Thread: Lucid Dreams and Time

Laberge showed us that we perceive time in a dream almost identically to real life, that is when you don't try to change it. I've tried a few times but I've never been able to lengthen my dreams at all, the only times my dreams have felt longer than I slept was when I was either in a non-lucid or semi-lucid state. Whenever I am in a fully lucid state, I cannot change the pace at which the dream run (I can make it seem visually slower, but it doesn't achieve the same effect). Or I at least can't sustain any dilating effects long enough.
In my opinion the possibility of time dilation is extremely low, but some people swear by it. If it actually existed I'm surprised no one has ever decided to utilize all that extra time, or try bring the time dilation into waking life.

I think it could seem a long time because of perhaps we use to take shortcuts from main frames to main frames and we don't spend much time in the middle. I mean, if I dream about making a cake, I could dream about setting up the ingredients first, then mixing some, and finally putting the cake on the table to have some problems to get a piece of it. In WL that could last hours, in a dream just a couple of minutes. Another possibility is that perhaps we didn't dream the whole story in one day, and we are connecting past dreams until we finally conclude the sequence and remember all the story in the last day of the dream. I don't know.
Anyway, the latest longer period of dream events I had during a dream were almost 3 days in a row for an alcoholic little party.

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

Laberge showed us that we perceive time in a dream almost identically to real life, that is when you don't try to change it. I've tried a few times but I've never been able to lengthen my dreams at all, the only times my dreams have felt longer than I slept was when I was either in a non-lucid or semi-lucid state. Whenever I am in a fully lucid state, I cannot change the pace at which the dream run (I can make it seem visually slower, but it doesn't achieve the same effect). Or I at least can't sustain any dilating effects long enough.
In my opinion the possibility of time dilation is extremely low, but some people swear by it. If it actually existed I'm surprised no one has ever decided to utilize all that extra time, or try bring the time dilation into waking life.

Never tried to lengthen my lucid dreams on purpose, it just happens when it happens. But during when it happens i can already understand that this dream is taking too long and it is running slower, so i have time to observe everything in details.
It may exist in dream but it may not exist in real life.

Originally Posted by Box77

I think it could seem a long time because of perhaps we use to take shortcuts from main frames to main frames and we don't spend much time in the middle. I mean, if I dream about making a cake, I could dream about setting up the ingredients first, then mixing some, and finally putting the cake on the table to have some problems to get a piece of it. In WL that could last hours, in a dream just a couple of minutes. Another possibility is that perhaps we didn't dream the whole story in one day, and we are connecting past dreams until we finally conclude the sequence and remember all the story in the last day of the dream. I don't know.
Anyway, the latest longer period of dream events I had during a dream were almost 3 days in a row for an alcoholic little party.

You can apply the same main frame analysis to our usual past day memories, you usually remember main events but you slightly remember small details. What if you try to think of every small details in your dream and you can recall most of it like you would recall last day real life event. I think this is how our memories work and does not answer the question.

I do not think we connect our dreams into one big story, because usually when i wake up i recall or forget dream during first 10 minutes. After that i usually have no chance to recall it again if i did not recall it during those first 10 minutes. I doubt that it would recall it self during next dream.

Originally Posted by flowofmysoul

You can apply the same main frame analysis to our usual past day memories, you usually remember main events but you slightly remember small details. What if you try to think of every small details in your dream and you can recall most of it like you would recall last day real life event. I think this is how our memories work and does not answer the question.

I do not think we connect our dreams into one big story, because usually when i wake up i recall or forget dream during first 10 minutes. After that i usually have no chance to recall it again if i did not recall it during those first 10 minutes. I doubt that it would recall it self during next dream.

You may be forgetting it on a conscious level, but maybe you remember it on a subconscious level. And time-dilation appears to happen in dreams because, as Box said, the dream doesn't include every single tiny detail. It's like what happens in a film with a montage. You can tell that the characters have spent a long time, days, weeks or months on a certain project but in reality you've only been watching their progress for 2 or 3 minutes. It's definitely an interesting concept

Originally Posted by Araishu

You may be forgetting it on a conscious level, but maybe you remember it on a subconscious level. And time-dilation appears to happen in dreams because, as Box said, the dream doesn't include every single tiny detail. It's like what happens in a film with a montage. You can tell that the characters have spent a long time, days, weeks or months on a certain project but in reality you've only been watching their progress for 2 or 3 minutes. It's definitely an interesting concept

It is an interesting explanation, but i feel that it is not the case. For example in my last dream these events were connected. I took samurai with me from war to beach and taught him how to surf. And i had my samurai swords with me all the dream, in the beginning, at war and in the end again in my starting point.

