A Suggested Experimental Method of Producing False—awakenings with Possible Resulting Lucidity on O.B.E.——The ‘Fast” (False— awakening with State Testing) Technique

Abstract

During the course of many of my sleep—laboratory experiments I have been struck by the fairly high number of reported false—awakenings where the subject has dreamed that he or she has woken. Such is the verisimilitude of the dream scenery with the actual environment, the dreamer simply assumes that a brief wakening has occurred. Indeed, the stimulus for the phenomenon is often an external disturbance of some kind, but it seems that sometimes even that is dreamed. What the subject reports having happened may bear no relation to reality. Thus, a subject may state that the experimenter asked for a dream account or came to adjust an electrode, when in fact the subject was quite undisturbed. It is probable that false—awakenings are common at home too, but they nearly always go unrecognized.