Meeting you're subconscious and prolonging lucid dreams

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03-01-2011, 06:26 AM
abrandt

Meeting you're subconscious and prolonging lucid dreams

A little while ago, when i first learned about lucid dreaming, i came across a number of websites that said one of the things you could do in a dream is personify your subconscious. Basically you could talk to yourself without any barriers and get some surprising answers. Anyway my question is, if you were able to somehow "meet" your subconsious (i use quotes because essentially it is you you're meeting), could you ask your subconsous to hold you in the dream, thereby prolonging it indefinitely? I'm nowhere near experienced enough to have the control to try this but if someone with more experience could try this and report back it might prove interesting.
03-01-2011, 06:31 AM
Connorator15

I had this idea too but instead of dreaming indefinitely I would ask to have a LD every time I start
dreaming and maybe for better recall
03-01-2011, 06:53 AM
musicforlife

that would be awesome, def ask for when a dream starts that a DC always tells me i'm dreaming so that i can lucid everytime i dream. that would be crazy good!
03-01-2011, 07:00 AM
StonedApe

You probably could prolong the dream, but not indefinitely, at least I don't see how you could. Eventually you'd get too hungry or thirsty or uncomfortable.
03-01-2011, 07:16 AM
reere

I doubt you can prolong your dream longer than your REM is.
03-01-2011, 07:23 AM
Connorator15

But doesn't your sense of time get messed up when you're dreaming because your brain works faster or something?
So you wouldn't dream longer than your REM period but it would seem like a long time when you're in the dream.
03-01-2011, 07:32 AM
reere

According on research by Stephen Laberge, no. Time is the same in dream than waking state.
Don't trust everthing you see in movies.
Inception was a great movie but still a movie.
03-01-2011, 07:36 AM
juroara

Biologically speaking, probably not! But maybe the subconscious can prolong the dream.

One time I fell asleep wanting to talk to my subconscious. At some point in my dream I find a green pasture just beyond a window. When I reach the green pasture, there's an ocean in front of me and temple ruins next to me. I felt like I've been to this place before in several dreams, but this is the only dream I could remember it. I realize there's a presence in the ocean. It talks to me with a booming god-like voice. But the words were slippery, like I could only grasp their meaning for a few moments, and the meaning of the words just slipped away.

I was scared and confused, and wished that presence would be friendlier and easier to understand.

Without asking it, the presence transformed into a human that I could understand and relate to. I realize my subconscious is manifested in front of me as a dream character. Woah, so many things I wanna ask! But then I remember why I wanted to talk to my subconscious in the first place. Now, suddenly the question didn't even seem all that important.

Without saying anything the subconscious DC agrees that there are better things to ask. This DC definitely knew my intimate thoughts before I could even finish them! It felt kinda silly even asking anything, why ask, 'don't you - me - already know what I'm going to ask'? And the subconscious DC already knew what I wanted to ask.

As my subconscious was telling me the answer, I suddenly woke up with eyes wide open. He wasn't done talking to me! But I did hear enough to learn something valuable.

I was asking about a specific (personal) dream task I wanted to do, and I thought my subconscious could help me. But from what my subconscious told me, my subconscious actually can't help me accomplish this dream task in anyway! Actually, the only way I can accomplish this dream task is through my own (waking) conscious attention.

What I gained from that dream was, as god-like as the subconscious is being able to create every detail of the dream, the subconscious holds absolutely no power over your own consciousness. So maybe the subconscious can prolong the dream if you ask, but your subconscious can't stop you from waking.

You really wanna prolong the dream? Practice conscious attention.

I also learned its not necessary to ask your subconscious to manifest as a person you can talk to. Before my subconscious was the DC, my subconscious was the ocean and the rest of the dreamscape around me.
03-01-2011, 07:38 AM
StonedApe

I;ve definetly experienced time dilation, but it's not common, and not usually very extreme.