^ I don't find major difference between the way I remember the events in a dream and my real life memories. They both take away irrelevant details. The only difference I find is those irrelevant details doesn't seem to last long during a dream (if there are some) rather than in real life. I can summarize a couple of days of my life in some minutes without loosing continuity and relevant detail.

i.e. In your dream you say you dreamed a whole day... surfing? Do you mean did you go to eat? Did you have the urge to go to the bathroom? Did you take a nap or have to do other things besides surfing? Did the sun move? Did it get cold or there was a time for the waters to calm down? Do you remember all those things or you have the feeling that you spent the whole day doing things besides surfing?

I'm not taking the going to sleep sequence since it's just a blink of an eye to change the dream-scene.

As far as I'm concerned, time perception is something subjective and it's related to our own psyche more than real time duration. Some minutes of a boring work seem to last an hour and an hour before going to a boring job runs like a couple of minutes.

Originally Posted by Box77

i.e. In your dream you say you dreamed a whole day... surfing? Do you mean did you go to eat? Did you have the urge to go to the bathroom? Did you take a nap or have to do other things besides surfing? Did the sun move? Did it get cold or there was a time for the waters to calm down? Do you remember all those things or you have the feeling that you spent the whole day doing things besides surfing?

I'm not taking the going to sleep sequence since it's just a blink of an eye to change the dream-scene.

I knew somebody would ask this question, well look at my post it is already very big, and people do not like to read that long dreams. Imagine how big it would be if i would describe everything that happened during those 7 days. I remember that we had a campfire and we made some barbecue, i remember how i went to trees/forest behind to find what kind of animals are living there. Few days i did not surf at all, i remember a lot of talking, everybody gathered in the evening and everybody had some kind of discussions. I also remember few moments from evenings where i looked around the house to find something interesting there. However i do not remember every single detail of that dream, some moments are left blank in memory.

It is not about how much details i remember, it is that feeling that i witnessed too many events during only 1 night of sleep (11 hours). This feeling reminds me of some hard university research where i had to read a lot of complex things and then i felt kinda over loaded with information.

I am sure i am not the only one who experienced similar dreams, i already spoke to few people in chat and they told me some interesting stories.

And to add, this was not the longest dream, this is the only long dream that i wrote in my blog. During 6 years of lucid dreaming almost every day i never had a DJ, only few month ago when i decided to come back to lucid dreaming i also decided to write my most interesting dreams to my blog. And sorry for my English, i might express my self in a wrong way, let me know if you are confused about anything i wrote and i will try to clarify that for you.

Can I add a quick, annoying aside?

Perhaps, Flowofmysoul, you should have listed your OP without any questions, and just requested that people share their dilated-time dreams here.

That would have been a cool thread, and would have saved the time these knowledgeable folks spent telling you things you're clearly not interested in hearing. These guys have consistently given you thoughtful information based on experience, hard knowledge, logic, and conclusions drawn from the many other time-dilation threads, yet you told them with confidence that they were wrong every step of the way.

If you are sure that what happened actually did happen, and there's no refuting it, then why ask if it can be refuted? I know you didn't do this specifically, but those two questions in your OP definitely opened the door.

I'm asking this question respectfully, in the hopes that you might turn this thread toward what I think is your real goal (getting other dreamers to share their long-dream experiences) rather than yet another tedious argument about whether dream time-dilation is real or not.

I also ask this question selfishly, because it's a fun subject and I'm fairly up on the pros and cons part...

Originally Posted by Sageous

Can I add a quick, annoying aside?

Perhaps, Flowofmysoul, you should have listed your OP without any questions, and just requested that people share their dilated-time dreams here.

That would have been a cool thread, and would have saved the time these knowledgeable folks spent telling you things you're clearly not interested in hearing. These guys have consistently given you thoughtful information based on experience, hard knowledge, logic, and conclusions drawn from the many other time-dilation threads, yet you told them with confidence that they were wrong every step of the way.

If you are sure that what happened actually did happen, and there's no refuting it, then why ask if it can be refuted? I know you didn't do this specifically, but those two questions in your OP definitely opened the door.

I'm asking this question respectfully, in the hopes that you might turn this thread toward what I think is your real goal (getting other dreamers to share their long-dream experiences) rather than yet another tedious argument about whether dream time-dilation is real or not.

I also ask this question selfishly, because it's a fun subject and I'm fairly up on the pros and cons part...

I am sorry if i sounded too confident, but every input for me is important and i am thankful to everybody who responded to this thread. I edited OP and mentioned the main purpose of this thread and if you have any additional questions that you would like to add, i would be happy to do that. I would be happy to add any similar thread in the OP too, if you know any please give me a link.

