OK – great, I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one who has wondered about having quasi-lucid dreams like this. I think you mentioned a central aspect of why I question some of these low level lucid dream experiences; they lacked that sense of rational thinking. For me, when I wake up, these quasi-lucid dreams are more like a memory of a lucid dream than a memory of something I just experienced.

In regards to enjoying false awakenings: I “like” them in the same sense I like nightmares; the experience itself, aside from any unpleasantness, fascinates me, so whenever it occurs to me, I feel privileged to have had such a weird experience!

Some time after that, I had my first really lucid dream. There was no mistaking that this was the real deal, and that it was not a “dream within a dream.”

I’m surprised you like false awakenings. I’ve had five false awakenings, and they were all from lucid dreams. In only one of those five experiences was I able to recognize it as a false awakening. In the other four, I lost lucidity. So false awakenings really annoy me. They certainly are interesting, though.