Dreams inside of dreams inside of dreams (again sorry)

So I think I asked this before but I can't remember...

I'm wondering what it means when you have dreams of dreams. Example. I'm trying to sleep on the couch but can't seem to fall asleep, I open my eyes and my daughter isn't there so I get up to find her, I look everywhere starting to panic but can't find her. Then I wake up. I go in the kitchen make something to eat and pet the dog, then I wake up again. Then again my daughter is no where to be found and I panic then wake up again. Then it goes into an actual normal type dream.

It's been happening a lot these last couple of months, having dreams inside of dreams, the only other time I remember it happening before recently was on of my top 5 nightmares. It was horrible and was accompanied with sleep paralysis. I woke up hysterical, but that is the only time I remember having a dream in a dream before the last couple of months. Any ideas why this would be happening so much?

Dreams within dreams are kind of tricky, as it depends on whether you're within multiple levels of dreaming or simply repeatedly experiencing false wakings. Levels are denoted by actually dreaming that you are going to sleep before the second dream begins, as opposed to dreaming that you wake up. It seems you have been having the "false waking" version.

False wakings, regardless of how often they occur within the dream, are simply your body remaining in sleep while your mind tries to wake...and fails. You're getting stuck in Theta wave activity, and as you approach the Alpha waves of consciousness, your brain falls back into a Theta cycle, pushing you back into dreaming.

Aha ... I, too, have experienced this but didn't know there was a rhyme or reason to it ... I'm extra good at lucid dreaming and have often found myself dreaming dreams when dreaming ... Interesting ...

Going to sleep and dreaming within the dream (levelling as I like to call it) is typically a delving deeper into the subconscious fears and desires. I like to think of it like levels of a labyrinth...though sometimes it may seem like circles in hell, depending on what you fall into.

Lucid levelling is not terribly uncommon (in the lucid world, anyways; lucidity in general is uncommon). People get roused about levelling moreso from it happening naturally. Most natural levelling only moves one level, MAYBE two. (I flipped out the one and only time I naturally levelled two levels deeper.)

What exactly is lucid dreaming? I've read about it before but can't remember. And what do you mean by leveling?

I used to have dreams like that - and when I woke up, I would for several minutes be unable to move my limbs at all. >_>; I have no inputs, but I wanted to express solidarity and follow this thread...

"Lucid Dreaming" is the experience of knowing that you are dreaming while it is actively happening and gaining some control over what happens in the dream. What makes this exceptional is that most people are unable to consistently lucid dream, due to the realization that a dream is occurring causes the dreamer to instinctively wake up.

"Levelling" is a term I use for when , while -in- a dream, you go to sleep and dream another dream. It's like adding another level (or diving into another level) of the dream world.

The movie "Inception", aside from stealing an entire storyline from the Donald Duck comic book series, was a wonderful depiction of the use of both Lucid Dreaming AND Leveling.