Dreaming You are Dreaming

To dream that you are dreaming can mean a lack of attention to everyday affairs. It can also suggest you are only dreaming, only imagining, or that you haven’t woken up to something. But more likely it is a way to hide feelings we do not wish to acknowledge.

What you experience when you “wake up” in a dream suggests the meaning is very significant. Your dream creator is telling you to really be aware of what the dream is trying to communicate. It could also be a first step to the lucid state.

Bruce Marcot says, “ I’m sure I’m not the only one to have dreams within dreams … such as experiencing a nightmare and waking up in bed, only to discover that it’s still a dream because something unearthly happens and then I finally, really wake up from that”.

Example: And even if I was the subject of the dream I developed two techniques to avoid having to deal with the emotions arising in the dream.  One way was to change myself into another person and become the observer of that person;  the other way was, when things got really scary, to ask myself whether or not I was dreaming and turn the dream into a dream within the dream; only realizing that they were both in fact dreams, when I awakened.  I was always quite relieved that I could do this and avoid having to handle situations that I would rather not have dealt with.

This dreamer has developed a massive technique of repression, a way of avoiding instead of dealing with his fears. See Masters of Nightmares

But there is another definition of dreaming within a dream – lucid dreaming. See dream within a dream

Example: I noticed thousands of small stone’s embedded in the earth like a mosaic. I had never noticed these before, despite having walked that hill in dreams many times. I believe the boy threw a piece into the sky, making it fall like a meteorite.

In this case the person does not dream that they are dreaming, but in their dream remembers other dreams. The resulting insight into this was seen as; it means through an inner weakness or instability; I have not made it a conscious or whole life reality; I have not built it into my waking life. Therfore it remains a dream.

But here is an example of waking in a dream:

Example: In my dream I was watching a fern grow. It was small, but opened very rapidly. As I watched, I became aware that the fern was an image representing a process occurring within myself, one that I grew increasingly aware of as I watched. Then I was fully awake in my dream and realised that my dream (perhaps any dream) was an expression in images of actual events occurring unconsciously in myself. I felt enormous excitement, as if I were witnessing something of great importance.

Useful questions and hints:

What feelings are in the dream, and can you acknowledge them?

What is the surface you and what is the deeper you feelings?

What are the differences between the do dreams?

See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Programmed

Comments

-Maria Elen Mina 2016-12-29 6:22:43

Lately I am having this reoccuring lucid dream.
In the first one we are visiting a friend and suddenly we all have to leave. For some reason I stay behind and have to go down to the lobby on my own. I always take the stairs with my younger sister but the stairs seem to be neverending. They are in this odd spiral shape and there are all these ghostly figures surrounding me as they also descent the endless spiral stairs.
Somehow my sister finds another way to leave the apartment so she ends up in the lobby with my parents and I am seeing them leaving without me. I shout for them to come back but no one listens.
After following the staircase fir a long time and finding no destination I wake up in another dream. On this dream I am in a flat ,that me and my sisters are sharing, and I go up to my parent’s apartment to do some breakfast. On this point I seem to lose the control of the dream and end up in a completely diffetent place than I intended to be.
I am in an ofgice where everyone is working.I look around fir a bit to see the same surroundings, people,offices,bathroomd and kitchens. After getting bored I try to find a way out if the dream but every exit I turn to turns into a dead end corrindor. I am panicking and thete is this feeling of helplessly suffocating. I start to run faster trying to reach yhe exits befaure they dissapear but I never reach them in time. After this I wake up shocked and scared only to find that it is near 5 o clock in the morning in real life and I haven’t managed to figure out the dream again. No matter how hard I try to change the dream consiously I never find the exits in the end.

-Virginia Jones 2016-12-26 22:24:59

I just awoke from a false awakening. Only this time is happened a series of six times. Always in the same room, by with different factors every time that I picked up on to realise that I was, in fact still dreaming. (Ie: a tv or wardrobe out of place, my hands looking distorted, people talking in the next room when I am alone). This happened six times tonight before I actually pulled myself awake. This has been happening over the last few months slowly but not this many times in one dream, I wish it would stop as it causes me distress. I am a frequent lucid dreamer and always realise I am in the dream and force myself to pop out and wake up when I don’t like the way things are going, I do not like not being able to pop out. I even, lately, have been dreaming of going to sleep – waking up in another dream, then popping back down to the initial dream before realizing I am still in a dream and then trying to pop myself out of that.
This is all very confusing to me and seriously disrupting my sleep. It’s 5a.m. – this is the third time tonight I have been up since going to bed at midnight. I thought you were only supposed to dream during rem sleep? No way have I been in that sleep stage 3 times in the past 5 hours? Yes? No? I am utterly confused and not wanting to go back to sleep now.

