Thread: Why is "everything", but dialating time possible in a lucid dream

Originally Posted by Sageous

Here's the thing, as I see it, about time dilation.

There is no such thing as time. There is no thing made of mass or energy that can be called "time." There is no time wave or time particle (sorry Star Trek fans). Time is simply the tool for measurement that we use to understand actual physical events like change, movement, velocity or acceleration. Unfortunately (for these purposes), that tool has been so completely embedded into our psyches that we are hard-pressed to experience reality without time on hand to help us wrap our heads around what we see. Indeed, our invention of time the tool was so complete that it has followed us into our dreams -- a dream, especially a LD, will pass in about the same amount of time as whatever time is passing in waking life. Under the rules we've created for observing reality, even dream reality, there seems no way to experience reality without using time to measure it, and apparently that yardstick of time is ruled immutably.

So, you cannot dilate time because it doesn't exist, and how can you change the dimensions of a concept that has no dimension? Also, you can't dilate time because its "length" has been perfectly fused into our psyches, giving us a nearly indomitable "sense" of time that can only be slightly effected by things like boredom or excitement. Seems a pretty tough nut to crack.

But what if, in dreams, you can possibly eliminate the nut itself? As the OP suggests, since you can do anything in the reality that is your dreams, instead of dilating time -- which might be impossible for the reasons I just said above -- why not simply ignore it? Why not just remove it from the process of how you observe and participate in the reality of your dreams?

This would be extremely difficult, because the programming is so perfectly imbedded in us to use time, but it seems that, with enough effort, you ought to be able to produce a dream that does not include time. Here's the irony in successfully doing so, though:

Erase time from your dream and suddenly your existence in the dream is eternal. You might be in your dream world "forever," but you won't know it, because eternity is no more than an endless here & now, with no time passing.

tl;dr: So, Tye, your conundrum might be more simply stated: Yes, you can do or change everything in a dream, but time, unfortunately, is not a thing, so it cannot be changed... it must instead be ignored, erased, or rather removed from your mind's toolbox for comprehending reality.

I don't think I'm being very helpful or clear here, and I'm confident that my opinion is in an extreme minority, so I think I'll stop ... just thought I'd share my thoughts, and maybe plug the thread I started about the nonexistence of time, because I think that's what really matters in a conversation like this.

I'd hate to reply to a post more than 1 month old, but I feel compelled to do so.
With that said, I can say with near certainty that time does exist, that it can be altered, and it's effects can be observed.
For a long time (pun not intended) physicist couldn't really explain what time was or if it even existed, however, Einstein's theory of general relativity explains how time works. In his theory Einstein claimed that space and time were intimately woven together like a straw basket. He also described how any object with mass bends space around it. This bending of space was his way of explaining gravity but this is also interesting because it states that because the object bends space it also indirectly bends time. This has the interesting effect of "slowing" time down around the object. For small objects with little mass this is barely noticeable with even the most accurate atomic clocks man has ever built. However, this time-bending effect becomes much more noticeable when the object in question is extremely large and massive.

Black holes, for instance, are the most massive and densest objects known to exist in the universe. This means they have an extremely powerful gravitational force (the most powerful of any know object) and it also means they bend time to an enormous extent. How enormous? Well, imagine you had a space craft that could teleport you into orbit around the closest super-massive black hole near you. Should you orbit this black hole for what you believe would be 1 year and then teleported back to earth, you would find that while you have only aged 1 year while earth has aged many hundreds, if not thousands, of years. This is not a trick, people on board you spaceship will have experienced time at a different rate than people on earth. What is amazing about this is that you would not notice it. People on your spaceship would feel like time is moving exactly how it should be. Concurrently people on earth would feel like time is moving exactly how it should be moving as well. It's actually quite mind blowing. (And yes, this is kind of a way to time travel into the future without aging all that much but it is a one way trip)

To give a real world example on why this is important let's talk about GPS, or Global Positioning Systems. Our GPS systems are all based on satellites in orbit around earth. Now GPS satellites have internal atomic clocks in them that are extremely accurate. However, scientists found that atomic clocks in orbit around the earth ticked slightly "faster" than atomic clocks on earth. This is because an object's gravitational pull gets more powerful as you get closer to it's gravitational center and thus time is bent more on the surface of the object than in orbit around the object. So why would this be a big deal? Because the GPS systems in our cars are all based on receiving signals from 4 different satellites around earth. All 4 of these signals reach your car at different times which tells the car's GPS exactly what it's position on earth is. However, should the satellite's atomic clocks get out of synch with the GPS clocks in your car your GPS systems will not work properly. Thankfully scientists identified this problem and adjusted the satellite's clocks accordingly to insure they stayed in synch with our clocks our surface clocks.

Because of Einsteins breakthroughs most physicists are now quite certain that time is a real thing and not merely a concept invented by man to explain nature's law of cause and effect in a coherent and understandable way.

(Sorry if this was too off topic or if there are glaring errors in my grammar or sentence structure. I wrote this hastily just to get my point across and not waste too much time. If it is determined this post is too off topic I will gladly edit it into something more topic friendly. Also, if you would like to learn more about how time works and how gravity/mass/energy effect it I suggest you google it as it is quite a fascinating subject)