was a giant half-eaten lamb carcass on the ground next to my bed though.
I frequently dream that someone calls me, waking me from my sleep, and midway through the conversation, I fall asleep again. I can’t count how many times I’ve woken up and had to look at my caller ID to find out if I really did fall asleep mid phonecall. (Not yet!)
Once it happened when I had fallen asleep with the TV on. Sounds from TV and radio frequently affect my dreams. In this particular instance, I dreamed that an aunt had called me and was droning on and on about asparagus (something she would be very likely to do in reality). I woke up, wondered whether she had actually called me and was about to check the Caller ID when I realized Martha Stewart was on TV, talking about asparagus.
I had a very lucid dream last night. Dreamt I was on a business trip to DC and the hotel had screwed up my reservations. I ended up sleeping in my car and made a very bad /rumpled impression at the meeting I was to attend the next day.
I was there to try to convice Al Gore to run for president, and it didn’t go well at all…
