Oops I meant to say this too... sometimes astral experiences (ie dreams) are so powerful that we remain more or less in that astral, rather than physical consciousness for a while after awakening. That's why you could still "see" the nightmarish images in your room just after you woke up. I used to have experiences like that as a child and a younger adult. In fact, I still make sure there's a nightlight near my bed. Haven't had one of those middle-of-the-night mad rushes for the light switch in a long long time, though ...

But here's a similar experience. A few years ago I'd woken up one morning just exhausted. I didn't understand why; I wasn't sick, I'd gone to bed at a reasonable hour the night before and slept just fine, as far as I remembered. The fatigue got worse and worse, so that by noon I had to give up my gardening and go lie down. My arms were so tired and aching I couldn't even lift the little plastic gardening tools any more.

As I poured myself a bath, worried about why I was so inexplicably tired, suddenly I was back in a dream I'd had the night before. Well there I was, in the middle of a big, swollen flooding river, trying desperately to swim upstream, against that torrent of a current. The last image from that dream was of one little white arm flailing above the water, as I sunk down beneath the surface and drowned (I guess). It must have been the sound of the water running into the tub that triggered that memory!

Anyway, it explained the physical exhaustion alright! And it also demonstrates just how physically 'real' dream experiences can become.

daylia

PS   Some people say you can't die in your dreams. Well, I have. Many, many times!