Methods, systems, and devices are described for enhanced power savings in wireless devices through mobile initiated dormancy procedure. A user equipment (UE) may establish radio resource control (RRC) connectivity with a base station of the network, and transmit and receive one or more distinct signaling messages for dormancy state initialization and suspension at the UE. Dormancy state implementation at the UE may conserve available power resources at the UE during periods of inactive data transaction. The one or more signaling messages may contain a single or multi-bit indication for the receiving device, and may be transmitted via direct signaling on upper layer protocols of the data network or mapped to allocated resources of a data transmission. The signaling messages may sustain synchronization between the interpreted functional mode of the UE at the base station and the implemented mode at the UE.