-Joel 2016-12-10 9:20:18

I dreamt that I was first in a car accident. My wife was driving a bus and had the accident with cars that stopped to quickly we were all outside and somehow ended in a flood lIke river that we knew was too strong to get out of. As I’m sitter there floating Im in like a flood drain sewer where my extended family who I haven’t seen in years is using the water falling down to get clean fresh water. I get my water and go to leave. And see my 2 year old in the sewer area. I realize I didn’t see him in the flood waters and I must have fallen asleep and am dreaming the sewer and think if I can just kiss him I’ll wake up and can make sure he’s safe and it’s a fight to kiss him. He’s too heavy to pick up. Then when I do I wake up in my bed disoriented because I thought I was going to be floating hanging onto a floating raft

-ayenn 2016-11-27 21:29:53

my daughter was dreamt of such a story…and continously..on that dream she was with another girl..thing is she met this girl in real life..( they are bests friends now..)and that girl dreamt exactly the same as my daughter..
today,,my son dreamt on his dream…and my daughter and her friend is on that dream too..and when my daughter skyped my son and asking the details she was so amazed that the place where my son lives ( which my daughter never seen yet) was the place of her dream..not only that…daughter”s friend was there too and when they are chatting on skype this girl told her ohter friend about the dream..could this possible to happen??they’re meeting and seeing each other inside one particular dream…so confusing

-Wilson 2016-11-22 18:51:17

Not sure if this is the right place, but have been having a recurring dream for several months where I wake up in my room. I am awakened in that dream I am having and walk outside and everything is as it should be when I am really awake, but then I wake up again and do the same thing and go outside and things are different and this keeps going on until I think I am finally awake, but then I go outside and everything as it was when stared and then I wake up for real.

-Jennifer Saunders 2016-11-15 11:43:48

Good morning I jus woke up from the craziest dream within a dream never has this happened to me before I was at the bank asking to change in my change for dollars and the lady handed me four bills bit they where strange because they where six bills all had six on them I had seen two dollar bills before but never six’s so then my husband work me up and I reached in my pocket to show him this strange money and it came out as cut out news paper he showed me the news paper I cut it out from and I thought well I must have been sleep walking to do this which was really scary then I woke up firewall scares to death now I’m on celeb and synthroid and I have bad anxiety help meeee

-Zoe 2016-11-04 13:59:03

Hi I had a weird dream .. It was like a dream within a dream I was asleep but in my dream i felt someone on bed next to me so I pushed them away tried to open my eyes it felt so real I could feel there skin there face but wen I woke up from the dream within a dream they had gone so I fell asleep again and they appeared again and I went through the same struggle I was being attacked in my bed and it was wen I fell asleep in my already dreaming state that this would happen so I had to try and fight my eyes open until my neighbour knocked on door and I stayed in her room but that didn’t actually happen as I was still dreaming but it stopped the attacking till I prop woke up

-Delta 2016-11-04 10:53:14

I had a dream within a dream just very recently. I dreamt that I was someone special, grouped into a group or other “specials”. My specialty, I didnt know at first, but then I realised I smelled something and immediately I know I am dreaming. Then I ate soup with the other specials. They all started showing their specialties. One puked out of his stomach, literally. And so on. I awoke from that dream into the next one. I was then in my room. My young aunt came by and is now trying to sleep on my bed. My parents were there too. My parents and I get ready to go downstairs and again, I smelled food. Fried things. The whole time I transition back and forth between the two dreams, in and out of one another but I know they are in the same “world”. After, I found myself in my room again, but this time only with a close friend. I told her that I had been smelling things in dreams within dreams. Only at this point did I realise I knew I was dreaming. Yet, I couldnt control anything. Please tell me what this means.

-Bonnie M 2016-10-18 13:21:22

I had a dream within a dream that all my teeth were falling out. What could this mean? This is not the first time that I had dreams with in dreams.

    -Tony Crisp 2016-10-19 10:37:55

    Bonnie – it depends on so many things that you have mentioned, like what did you feel when you saw your teeth falling out.

