During your WL, have you ever been involved in such an interesting activity that hours seem to run like minutes? Perhaps during those apparently long dreams, the brain is using some sort of reverse algorithm to show us minutes that seem to last hours.
I will take into account 4 points in my attempt to explain it:
a. In nature, everything seem to move in a cyclic way.
b. If we take ourselves as the point of reference, our consciousness doesn't move. It's the world which moves around us.
c. During dreams, we are always doing something. I remember reading something about some corporal activity during REM stage is similar when we are immerse in some activity of our interest during WL.
d. If nature seem to be represented by fractal geometry, and dreams are part of nature, perhaps dreams could be represented under the same fractal principles.
There's a theory which states that the amount of deep sleep vs REM sleep, basically depends on the type of fatigue we present: body or mental. It's known that the REM sleep could vary from 90 - 120 min along the night. Although to exemplify, I will use an intermediate value, so I will have T= 1h 45min of REM sleep (or dreams) along a successful night of sleep.
Now I would like to perform some virtual experimentation, this time I won't consider physical fatigue in order to understand some phenomena I want to explain:
A.
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Subject M must stay still the estimated time T of 1h of 45 min, in front of a clock, trying not to get distracted by other things (should I consider meditation as another type of distraction?), and focusing just in how time T passes by. As the mind tends to lose focused attention approximately every 10 sec, and the sustained attention span varies from 20 - 40 min, it could be a very painful experience.
B.
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Now let M go for a walk alone from point X to point Y in the same time T. That's around 4 Km long if he walks at a speed of almost 1.5 m/sec. The only consideration is that M must pay attention on the followed path. This experience shouldn't be as painful as in A.
C.
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In this 3rd experience we will add a second subject W who must be of M's interest and viceversa, and we will let them walk together and talk of whatever they want from point X to Y in the same amount of time. What most probably will happen is they won't notice the long path like in B if they get immerse in a very interesting conversation about their lives and perhaps it would be more painful to them when they get to Y apparently so fast from their point of view.
So, what happened? Why the time perceived by M in A seemed to last much more than in C?
I think because of M focused on it. That's why perhaps it's very difficult to exert time dilation when you pay too much attention on it.
I could conclude, that we are not using real time to measure what we dream but the events we dream as a reference to deduce time that compared to the actual elapsed time seem to be much longer. Such events don't necessarily last what their counterparts in WL because they could be summarized in a definite number of cycles, which according to the self-similarity statement in fractal theory there's a small portion that has the exact same characteristics of the whole.