Can you wake (have you woken) yourself from a bad dream?

[Flaxbee]

I usually am able to do this -- was having a nightmare last night and could 'hear' myself telling me to wake up, get out of the dream, don't be scared, wake up... And so I woke up, dream over, scary stuff gone.

Do you do this? I've also woken myself out of good dreams, probably just out of sheer orneryness.

[Sugar Smack]

1. When I have "concentration camp" dreams-

which I do about twice a week- I can sometimes tell myself "this isn't really happening" and wake up.

[underpants]

2. Yeah I do it all the time

I mean if I don't like the dream I am in or I see that it is headed downhill I wake myself up ... open my eyes...and then go back to sleep and start anew.

Weird ability I have had most of my life. I was never able to figure out the sleeping on your feet thing like a lot of guys did in the Army though.

ON EDIT- the best I ever saw was a guy who could sleep standing up and with his eyes open-GREAT for guard duty.

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. Not so much...

once in a while I find myself dreaming that I'm waking up, and then something happens in the dream that makes it clear it's not real, and I ACTUALLY wake up (I got stuck in a sort of recursive loop once, where I dreamt that I woke about four times before I actually did...)

[huskerlaw]

4. Yup, I did it last night as well

I fell asleep watching "Without a Trace" ...an episode with a rather violent prison murder (is there nonviolent prison murder?) and I started dreaming about it. I honestly don't remember what the dream was about specifically, but I definitely remember pulling myself out of it. Complete with different degrees of wakefulness, right up to actually opening my eyes while still having the feelings of the dream.

I actually do that quite a bit...I never have full-blown nightmares. I force myself to wake up enough to break the REM cycle, then I roll over and go back to sleep.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. I used to be able to.

I can vividly remember being chased by some horrible monster when I heard my dad telling me it was time to get up. I realized I was dreaming so I opened my eyes and like that I was awake.

I think they call it lucid dreaming.

I remember being very good at it when I was a teenager, in the middle of some boring dream about doing homework or something I'd realize I was in a dream and then decide to go flying or something.

I haven't dreamt like that in years. Just this morning I awoke from a horrible dream I was in a tsunami, my heart was racing and everything. I kind of miss it.