    You have not given enough information for me to understand your dream. Things to remember when writing to us with your dream:
    You have not given enough information for me to understand your dream. Things to remember when writing to us with your dream:
    • Write down anything that you think might have triggered the dream or links with it in some way.
    • Put in any insights you have about people or animals in your dream – it has to be the character of them as they appear in the dream.
    • Please let us know your age and gender.
    • Describe any emotions expressed or indicated in the dream.
    Associations are the real way to understand the language of dreams. Everything we see during the day we form associations with – even the association of disinterest. When I was working on the new site design, the designer said to me, “What’s the point of dreams – they don’t mean anything do they”. I noticed he had a T-shirt on that looked as if had been used quite a lot. So, I said to him, “What about that T-shirt? If you dreamt of it what would you think it meant?”
    He said it wouldn’t mean anything. So then I asked he where he had got it and what memories were attached to it. He said he had got it in America, but when pressed to explain his memories he refused to answer, looking embarrassed.

    Tony

-j.A 2016-10-14 22:52:18

I just woke up from the strangest thing, I was dreaming within a dream. This ones a first because I have been trying to lucid dream, but it never occurred to me of having a dream so intense within another dream.In my dream, I fell asleep on the floor, when suddenly I go into sleep paralysis and realized this is the perfect opportunity to lucid dream. So I tried to fly. I wanted to fly so bad that when I did,my body went shooting up to the sky so fast like rocket. I went past the sky and the universe then into a wear tunel with black and white stripes, almost as if I was getting transported somewhere else, then I woke up in the dream. I started telling my dream to my brother when I woke up in reality.
it was a fun dream, but very strange

-Brian K. 2016-10-03 0:21:01

I had a dream that doesn’t quite fit this description, or the lucid dreaming description. It has me very curious.

I was on a bus filled with people. The bus wasn’t in motion. it was dark outside. There was a red tint to the sky as smoke was rising up with minimal lighting way off on the horizon.

At one point I was talking to a woman on the bus. I don’t remember what the conversation was about. Then she just disappeared.

I began to get very upset, and started asking the other people on the bus what happened to her. At first they were reluctant to tell me anything, but I kept pushing. Then, a man told me that I was dreaming, unconscious from an event that happened in my original dream, and she woke up. Apparently everyone on the bus was a part of both dreams.

There seemed to be some sort of war going on in my original dream. However, I didn’t start to uncover anything about the original dream until the man made me aware that I was in a second dream.

At this point I decided to take control , and told myself that I was going to wake up (which i usually do when I am having a nightmare) to my original dream so I can find out what happened to the woman I was talking to.

As I was telling myself to wake up, I started to feel what was going on in the original dream. As I was fading out of the second dream, and into the first dream, there was some sort of powerful explosion that I felt the impact of, and unfortunately it caused me to wake up completely out of both dreams.

Have never had an experience like that before. Being told by someone else that I am dreaming.

    -Tony Crisp 2016-10-04 9:58:11

    Brian – An unusual dream, and as you say does not fit the description of lucid dreaming.

    But I feel there might be things you have not realised about dreaming. I believe a dream is a complete mixture of our personality, with all its likes, dislikes, fears, beliefs and convictions, as well as a non-personality experience; a bodiless, formless being – like a hole without any forms in it. It is everything, and as everything cannot take form as something so it remains invisible to us – yet it is our creative centre, beyond time and space. So our dreams come from a formless cause, but to be understood by our brain, our personality, we clothe the dream with images and drama which is an attempt to understand. The images or scenes are things we unconsciously take in and we build certain ideas or meanings around them. For example, many films show the living dead, zombies, as things to be avoided. So our dream maker uses them to show how part of our own nature have become almost dead through ignoring them or being frightened of them.

    So the man who spoke is most likely an aspect of your own full being. Even the woman can also be there as an example to you of what you are dealing with in yourself. Because I see this as an example of a teaching dream – remembering that all dream images represent something else; for dream images are like icons on a computer screen – You have to ‘click’ on your dream images to make them come alive. Thinking about them doesn’t work. You need to open yourself to the magic of them. To make them into the wonderful gateways they are you may have to learn certain skills. To do this it might help to use http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson

    So to be sure, try ‘being’ the man and the woman, as described. It might well be a dream indicating exactly what it portrays, someone waking up.

