Thread: Is it possible for a person to control the time of their dream if lucid?

I would say yes, it is very possible. I had a particular dream before when I found myself in school bored to death, yet I was with a friend, and all I wanted was to forward the time to summer time. As I found myself in lucidity I remember just throwing down the desk in the classroom and rushing out the door... and as I was running out suddenly I remember that the faster I ran the more time changed, all while thinking about it in my head. When I left the school campus I found myself out by the lake and it was summer, and I saw my friends so I ran towards them and enjoyed, partied, out the day.

What I'd like to do next time is just grab a clock and move the times of my hands and see what happens.

Possible, but i'm almost 100% sure that once you stop thinking about the speed time flies by at, it'll revert back to the original...

Can I ask another question, is it possible to control how long a dream lasts?

Well, there are a few techniques to wake up when you want to, and ones to prolong your dream when you feel it's ending. There are numerous threads on that, just search.

well think of it this way. Our own brain is the limit of our imagination. what is a lucid dream - a dream (visualization) in which we are aware. So now that you are currently aware visualize a random situation in brain. How fast is the fastest you can imagine it to be happening? for me its about triple speed of real time. So I just assume that in a lucid dream i can triple the speed of time without missing out parts.
Off course sometimes it feels like its been two weeks instead of three hours but i can never remember the whole dream.

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

Off course sometimes it feels like its been two weeks instead of three hours but i can never remember the whole dream.

Going to stop you there. It's impossible to dream for 3 hours straight unless you have a medical condition that screws up your REM periods (if such a condition exists).

If you reread my post I meant that if i can visualize a dream in triple speed, then three hours is like one hour in real life at a maximum speed

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

If you reread my post I meant that if i can visualize a dream in triple speed, then three hours is like one hour in real life at a maximum speed

Maybe I'm just being pedantic here, but usually you'll dream for about 5-15 mins.

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

If you reread my post I meant that if i can visualize a dream in triple speed, then three hours is like one hour in real life at a maximum speed

Perhaps, who am I to place a limit on that? Our subjective experience of time in waking reality changes all the time - maybe in a dream such alterations occur to a larger degree and even intentionally. When people say, oh you're not experiencing 3 hours in a 1 hour, it just feels like that... lol what is the difference? We are talking subjective experience here, we always are.

Generally, the pattern is: no thoughts of time passing and 'being in the moment' = fast passing of time. And paying attention to the passing of time = slow passing of time.

I read some books from LaBerge and he said something about that.

Our brain is very good in "creating memories", that's why sometimes we are in a dream and feel like we had all a life there, it's cause our brain kinda created some memories to make us believe in that.

He proved that the time in Lucid Dreams (he could prove only in the LDs) is the same of the time in real world, how ?

-He took a group of lucid dreamers, and asked them to count from 1 to 10 while awake. The average time the people took to count was 13 seconds (using a chronometer).
-He asked them to do the same in their LDs, making a pre determinated movement with the eyes before and after counting the time in the dreams, this way the people in the laboratory was able to count it in a chronometer in the same time as the LDreamer.
-The result was the same, the people took about 13 seconds to count from 1 to 10.

It proved that the perception of time is the same while awake and during Lucid Dreams.


It's possible to preventing you from awakening doing some techniques like spining your body (this one was discovered by LaBerge)
Some times it may take you to another dream or to a False Awakening, I could use this technique once, and it happened to me.
But it have a limit of course, when your REM period end, you are out of dreams for a while

I believe you can enjoy more your time while dreaming, this can make you feel like it lasted more, if you are more aware of everything arround you in the dream, of each object, character and feeling, I'm sure you will feel like the dream lasted more when you awake. If you just fly like crazy without even looking better at the scenario you will feel like you flew only for some seconds (only an example )

^ The dream time does not always equal the real time. It's ever changing, there is no rule that it'll always be set.

Originally Posted by littlezoe

^ The dream time does not always equal the real time. It's ever changing, there is no rule that it'll always be set.