The problem with researching stuff about LDs is that so much of it has to do with your expectations of what will happen. I trust Laberge but that's one thing I've always disagreed with him on. Though I could be wrong as well, it could just feel like time is dilated, but whats the difference really.
03-01-2011, 04:12 PM
whiterain

Quote:

Originally Posted by reere

According on research by Stephen Laberge, no. Time is the same in dream than waking state.
Don't trust everthing you see in movies.
Inception was a great movie but still a movie.

i dont think thats quite what he was saying. he was testing whether time experienced in a regular lucid can be related to regular time. this is not quite the same as the subconscious ability to warp the perception of time.

ps ive not seen inception, but i have tried salvia ;)

of course sometimes it may just seem longer because it feels like so much more has happened
03-01-2011, 04:18 PM
riverboy

Quote:

Originally Posted by whiterain

i dont think thats quite what he was saying. he was testing whether time experienced in a regular lucid can be related to regular time. this is not quite the same as the subconscious ability to warp the perception of time.

ps ive not seen inception, but i have tried salvia ;)

of course sometimes it may just seem longer because it feels like so much more has happened

Either way scientists technically can't be sure that dreams end when REM ends. Dream recall is definitely stronger when a sleeper is woken up straight after REM and some eye movements do correlate with dream events. But there's no way of being sure of whether or not the dream continues into non-REM for any period of time.

I'm not saying you're wrong, just that it's a possibility given the gaps in some research.
03-01-2011, 04:26 PM
Mrsf0011

Quote:

Originally Posted by reere

According on research by Stephen Laberge, no. Time is the same in dream than waking state.
Don't trust everthing you see in movies.
Inception was a great movie but still a movie.

according to Einstein and many other great thinkers time is an illusion all togethor, its something we created like money
03-01-2011, 08:46 PM
LikesToTrip

I read a study awhile back, it was regarding the idea that when you are in a traumatizing event time seems to slow down. They wondered if the brain is able to recognize the danger and go into overdrive and be able to process more information more quickly. However, they concluded that it is only the memory of the event that seems prolonged, not the event itself. The more you remember about a certain event the longer it appears to have happened to your brain. If after a day at work/school you start to remember many different things that happened during the day it feels like it was a long day. However if it was a fairly uneventful day and you only remember a few key parts, it seems like it was a much shorter day. The memory of the event is where time dilation occurs, not the event itself.

EDIT: Found an article relating to the study
How the Brain Stops Time | Psychology Today
03-01-2011, 10:24 PM
reere

But I think you cannot prolong REM. Some dreamers claim that they had a dream who seemed last a hundred years. Obviously they did not stay in the dream a hundred years.
About perception of time, no doubt. Your subconscious could probably alter your perception of time.
03-02-2011, 12:20 AM
LakeyPoo

I've also wondered this. I want to talk to my subconscious and try to convince it into helping me get lucid more or something haha
03-02-2011, 04:14 AM
riverboy

Quote:

Originally Posted by LikesToTrip

I read a study awhile back, it was regarding the idea that when you are in a traumatizing event time seems to slow down. They wondered if the brain is able to recognize the danger and go into overdrive and be able to process more information more quickly. However, they concluded that it is only the memory of the event that seems prolonged, not the event itself. The more you remember about a certain event the longer it appears to have happened to your brain. If after a day at work/school you start to remember many different things that happened during the day it feels like it was a long day. However if it was a fairly uneventful day and you only remember a few key parts, it seems like it was a much shorter day. The memory of the event is where time dilation occurs, not the event itself.

EDIT: Found an article relating to the study
How the Brain Stops Time | Psychology Today

I'm glad you've seen similar research to me. Perception of time is generally perceived determined on events that occur. For example 30 minutes of adverts on TV is easy to judge. However 30 minutes of one scene is harder to judge as it is difficult to break into multiple components.

Even if length of REM is all about perception, at least you can believe it's lasted a day! The whole dream experience is subjective enough as it is, to believe I've escaped the real world for x amount of time is enough :)