Four Men and False Awakenings

Five years ago, after I began to study astral projection, I started to have lucid dreams on a regular basis - once or twice a month (90% of them are OBEs but I guess they are qualified as lucid dreams as well). The one that I'm writing about below is the most unique on my list - it involves being in two worlds at the same time and the exact knowing when the lucid dream started and finished.

At the time of my lucid dream, I was living and working on a cruise ship sharing a small cabin with my colleague. One morning, at 11:00 am, feeling sleepy and a little bit tired after the morning gym, I decided to rest for ten minutes before going to work. I set my iphone alarm clock for 11:10.

A few minutes after I laid down, my roommate woke up and started to make noise moving around the cabin before he went to the bathroom to take a shower (I could clearly hear the sound of the water streaming down). I was lying down without moving and opening my eyes patiently waiting for the time to get up. Soon, in addition to my roommate’s noise, my alarm clock began to ring and despite that, to my biggest surprise, I started to feel a strange dizziness and hear short waves of buzzing sounds coming from my head. Because by that time I already had a little experience connected with OBEs, I knew that I was a step away from getting into a conscious dream and all I needed to do was to just simply get up off my bed.

In the next moment I was standing in the middle of my cabin - although it was a little bit bigger, in general it looked like the one in waking life, having the same low light. There was an interesting moment when I could still feel myself in bed while hearing the streaming water in the shower, together with alarm-ringing sounds coming from the real world before it gradually faded away until a complete silence surrounded me. 

I didn’t look at my sleeping body, because of the hypothesis that it might shorten the OBE. Not wasting my precious time (I was afraid that all those noises from the waking world would eventually wake me up) I went into my regular practise of rubbing my hands and checking my palms while doing a few turns around to stabilize the surroundings. 

Then I opened the door and saw a corridor that looked completely different than that on the ship - it was spacey, brightly lit and much longer with many white doors on one side. After walking few steps, I went into the closest room that I noticed was opened. It was little and very untidy with many different clothes dropped on the floor. On two opposite side beds two beautiful girls with long hair were seated, looking at me and smiling. I smiled back and asked them - pretending to be their friend - “Hi, how you’re doing?” “Great”, they answered in unison, “We haven’t seen you for a long time, where have you been?” (Actually, they were right, it really took me longer this time to get into the lucid dream than usual.)

Without saying anything I left the room and walked along the corridor until I reached some stairs. After playing for some time with gravity, learning to control my movements while floating up and down, the environment became fuzzy and despite my desperate hand rubbing I woke up in my bed. 

“So, this is it,” I thought and stood up only suddenly to face four men standing in front of me (the cabin was in the same twilight). Somehow, I was still thinking it was the real world but then  realized that it was a false awakening when one of the men spoke to me about how they wished to help me to go back to the dream world. All I needed to do was just to lie down in a bed and close my eyes.

Without saying anything, I did what he asked and all the men went on their knees around my bed as if they were praying, while the closest to my head opened a book and started to read something in a low voice (I’m actually not religious). There was no fear, only the explorer’s excitement that reminded me to check the time. I turned my head to the right and saw my wristwatch next to the pillow, it showed 11:14. That’s when my iphone’s alarm started to ring and I desperately tried to turn it off pushing all possible buttons, because I really didn’t want to be woken up. 

Unfortunately, the next moment I opened my eyes and now I felt I was definitely in my real world. First thing I noticed was that there was no ringing and I quickly looked at the time - it was 11:17 (the lucid dream lasted exactly seven minutes). Then I checked the alarm settings - the alarm was set at 11:10 and 11:20

Now I was completely confused, wondering who actually turned off my iphone (my roommate was still taking a shower and the alarm doesn’t turn off by itself until 15 minutes of ringing). The only conclusion I could possibly make is that I myself turned it off while I was doing the same action in a lucid dream.