    Also it is worth realising that a modern view of the personality says that our mind is made up of many modules which are quite distinct. These modules, such as the sexual drive and the ability to speak, usually function in a way which is reasonably integrated. But many areas of dissimilarity are evident if we closely observe the workings of our own responses to life experiences. Because we each hold certain ideas about ourselves – our self-image – things we do which do not express this self-image may shock or even frighten us. Actions arising from a module of oneself which does not express our accepted self-image, may give rise not only to fear, but also a sense of evil, or being possessed by evil.

    I quote the next bit because it seems to me that a special action is taking place in you – teaching you something – and you need as much understanding to meet any other things that might occur to you.

    W.V. Caldwell, writing about the way Van Rhijn has defined the levels of consciousness says there are four stages. It says that dreams come from a part of us that is not known – unconscious. To become conscious the impulse has to travel through levels of our mind:-
    a] The deeply unconscious physiological process, such as cell generation and digestion. Problems which cannot move more fully into consciousness and so are held at this level become psychosomatic pains or illness. This becomes clearer if we consider human life in relationship with other life forms. A plant for instance might have some sort of bacterial illness, but would not be able to bring that to awareness. In a sense many things which occur to us, although they are very real and definite, never become a part of our conscious life, but always remain in the ‘plant’ level. If they are to move from ‘deeply unconscious physiological process’ to becoming known consciously, there are stages such events go through.
    b] As the physiological or psychobiological process moves nearer consciousness, its next level of expression is postural or gestural. Thus we may express our deepest hidden feelings in an unconscious body posture or movement. Not only our feelings express in this way, but also our physical tone or health shows in our postures and movements. Even the plant droops if it needs water.
    c] Next, when something moves from the gestural to the next stage of expression it becomes a dream or a dream image or symbol, which although it may not be understood, is now entering the arena of awareness. It is still a part of the move toward consciousness. This is sometimes called the mythic level, and is something we see working in producing religious thinking or myth creation. It still remains at the symbolic level.
    d] At this stage, what had been deeply unconscious, then symbolised, now rises into consciousness and is capable of being verbalised or thought about and analysed. If one had attempted to verbalise something in level two it would have been so far outside of consciousness as to defy description. Also, when looking at these levels or stages, they suggest that the dream process is a means by which deeper stages can be portrayed to awareness in order to make them known. Therefore, by working with the dream process we can tap deeper levels of awareness and make them known. It is not by thinking about a dream that makes it known but by working with the process that has taken it from the psychosomatic, through the postural upwards to the dream level.
    When this level is reach you can describe a dream in a way anyone can understand.
    An interesting example of these four stages and how someone can work through them is given by Reich. When the abdominal tensions of a patient were released the man found his body making spontaneous movements. These were allowed and the movements gradually led the man to take on the posture of an animal – he and Reich both felt it to be a fish. This puzzled both of them as to it meaning, but as the movements continued the man first realised he felt like a fish caught on a hook and line, then suddenly, that was how he felt in regard to his mother.
    As can be plainly seen, the first level is seen in the example as the man’s unconscious abdominal tensions, built into his physical structure. When these are loosened and considered by the man’s conscious attention, and the spontaneous self-regulatory/dream process is allowed to function, level two manifests as movement and gesture. This moves to level three where the movements are recognised as a symbol – the fish. Then the fourth level, insight and understanding are achieved when the man realises the fish represents previously unconscious feelings he has about his mother. At this point he can verbalise and analyse. I believe that being aware of such facts enables us more easily to open ourselves to the process of self-regulation and trust what it produces. It is not by thinking about a dream that makes it known but by working with the process that has taken it from the psychosomatic, through the postural upwards to the dream level.
    It is also important to realise that you are dealing with intelligence, even though it is unconscious. The unconscious has a much wider awareness that our conscious and logical mind, and asking it for clarity if what you experience is not clear is very useful. In fact, while you are allowing the spontaneous to arise you can ask any question.

    You might also read http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/lifes-little-secrets/

    Tony

-Caitlen 2016-10-02 1:15:13

I had a dream that my friends and relatives were all on a boat on our way to somewhere. Then all of a sudden people were screaming and running, only to realise the boat was sinking. In that dream I woke up when I found out one of my closest friends died. However, I was only waking up from a dream within a dream. I woke up and I was still on a boat, the difference was, everyone was a lot happier, the atmosphere was so much more exciting. I ran to my friend who had ‘died’ and told her all about it and had a good laugh. Another friend who we used to be close friends, came along and chatted as well. I woke up to reality to realise that I was laughing so much in the dream that I was waking up laughing. The two friends I dreamt of in my dreams, in fact, we do not talk anymore.

