Thread: Time in dreamworld time in the real world

hmmm
I just wanted to share this tid bit of info I read awhile ago

I once herd-

"In the last century, Alfred Maury had a long and complicated dream that led to his being beheaded by a guillotine. He woke up terrified, and found that the headboard of his bed had fallen on his neck. From this, the story goes, he concluded that the whole dream had been created in the moment of awakening."
Its just a story. pretty interesting though. I thought id bring it up



I think the brain assumes allot of things while were dreaming, time seems to be one of them

To quote one of my other posts:

Technically speaking, It's not possible.

Here is a direct quote from Stephan LaBerge's book "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming".

Mind/brain/body relationships during dreaming One of the earliest experiments conducted by my research team tested the traditional notion that the experience of dream time is somehow different from time in the waking world. We approached the problem of dream time by asking subjects to make an eye movement signal in their lucid dreams, estimate a ten-second interval (by counting one thousand and one, one thousand and two, etc. ), and then make another eye movement signal. In all cases, we found time estimates made in lucid dreams were within a few seconds of estimates made in the waking state and likewise quite close to the actual time between signals. From this we have concluded that in lucid dreams, estimated dream time is very nearly equal to clock time; that is, it takes just as long to do something in a dream as it does to actually do it.

You may be wondering, then, how you could have a dream that seems to last for years or lifetimes. I believe this effect is achieved in dreams by the same stage trick that causes the illusion of the passage of time in the movies or theater. If, on screen, stage, or dream, we see someone turning out the light as the clock strikes midnight, and after a few moments of darkness, we see him turning off an alarm as the bright morning sun shines through the window, we’ll accept (pretend, without being aware that we are pretending) that many hours have Passed even though we “know” it was only a few seconds.

Well, based on the events that pass in one's dream, our minds perceive the passing of time, though we typically don't experience every single moment that occurs. In certain cases, dream time and real time can coincide with one another, but typically since there's no real "down time" things often seem to go much faster in dreams. On the other hand, because we go in and out of different levels of brain activity, a dream may seem short while real minutes or hours could pass.

It's interesting to think about, but it would be extremely difficult to accurately measure real time while dreaming. Not saying it can't be done, though

Originally Posted by Amethyst Star

Well, based on the events that pass in one's dream, our minds perceive the passing of time, though we typically don't experience every single moment that occurs. In certain cases, dream time and real time can coincide with one another, but typically since there's no real "down time" things often seem to go much faster in dreams. On the other hand, because we go in and out of different levels of brain activity, a dream may seem short while real minutes or hours could pass.

It's interesting to think about, but it would be extremely difficult to accurately measure real time while dreaming. Not saying it can't be done, though

Coherent and straight to the point. Thanks Amethyst Star.

I'm reviving this thread on the grounds that it's interesting.

Originally Posted by glow

I think the brain assumes allot of things while were dreaming, time seems to be one of them

That doesn't make much sense, because humans actually have an astoundingly accurate measure of time. In one experiment, people were asked to wait three minutes, and they were to tell the researchers when they thought three minutes had passed. Each one got it within, if I remember correctly, 20 seconds. However, older people, such as the elderly seem to be pretty bad at it, getting it within, if I remember, 40 seconds.
Therefore, I don't think that, even within a dream, the brain would have to "assume" time.