Thread: Finding out the real time in dreams?

Well, you could try WILDing and count the seconds from when you fully enter the dream to when you exit (either by forcing yourself to exit, or just doing low-key things so you don't lose the count). Then, since it's a WILD and probably more vivid, you could then remember the seconds. Writing this down, you'd then see how much time has passed since you fell asleep.

However, there isn't really a way to tell what time you fell asleep - after all, the room's probably dark and your eyes are probably closed for a while because you need to get into SP. So an exact time would be rather difficult to get!

Even if you counted the seconds in your dream it could be distorted, dreams don't exactly follow the laws of time and physics

All of what Puffin said is correct. However, some people have the ability to say they're going to wake up at a certain time, and they do wake up at that time, because their body is used to how fast time passes. Therefore, it may be possible to approximate the time while you're in a dream, if you have the ability to do that. Don't quote me on this though because I don't know much about it.

ShockWave.

Originally Posted by ShockWave

All of what Puffin said is correct. However, some people have the ability to say they're going to wake up at a certain time, and they do wake up at that time, because their body is used to how fast time passes. Therefore, it may be possible to approximate the time while you're in a dream, if you have the ability to do that. Don't quote me on this though because I don't know much about it.

ShockWave.

Actually, I can do that. It's a good thing too, since most alarms don't wake me up
And Puffin, usually the way I WILD glance at the clock which is projected onto my wall in front of me so i don't even have to get up, look at a paper that says what I want to do in that LD, and close my eyes and WILD in a few seconds. I don't put any thought into these things so I can just fall asleep easily but watching the patterns on my eyelids is what keeps me conscious. The problem is even though I can count while I do it I find that when I try to even repeat a mantra while I'm doing this it makes it more like regular WILD length instead of around DEILD length, which although I'm getting better at regular WILDs I'm better at my little WILD/DEILD thing that I do.

I guess some time I can try looking at the time and purposely waking myself up and seeing if the time is about right but I still have quite a few things I would rather do. If this thread isn't completely dead by the time I do this I'll most likely post the results.

a quote from "exploring the world of lucid dreaming" of Stephen Laberge:

"I knew that earlier studies had demonstrated that the direction of dreamers’ physical eye movements during REM was sometimes exactly the same as the direction that they reported looking in their dreams"

...

"One of the earliest experiments conducted by my research team tested the traditional notion that the experience of dream time is somehow different from time in the waking world. We approached the problem of dream time by asking subjects to make an eye movement signal in their lucid dreams, estimate a ten-second interval (by counting one thousand and one, one thousand and two, etc. ), and then make another eye movement signal. In all cases, we found time estimates made in lucid dreams were within a few seconds of estimates made in the waking state and likewise quite close to the actual time between signals. From this we have concluded that in lucid dreams, estimated dream time is very nearly equal to clock time; that is, it takes just as long to do something in a dream as it does to actually do it."

i think that answers your question

Originally Posted by lefty97

I have been thinking about this, and would it be possible to find out the real time in a dream? When you tell yourself to wake up at 3 AM you wake up at around that time, but is it just that you remember how far off the time was when you tried it before and next time you wake up closer to the time you want? Im planning on testing this sometime but im not sure how I would know if it is right...

wrong section, if a mod could move it that would be nice.

the wake up thing you mentioned is because your brain combined with your mind is a super computer, as long as you see what time is it before you sleep and set the "intention" with a bit of practice you will wake up at exactly when you want.

your mind works best with strong intention, so if you want to know what the time is in your dream, set a strong intention and practice you might get suprised by the result

I've had multiple dreams where my watch told the correct time (which I know because I would use my lucidity to wake me up directly after looking at my watch, and it would read the same time as my bedroom clock, within just a couple minutes of accuracy) but it's just been hit-or-miss, depending on how deep of sleep I'm in. There's probably not a good way to intentionally dream in accurate time if it doesn't come by you naturally, except the aforementioned WILDing.