Is this supposed to happen?

Sorry for the generic title, but it would be hard to explain in a line. I’ve read about LL, awareness, never taking your experiences for granted, and so on. Recently, in the last few days, I’ve started to notice a strange thing happening to me.

Without meaning for it to happen, completely automatically I’d say, at completely random times I suddenly stop and think “Wait, where am I?”, “What am I doing?”, “Is this real?”, and so on. It takes me completely by surprise, and I feel like I’d been acting in a play before that. Or maybe I just wonder if I was.

Is it the sign that something’s moving at a subconscious level? I thought LL was supposed to be conscious and voluntary, not random and sudden like that. Am I just losing a few (more) marbles? And, most importantly, does that happen to anybody else?

I’ve had similar things happen to me while trying to practice LL. I’d suddenly stop and ask myself how aware I’ve been or if I were dreaming. I think it’s normal and it’s a sign that your mind is being more aware.

Before you never asked those questions, but now that you’ve put a focus on it, you’re more likely to have those kinds of thoughts as active processes. Basically, your mind has learned to treat it as important and gives you little reminders every now and then.

Is it what brings people to the “spontaneous realization” of being in a dream? Because otherwise I see no way for it to happen in my case.