Yes the main target of this thread is to get as many stories of long-dream experience as possible, from there we can make a conclusion for our self. I did not aim to start argument about dream time-dilation, personally i believe it is not time-dilatation, it is how we perceive time when we sleep. Those two questions that i mentioned is what i want to answer, so the more stories i will have the better answer i can form for my self, and i think everybody can.

Looking forward to hear more long-dream stories

long dreams:
Zombies!!! - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views
Two Weeks of Dream Time - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Those are both non lucid, but I did spend about a week and a half of dream time in a Lucid dream helping DCs against a ghost. I had to pretend everything was real, and when things were going against me and I couldn't save people in time, I would change reality quickly and in a way that made it look like it wasn't a dream world. They were all really nice, so I didn't want them to know that they weren't real.

I think a lot of time dilation is to do with false memories, things you haven't actually experienced, but remember from the dream as memories.

Check out this really interesting thread with good discussion on time dilation!

Originally Posted by realdealmagic

I think a lot of time dilation is to do with false memories, things you haven't actually experienced, but remember from the dream as memories.

Check out this really interesting thread with good discussion on time dilation!

Thx, added this topic to the OP. I do not know if it is possible to slow time on purpose because i never tried to do it. Just happened randomly to me, but when it happened i very clearly understood that this dream is going to be long.
Added one more related thread where member of DV claims that he was dreaming for 2 years and he did that on purpose.

When I had LD sometimes in the morning when I woke up and fell asleep again I could feel the time running the same way as normally. I was aware of my body in the bed (you know those half sleep states) and I was in the dream at the same time and I didn't see any differences between time in my bed and in the dream.
Another experiment I tried was to check the time when I woke up and fell asleep again and after that check the time again. Never got any time dilatations. Sometimes it feels like you spent much longer time in the dream but as somebody here already said, it is caused by memory error.
I clearly remember some dreams that were like a day or so but when I went through the memories I realized that it just seems like that but in fact it is just that I had memories that were specific for all parts of the day but it was just like fragments. Just short memories that may seem when you look at them after that like a whole day. Brain just connects them together. When you analyze that you see that many things are missing and some of the memories are not even events just some symbols or words.

I also heard a theory that the brain is extremely active during a dream (more than in awake state, is that true btw?) thus you can experience more things in the same time and in the end it is like you lived a minute in dream and a second in real life. Reminds me Inception hehe.

Originally Posted by Hitokage

When I had LD sometimes in the morning when I woke up and fell asleep again I could feel the time running the same way as normally. I was aware of my body in the bed (you know those half sleep states) and I was in the dream at the same time and I didn't see any differences between time in my bed and in the dream.
Another experiment I tried was to check the time when I woke up and fell asleep again and after that check the time again. Never got any time dilatations. Sometimes it feels like you spent much longer time in the dream but as somebody here already said, it is caused by memory error.
I clearly remember some dreams that were like a day or so but when I went through the memories I realized that it just seems like that but in fact it is just that I had memories that were specific for all parts of the day but it was just like fragments. Just short memories that may seem when you look at them after that like a whole day. Brain just connects them together. When you analyze that you see that many things are missing and some of the memories are not even events just some symbols or words.

I also heard a theory that the brain is extremely active during a dream (more than in awake state, is that true btw?) thus you can experience more things in the same time and in the end it is like you lived a minute in dream and a second in real life. Reminds me Inception hehe.

You are absolutely right about how time passes when you go back to sleep in the morning. I am talking about something different, when you go to sleep and sleep for a long period, when you start getting really long dreams. Sometimes you will get huge amount of fragments, really really huge amount that is really hard to remember all together. I also tried to measure time in the morning and it is just like usual time flow.

Originally Posted by flowofmysoul

You are absolutely right about how time passes when you go back to sleep in the morning. I am talking about something different, when you go to sleep and sleep for a long period, when you start getting really long dreams. Sometimes you will get huge amount of fragments, really really huge amount that is really hard to remember all together. I also tried to measure time in the morning and it is just like usual time flow.

I actually think it is still the same the whole night. As I said, just our memory is acting weird.

Maybe you are right, maybe not, but I will keep looking for answers on this question. Next time I will have such a dreams I will try to learn everything in details.

Originally Posted by flowofmysoul

Maybe you are right, maybe not, but I will keep looking for answers on this question. Next time I will have such a dreams I will try to learn everything in details.

