When I was going through the vivid bad loss-related dreams I obviously looked online for what others has experienced. What I was after was not confirmation that I was not alone, but how to break out of them.

I read somewhere - I forget exactly - that I should look for a clock, or a watch, with hands. If the hands, or the clock, were odd then it was a dream I should leave.

I started looking. Then something in my sleep mind clicked - if I am looking for a clock, it MUST be a dream I needed to leave.

In my dream I would hear? My mind saying “Wake up, wake up, wake up”. And I did.

The odd thing was that after I had woken, got a drink of water, back into bed, off to sleep … that I would enter another vivid bad loss-related dream.