Time in Dreams

Hey everybody, I am new to this site, and new to lucid dreaming! i have had lucid dreams before, but they were in my childhood so i don't consider myself a lucid dreamer (yet :)) i recently have had very vivid flying dreams which inspired me in a way i can't describe. this sent me on a research quest for knowledge of lucid dreams. in about a day after re-discovering what they were, i had my hopes set on having them again. so here i am, devoted.

But what i was wondering:
My friend is a very experienced lucid dreamer and has been for about 3 years now. i just wanted to know what your perception of time is like in a dream, because he told me that you dont have a firm grasp on it, but he has felt like one of his dreams lasted for years. is this possible? just wondering, but hopefully i'll find out tonight before anybody has the chance to reply!
thanks
-nate

It varies, just like everything else in dreams. Sometimes it feels shorter than RL time, sometimes it feels longer, and sometimes it feels just about the same as RL. Dream recall also plays a big role here. If you don't have very good dream recall, you'll likely think dream time is shorter than RL time, because you forgot so many of the dreams details. If you're very good, and you remember many of the details, you'll likely percieve your dreams as being longer.

Your perception of time typically passes at about the same rate in dreams as it does when you're awake. However time can sometimes seem dialated to certain amounts. It is also possible to use dream control to dialate time if you are lucid and experienced enough. I don't think anyone has proven how far it is posible to dialate dream time but I have heard several stories of people claiming to be in a dream for what feels like years and even lifetimes.

Oh my, lifetimes? Why wake up? Haha.

I would like to learn to do this.

Dream time and real time are normally pretty close together, sometimes a bit shorter, sometimes a bit longer.
I've heard stories of people supposedly dreaming for what felt like years, which I find hard to believe. I think the largest extent could maybe be a couple of days, or about a week at max.

Tests by Stephen Laberge have suggested that dreams work in real time. But a dreamer can direct the dream so it appears to have gone longer. Much like in the movie industry, where they manage to fit a story lasting weeks or even years into a 1/2hour time slot.

makes sense. my friend claims to have lived another life for a very long time. when he awoke, he was set back a little bit. who knows, could be different for everyone.

my first lucid dream was flying too..in the blue sky and it turn into lucid

it's the greatest feeling ever

Dreams operate on a real time basis. (Proven by Stephen Laberge). The extent of time distortion on a dream depends on how skilled the dreamer is.

Time to us is defined through perception, if think of how a movie works, its just a series of images one after the other, the lower the frame rate, i.e the fewer the photos in one period of time the faster the video will appear, however if the film has a higher framerate across the same time period (replayed at the same speed) it will appear slower (which is how slo-mo works) therefore time to us can seem slower or faster in our waking lives, as the saying goes time flies when you're having fun. In our dreams in my opinion this can be greatly exaggerated so time can appear much slower or much faster to us. for example I once had a lucid dream which lasted for what felt like a year and in reality I had definitely not slept that long.