I just cited the LaBerge's experiment, he didn't mention any strange result in his book
But as I said, he could prove only in Lucid Dreams.

I believe it can happen in Non Lucid Dreams, actually happened to me sometimes
For example, in one dream of mine (not lucid) it started to hear a song that I like and in the dream I clearly remember of singin almost all the song. When I woke up, it was my alarm song, but it was in the first 5 seconds OO'

In aaaall my 2 Lucid Dreams (xD) i've never had a perception that was too different from real, but my experience is little, maybe I'm wrong

It's possible in Lucids as well, don't worry...

Off course but I was just given an example, I just mean that a dream in which you can remember every second of can only be as fast as your brain can imagine it, common sense really.

Originally Posted by Rubens

I read some books from LaBerge and he said something about that.

Our brain is very good in "creating memories", that's why sometimes we are in a dream and feel like we had all a life there, it's cause our brain kinda created some memories to make us believe in that.

He proved that the time in Lucid Dreams (he could prove only in the LDs) is the same of the time in real world, how ?

-He took a group of lucid dreamers, and asked them to count from 1 to 10 while awake. The average time the people took to count was 13 seconds (using a chronometer).
-He asked them to do the same in their LDs, making a pre determinated movement with the eyes before and after counting the time in the dreams, this way the people in the laboratory was able to count it in a chronometer in the same time as the LDreamer.
-The result was the same, the people took about 13 seconds to count from 1 to 10.

It proved that the perception of time is the same while awake and during Lucid Dreams.


It's possible to preventing you from awakening doing some techniques like spining your body (this one was discovered by LaBerge)
Some times it may take you to another dream or to a False Awakening, I could use this technique once, and it happened to me.
But it have a limit of course, when your REM period end, you are out of dreams for a while

I believe you can enjoy more your time while dreaming, this can make you feel like it lasted more, if you are more aware of everything arround you in the dream, of each object, character and feeling, I'm sure you will feel like the dream lasted more when you awake. If you just fly like crazy without even looking better at the scenario you will feel like you flew only for some seconds (only an example )

I knew someone would bring in that LaBerge result. He didn't prove that time dilation isn't possible. He showed that under typical circumstances, dream time correlates with real time at a 1:1 ratio. Analogically, if I saw you sat next to a piano on many occasions, but I never observed you playing it, it doesn't mean I've evidence that you can't play the piano. You may have merely not divulged your skill.

He did not give them any instruction to dilate/manipulate time, but to merely observe it. And so the normal passing of dream time correlated with the normal passing of real-world time.

I wouldn't doubt it. I once tried to see how long I could sleep by telling myself "I will go into a coma and will not wake up for 2 days." before going to sleep and during my LD. I slept till about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. I really thought I was sleeping for 2 days. So theoretically if u tell yourself u will dream forever then you might be able to convince yourself not to wake up or when you wake up its been years. Idk, interesting topic. Need a lab rat?

Originally Posted by Wolfwood

I knew someone would bring in that LaBerge result. He didn't prove that time dilation isn't possible. He showed that under typical circumstances, dream time correlates with real time at a 1:1 ratio. Analogically, if I saw you sat next to a piano on many occasions, but I never observed you playing it, it doesn't mean I've evidence that you can't play the piano. You may have merely not divulged your skill.

He did not give them any instruction to dilate/manipulate time, but to merely observe it. And so the normal passing of dream time correlated with the normal passing of real-world time.

Thank you. I far too often see people flat out denounce time dilation (most of them amateurs, at best, at lucid dreaming!) when, truthfully, we just don't have enough information to say with confidence one way or the other.

No doubt, from a purely deterministic perspective under current scientific theory, time dilation to the point of making a dream truly feel like weeks or even years seems improbable. However, this is not to say that it is impossible, but merely that if it were possible the current model would need to be updated.

