Ask Erin: How do you wake up from a dream gone bad?
February 14th, 2006 by Erin Pavlina
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Question: How do you wake yourself up when you’re having a nightmare and become lucid? Like if someone is chasing you and you need to wake up fast. – Alison
Answer: If you’re relatively new to lucid dreaming and can’t control the dream characters well enough to turn the guy chasing you into Brad Pitt, then the best way to wake up is to fall. Preferably off a cliff if you can manifest one. Or a building. Falling in a dream almost always causes a person to wake up. It must have something to do with the sensation or our innate fear of falling.
In fact, in the beginning, when I was first learning lucid dreaming, I was unable to fall without waking up. It was a skill I had to learn over time. Being able to jump off a building or a cliff and experience that sensation of freefall can be kind of cool, but you don’t want to wake up from the sensation. But I digress…
If you can’t manifest a cliff or a building, just fling yourself at the ground. It might still give you enough of that sensation.
If you’re an advanced lucid dreamer, I suggest asking your nightmare what it is trying to teach you instead of trying to wake up. You can turn that nightmare around and find out what it wants. Nightmares are the subconscious trying to tell you something so important that you won’t forget it. But if you can find out what it wants to tell you without getting chased or hacked into pieces, that would be nice. 
But try falling. If you have to, fling yourself backwards like you’re going to faint. That sensation will wake you too. Good luck and happy falling!
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