How to Stay Awake in a Hypnogogic State

David Perry: We can watch dreams form and see them with a startling vividness while yet still being awake and aware of our surroundings. He says it's something that you can't actually work at to learn how to do, like learning to play the clarinet. Perry: You can just sort of learn how to pay attention as you're falling asleep or drift out of sleep rather than sink into sleep. But if you can linger a bit in the morning, you're waking up and you can say, okay, I'm going to stay in this state for a while.