Speed of perception in dreams

**terezrucker** · 04-10-2013 03:19 AM

Hi guys, So I was wondering since everything we perceive in RL is delayed due to the brain first having to detect , decode, then render the outside world to us before we can see, hear, feel , and taste anything how does this work in dreams? In dreams we do not use our eye to see our ears to hear or our nerves to feel so is perception of dreams instant because we do not have any outside stimulus to perceive which would require our brains to use these instruments then interpret the information gathered. The time it takes for our brain to render the world around us is about one one thousandth of a second which may seem fast but is actually pretty slow if you where moving at one mm an hour by the time you perceive what is right in front of you it will have already passed by. Anyway i already searched the inter-webs for a solution but no luck because i guess it would be nearly impossible to measure since dream are like the essence of thought anyway what do you guys think is perception in dreams instant(which could then be faster than light since light doesn't exist in dreams and light takes time to travel to your eyes in RL) or is it delayed like in RL?

**Zoth** · 04-10-2013 03:41 AM

Now that I think about it....I have no clue where the the perception of the dreams exist. It's clearly not the same as waking life, otherwise people with occipital lobe damage wouldn't be able to dream visually right? But there's reports of people with damage to parietal lobe that couldn't dream. It's tricky, to be honest, no one has a clue where they originate, or even if they originate from a single or multiple areas of the brain.

To answer you question: there's always a delay. Neurons don't transmit information instantaneously, so even if you're dreaming, your memories are not necessarily located in the same place where the perception of the dream happens....

Where ever that place is

**JoannaB** · 04-10-2013 03:46 AM

I think if I remember correctly there have been some studies done showing that even in dreams the brain engages the nerves to the body parts required, so if you are hearing something in a dream, even though it should not logically involve your ears, but it does. This is especially visible with eyes: in dreams we do rapid eye movement, and our eyes point where the dream event that we are watching is happening - not because we are actually seeing through our eyes, but our brain knows that seeing involves eyes, and thus the eyes are engaged as we dream of seeing. Therefore, I would expect the speed of perception to not necessarily be faster in dreams.

In addition, our mental processes often are not as sharp in dreams. Now there is an exception to that: a lucid dream with full awareness and complete control. But in most of our dreams our mind is not working at optimal capacity, and there is some brain fog and illogical thinking and such. I would expect that to slow down perception. In many dreams we are more dim witted than in reality, and we do not catch on as fast. Now as I said in some lucid dreams (though not all lucid dreams) that is not the case.

Some lucid dreamers report being in full control and being able to do things faster and more efficiently and think faster and speed up time in such optimal lucid dreams. This has not been proven scientifically, but there are anecdotes supporting that some people may be able to do this.

**Zoth** · 04-10-2013 03:54 AM

Some lucid dreamers report being in full control and being able to do things faster and more efficiently and think faster and speed up time in such optimal lucid dreams. This has not been proven scientifically, but there are anecdotes supporting that some people may be able to do this.

There are ways to speed up perception. If people do it in waking life, it should be no surprise that they happen as well in lucid dreams. Quite an interesting point you made, reminded me instantaneously of this article. To be honest, this might as well be the reason behind the "high level lucid dreams" that many people talk.

This could make a very good topic for discussion..

**terezrucker** · 04-10-2013 04:21 AM

It would take a powerful lder to test this out completely. The notion that perception is instantaneous is theoretically impossible. However can it be nigh instance or at least faster than RL in a ld? I'm no scientist but im assuming (but am not an ass) that although your body parts react your brain could not possibly be processing information gathered from them because it would not match the situation at hand. One the other hand you can Hear Things and feel things in RL while in a lucid dream but, for the purpose of this discussion lets say your in a vacuum void of any outside stimulus. I think in a lucid dream simply because of the abstract point of views that can be accomplished you perceive more and perceive it faster. For example some where on here someone tired to spilt their complete consciousness into equally powerfull avatars while having them perceive different thing simultaneously and succeed To some degree in basicly multiplying their consciousness but there is no hard evidence .

**Diceycle** · 04-15-2013 11:06 PM

I quite agree with what JoannaB. What we also have to think of is that sometimes in really light sleep or on the edge to waking up, the brain connects some information from the RL with the dream(like sound and touch) so somehow the dream is simply a fusion of information from ones subconcious and rl events.
so why shouldnt perception in a dream be as fast as in waking life since the brain has to process both inputs?

love this question btw^^