You may have noticed that after you kill yourself in a dream, you're allowed to walk around before you talk to the leprechaun. This 'between stages' state is where you begin the process of unlocking Wake Up.

As you go around searching for proof that you're in a dream, make sure you close the doors behind you. Once you kill yourself in the dream, go walking around and search through all of the rooms. Eventually you'll run into... yourself. Talk to him, then after he fades away, talk to the leprechaun to go to the next level. He'll move to a different room each time, so keep looking around. If you don't find him, it means the room you died in is the room he meant to spawn in.

You'll need to find him several times before you unlock Wake Up mode. This can be done over multiple playthroughs of the game. Once you've talked to him for the last time (an achievement will let you know when that is), then Hard mode will be replaced with Wake Up!

Wake Up difficulty changes nothing about how the game is played, except now you can earn different endings. You'll have to jump through a few hoops first, though.

There are three secret notes hidden within the house that you must find to earn your extra endings. If you paid attention to the other Kir, you'll have learned a few hints about where these notes are.

You can collect these notes in any order you choose. Collecting one will end the current dream and send you into the next. You must collect all three notes within a single dream sequence to get the secret endings. If you die before you reach reality, you'll have to collect all three notes again.

You won't find these secret notes lying around in nightstands and shelves. Their locations are more obscure. You can obtain the notes in any order you choose, and they can be obtained in (nearly) every dream.

This one is as simple as it gets. In the main hallway next to the painting of the mustache man, there's a secret panel on the wall directly under the light fixture. Hover your mouse around the area until you find it, then open it like you would any other object. Boom. Done.

The safe requires a three-digit passcode to open. The code is different in each dream.

• In the far-west room, look at the game system. The game should be called "The First Angel, Part #". That number is the first digit.
  
• Check the angel statue in the hallway. There will be a number on the back. That is the second digit.
  
• There will be a book hidden in one of the many containers around the house. The book will be called "The Last Angel in the Underworld, Volume #". That number is the third digit.

Once you have all three numbers, go to the engine room where Victor hangs out and pull away the poster on the wall. Input the numbers and you'll find the note.

For this note, you'll first need to find a lighter. Then you'll need to go around the house and light the candles next to things that represent fire, and ONLY those candles. They are:

• On the nightstand where you first wake up, next to the picture of the eye with the candle.
  
• In the living room, next to the fireplace.
  
• In the bedroom, next to the picture of the couple by the campfire.
  
• In the corridor west of the main hallway, next to the picture of the phoenix.
  
• In the far-west room, next to the giant TV. (It says Press Fire)
  
• In the engine room, next to the poster of the man with the flamethrower.

Once you light all six of these candles, the note will appear. If it does not, then some aspect of the dream makes it impossible to complete (for example, the candle in the eye picture being replaced by the leprechaun). In this case, you'll just have to try again in the next dream.
(Note: I'm not sure if in cases like these you can light all of the other valid candles and still get the note to appear. If you find out, let me know.)

After you've collected all three notes, you must navigate the dream sequence as usual. Make your way through each layer of the dream until you reach reality, then survive to the end.

Once you reach the end, DO NOT LEAVE. It's time to finally open the door that's refused to budge this whole time. Knock politely on the door.

Knock Harder.

It will take about twenty attempts to open the door before it finally opens, and then you can get your secret ending. There are four different endings you can get.

• Pick up the gold in one of your dreams, then open the door and walk in.
  
• Don't pick up the gold, open the door and destroy what's waiting for you.
  
• Don't pick up the gold, open the door and don't destroy what's inside.
  
• Open the door, then walk out the front door anyway.

What I like to do is search the living room and closet. If I find a lighter, I immediately go to light the candles. If I find the book, I immediately go check the angel statue and the game system. If I find neither, then I just open the hidden panel.

If I find a very obvious dreamsign (like a tree in the living room) before I find the book or the lighter, I just suicide right then and there.

If you're having trouble surviving, you could save the note in the hidden panel to skip a harder dream, but if you wait too long you'll hit reality and lock yourself out. At the very least, you should get the safe combination and candles out of the way early so you don't have to fight through the hordes of monsters later on.

In Wake Up mode, you will always have one dream where the leprechaun's gold is hidden somewhere in the house. Until you find it, you are absolutely still dreaming.

If you've opted to save one of the notes to this point, then you might unknowingly grab it in the same dream where the gold is hidden. To make absolutely certain that you haven't accidentally skipped this dream without knowing, check the number that pops up after you proceed to the next dream. If you see a green '599', then you were just in the gold dream.

Once you find the gold, the real game begins. From here on out, any stage could potentially be reality. The monsters will be everywhere, but so too will the weapons and ammo. You will likely reach this point many times and think you've reached the end, only for that damned leprechaun to pop up and tell you that you were still in a dream. But if you keep trying you'll eventually reach the real world and get one of the four secret endings.

If you've made it this far, you should know the basics. Search all the things, talk to your friends, compare notes, and die a lot. But let's face it - Hard mode is hard. So there are a few things I'd like to point out if you're trying to Wake Up and tired of accidentally blowing your brains out in reality.

• You will have plenty of time to check everything out and still have enough left over to confirm your suspicions about dates and/or descriptions not matching up.
  
• Sometimes you'll be in a dream, choose suicide, and get a game over. This is normal and intentional. You have to find proof that you're in a dream before you can safely die.
  
• Jackie's appearance always changes; Victor's is always the same. It's easier to talk to Victor first and remember that 'Jackie is your elder sister and I don't know her very well', than it is to talk to Jackie first and remember 'I have glasses, a mustache, and I'm a Christian, oh and also Victor went to the same school as me'.
  
• When you move to another room, close the door behind you!
  
  • You can leave the doors to the Locked Room and Jackie's Room open. Enemies don't respawn in them.
• You will ALWAYS have one dream with the leprechaun's pot of gold. Everything before that is a dream (but you still need to find proof first).
  
• Sometimes the notes in the computer room will talk about the "Lucid" program. If this is the case, look at the number on the screen. If the number is 0, there is an 80% chance that you've reached reality. Any other number, and the chances are significantly lower.

Lastly, if you're ever in doubt about whether you're in a dream or reality, assume it's reality. If you're right, you win! If you're wrong, at least the leprechaun will give you a clue about what it is you missed so you'll know what to keep an eye out for in future runs.