The studies that people cite do little to prove that time dilation cannot occur. I've read up on a few of the studies, and the most frequently quoted one is LaBerge's, but they all never attempt to dilate time, and thus using them as evidence against time dilation is weak. What the studies really act as evidence for is that time in dreams can line up with waking time, not that it must. The fact that no instances of time dilation were recorded is not bizarre, as most dreams are not reported to have felt extremely time dilated, and the number of lucid dreamers and total number of lucid dreams in each of the studies is so small that we would expect there not to be an instance of time dilation within the sample.

I think there is enough anecdotal evidence of time dilation to deserve a study specifically focusing on it. If an unbiased study with a large sample size of both experienced dreamers and LDs is performed where the goal is explicitly to dilate time, and no results are achieved, then feel free to cite that study as counter-evidence. Until then, citing these studies does nothing but stretch their conclusions to try to fit your already biased perspective.

My opinion? Once I hone my lucid dreaming skills further, I plan to explore for myself whether the phenomenon is possible. No doubt, I do hope it exists after all the positive stories I've read, but if I am not able to achieve it, that is perfectly fine.

Originally Posted by Wolfwood

He did not give them any instruction to dilate/manipulate time, but to merely observe it. And so the normal passing of dream time correlated with the normal passing of real-world time.

It changed my mind Thanks

Originally Posted by Sabre2552

Thank you. I far too often see people flat out denounce time dilation (most of them amateurs, at best, at lucid dreaming!) when, truthfully, we just don't have enough information to say with confidence one way or the other.

No doubt, from a purely deterministic perspective under current scientific theory, time dilation to the point of making a dream truly feel like weeks or even years seems improbable. However, this is not to say that it is impossible, but merely that if it were possible the current model would need to be updated.

The studies that people cite do little to prove that time dilation cannot occur. I've read up on a few of the studies, and the most frequently quoted one is LaBerge's, but they all never attempt to dilate time, and thus using them as evidence against time dilation is weak. What the studies really act as evidence for is that time in dreams can line up with waking time, not that it must. The fact that no instances of time dilation were recorded is not bizarre, as most dreams are not reported to have felt extremely time dilated, and the number of lucid dreamers and total number of lucid dreams in each of the studies is so small that we would expect there not to be an instance of time dilation within the sample.

I think there is enough anecdotal evidence of time dilation to deserve a study specifically focusing on it. If an unbiased study with a large sample size of both experienced dreamers and LDs is performed where the goal is explicitly to dilate time, and no results are achieved, then feel free to cite that study as counter-evidence. Until then, citing these studies does nothing but stretch their conclusions to try to fit your already biased perspective.

My opinion? Once I hone my lucid dreaming skills further, I plan to explore for myself whether the phenomenon is possible. No doubt, I do hope it exists after all the positive stories I've read, but if I am not able to achieve it, that is perfectly fine.

I don't deny the existence of time dilation, but the keyword here is ''feel''. One may be able to manipulate their dream world so that 10 minutes feels like 10 hours, but in reality it's still only been 10 minutes.

Originally Posted by Graves

I don't deny the existence of time dilation, but the keyword here is ''feel''. One may be able to manipulate their dream world so that 10 minutes feels like 10 hours, but in reality it's still only been 10 minutes.

We are obviously talking about dream time, not real time =)

Originally Posted by littlezoe

We are obviously talking about dream time, not real time =)

I'm aware of that, but there is no evidence to suggest that dream time is different from real time.

Originally Posted by Graves

I'm aware of that, but there is no evidence to suggest that dream time is different from real time.

If you feel like 2 hours passed by while you were lucid, then that was 2 hours passing by in DREAM TIME. You can't just check a clock in the dream, so it's all based on feelings.
That's enough of an evidence once you have long dreams like that.

Originally Posted by littlezoe

If you feel like 2 hours passed by while you were lucid, then that was 2 hours passing by in DREAM TIME. You can't just check a clock in the dream, so it's all based on feelings.

You say that as if it is a proven fact. Again, there is no evidence to suggest that dream time exists.

Originally Posted by Graves

You say that as if it is a proven fact. Again, there is no evidence to suggest that dream time exists.

So, if you have a dream that feels like 2 days, then you sleep for 2 days in real as well.

What a logic you have there...