I have also had many dreams in the past about zombies chasing after me and my friends. We just kept running and running and running, until eventually I get tired of it or too scared then I wake up. I have been having more zombie dreams this year. And honestly, I hate zombies more than anything.

-Jennifer 2016-09-26 7:11:06

Up until now I have never had this sort of dream. I fell asleep with my son next to me, our pinky fingers were entwined as we fell asleep. In my dream my mother tucked me into bed and I fell asleep. I had a dream that there were shadows and eyes looking into my bedroom from my doorway. I knew I was dreaming somehow.. I woke up to check if my mother closed my door or if it was open.. in my dream it was closed. I felt of my face and I was still wearing my glasses and that’s when I awoke from my dream leaving me with such a strange feeling.
I’m so confused about this dream.

    -Tony Crisp 2016-09-27 12:42:51

    Jennifer – While you dream you are in a very different world of experience than while you are awake. It is a world of fantastic virtual reality that we are actually in. Also light was thought as the fastest one could achieve; but the sub-atomic-particles (quantum physics) were seen to be everywhere at once. Also it was seen that a human observer could change the sub-atomic-particles, suggesting that we in some way create the world around us. Also the term quantum ghosts was defined, because quantum phenomena can pass through any solid object – just as we can do when experiencing a so called out of body experience.

    So you are the part creator or your dreams, and every slight feeling, any sense of scary tings can manifest as a virtual reality in your dreams. It is also important to realise that whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear; so all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind.

    But you can know what your dreams are portraying by using http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson

    Tony

-Jaime 2016-09-01 18:28:37

My dream was nothing like anything mentioned in this article. First off I’m always concious that I am dreaming when I dream. Secondly I can’t change my dreams only experience them so to speak. Third if I try to change my dream too much it becomes a night terror so to speak like I can’t wake up and bad images come to mind. So in my dream was about me having a dream and trying to figure out what the dream meant but I kept getting the round about and when I tried to Change the flow of things my dream changed completely and when I tried to go back to the previous dream I was forced awake.

    -Tony Crisp 2016-09-02 10:54:26

    Jaime – I think you were looking in the wrong place. It might be better to look in http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/lucid-dreaming/

    Well you are certainly meeting some of the ways dreams work or act upon us. But there are certain things that need understanding, like changing your dream and trying to figure it out.

    These need a lot of practice, and trying to do it while you dream may be like trying to learn difficult swimming things in a rough sea. It is better to learn them while awake.

    I suggest reading and applying some things mentioned in – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/

    Both the things mentioned above might be of help, but come back if you have any questions.

    Tony

-H.lj 2016-07-11 1:59:07

I had the most strangest experience. I was asleep, and I had felt two hands around my neck trying to choke me and I couldn’t open my eyes. I heard laughter and for some reason thought it was my brother trying to wake me up in an insensitive way that he found funny. I was crying and waking up angry and I once I woke up I stormed out of my room to find my family just having coffee and breakfast as usual. I was really angry about being woken up that way so I yelled at my brother and went back to bed. I woke up again after napping and walked back out into the kitchen and yelled at him again because I only got in a small nap after that. I went back to sleep and woke again and It was then that I was questioning if I ever really woke up any of those times. I sat in my bed again and wondered if it was all a dream and my brother wasn’t really over our house and choked me to wake me and that all those conversations and my family being in the kitchen was real. I walked back out to check and no one was there everyone was asleep. I then actually woke up in real life and it was really hard to stay awake so I forced myself to sit up and realised that had falsely awoken at least three times in my dream and now I am freaked out!

    -Anna - Tony's Assistant 2016-07-13 7:42:57

    Dear H.lj – I see your dream as a wonderful way to explore expressing yourself and also as a step towards becoming lucid in your dream, which means that you are aware that you are dreaming.
    Feeling strangled may reflect that life or energy is being cut off by an attitude, fear or repression.
    Emotions can be held back in the neck, so it might be feelings that you are learning to express; “so I yelled at my brother” and “yelled at him again”.
    This does not mean that your brother in your waking life is responsible for you cutting off Life or energy.
    It does mean however that there is a need to find a way to learn to express yourself – http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/opening-to-life/ – which need may be emphasized by three times waking up in your dream.
    See also http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/lucid-dreaming/
    Anna 🙂

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