Yeah. Let us know here. ^^

To me it seems relative? I mean as far as having "long" dreams I think I perceive the dream as longer when I remember more details. When I have a dream fragment do I think I was in the dream world for less time? Not necessarily. It could be that I woke up a lot or it just slipped my mind. I think time tends to pass at a normal perceived rate, but it seems like I can get more things done in less time because of what someone else mentioned about skipping parts of the process. I suppose if you were lucid it's not out of the question to manipulate the flow of time, but I haven't tried that on a large scale (just made one feisty dude age really fast lol). Interesting discussion... I don't know if this is really related but I can't think of a time where I had a full transition from day to night or vice versa. I have had dreams that cover longer amounts of time but it's more of a ghost of Christmas future type thing... Here's you now, boom it's 10 hours/days/years later. I'll have to search my journals for any exceptions to this, I'm curious now.

Actually I had a dream once that involved me seeing an old version of myself (old as in like 90 years old, didn't know the old guy was me at this point.) then as the dream progressed I became the old version of me and saw the young me in the same way that the old me was originally seen. I don't know whether to attribute it to the aging process being screwed up or accelerated time, because in the dream itself it didn't seem like an incredibly long time. Either way it was pretty darn creepy.

Originally Posted by duke396

To me it seems relative? I mean as far as having "long" dreams I think I perceive the dream as longer when I remember more details. When I have a dream fragment do I think I was in the dream world for less time? Not necessarily. It could be that I woke up a lot or it just slipped my mind. I think time tends to pass at a normal perceived rate, but it seems like I can get more things done in less time because of what someone else mentioned about skipping parts of the process. I suppose if you were lucid it's not out of the question to manipulate the flow of time, but I haven't tried that on a large scale (just made one feisty dude age really fast lol). Interesting discussion... I don't know if this is really related but I can't think of a time where I had a full transition from day to night or vice versa. I have had dreams that cover longer amounts of time but it's more of a ghost of Christmas future type thing... Here's you now, boom it's 10 hours/days/years later. I'll have to search my journals for any exceptions to this, I'm curious now.

Actually I had a dream once that involved me seeing an old version of myself (old as in like 90 years old, didn't know the old guy was me at this point.) then as the dream progressed I became the old version of me and saw the young me in the same way that the old me was originally seen. I don't know whether to attribute it to the aging process being screwed up or accelerated time, because in the dream itself it didn't seem like an incredibly long time. Either way it was pretty darn creepy.

Cool, never had experience where I saw version of old me. I had couple of dreams where I thought it was older me, but I was not sure. Had a lot of jumps in time, I appeared in old times, castles and knights and then I saw that there were wizards there, I wanted to go forward in time but in the same dream, appeared somewhere in future and did not find any wizards there, that's why I was not sure whether it is the same dream in future or a new dream of future in a new world.

Well that's pretty interesting, I've always wanted to travel forward or backward in time in a dream but mine seem to always be set in "modern day" or present themselves in a way that I either can't tell or it doesn't matter what time period it is. Also in relation to the speed of time, I was just reading in my DJ earlier and it mentioned (in a non-lucid dream) a mask I took from an adversary which had the power to alter gravity and slow down the passage of time around me. Odd.

I thought the old man dream I mentioned above was in my DJ but it wasn't, so I just now added it in case you or someone else wanted the full version.

Once I traveled to the future using a surf board on a bus . I wasn't able to find the older version of myself, although it was fun the way my mind came up with the future version of the place where I lived. There, my older version apparently was going to burn all my drawings, I left a message on the table asking me not to do that because of I saw many ideas which later I drew for real, then I went back.

Talking about how time flies, I was thinking about the speed of thoughts and perhaps it's involved too the ability of the brain to think without words, it takes less time to build whole ideas than what usually we do when paragraphing. As @Hitokage said, perhaps the brain is fully active during dreams and it's working that way to build lot of details in 'just one shot'. It could explain the huge amount of details in short time.

Originally Posted by Box77

Once I traveled to the future using a surf board on a bus . I wasn't able to find the older version of myself, although it was fun the way my mind came up with the future version of the place where I lived. There, my older version apparently was going to burn all my drawings, I left a message on the table asking me not to do that because of I saw many ideas which later I drew for real, then I went back.

Talking about how time flies, I was thinking about the speed of thoughts and perhaps it's involved too the ability of the brain to think without words, it takes less time to build whole ideas than what usually we do when paragraphing. As @Hitokage said, perhaps the brain is fully active during dreams and it's working that way to build lot of details in 'just one shot'. It could explain the huge amount of details in short time.

It could also explain why greatest scientist got their innovative ideas during dreaming. When you are dedicated to some subject you will be dreaming on it every night, so why do we have to throw away 30% of our life to void? We can work at night too