What is the passage of Time like in a LD?

**NoctilucentArt** · 10-20-2011 03:34 PM

I had my first LD this morning and am still on quite the HIGH. It was amazing and my mind is reeling at the possibilities. One thing I have yet to come across in my readings on this subject and the thing that has me the most curious is what does the passage of Time feel like when one is in a lucid dream? We all know what a minute or an hour "feels like" in this waking world. What about in the LD? What have been your experiences regarding the passage of time there? Thanks.

**Graves** · 10-20-2011 04:57 PM

It differs on the person. Some people use something called ''time dilation'' which can apparently make a REM period or two feel like hours, days, weeks, even months. In my experiences it's been hard to tell, but I can roughly guess how long I've been lucid for.

**Twoshadows** · 10-20-2011 05:09 PM

It's hard to say exactly, but I remember once having what felt like quite a lengthy LD in the ten minutes between my alarms. That's the only one I have been able to time exactly. And it felt much longer than 10 minute. I would have guessed between 30-60 minutes. And I have had a few non lucid dreams where weeks were supposed to have passed in the single dream. So somehow our minds can make it feel longer than it is really taking in real life.

Congrats on your first LD! Isn't that just the most amazing feeling the first time you realize that you are "awake" but in a "different world"? It's still amazing for me, but that first time blew my mind.

**NoctilucentArt** · 10-20-2011 05:44 PM

That's it exactly....."awake but in a different world". I mean it was just such a real sense of awareness....like I was floating in a pool, a couple of feet above my living room floor.....and I am really having trouble finding the words to fully express to those around me what I experienced. Thanks for being here/there/wherever this is.

Wow.

**~~fhgshfdg~~** · 10-20-2011 05:50 PM

Definitely strange. I don't ever feel the individual moments pass, but I sense the longevity of it all. I've had a few instances where I felt as though I'd been in the dream for longer than I should be and even a couple times thought I'd become trapped. Needless to say it was a terrifying experience. This feeling only happens to me when I'm lucid, however. Whenever I'm having a non-lucid dream, time is almost non-existent. The dream passes instantaneously and I'm left with the memory of it upon waking up. Not to imply I don't have some vibrantly realistic feeling dreams, they're just distinctly discernible from real life.

**Puffin** · 10-20-2011 05:54 PM

Congrats on your first lucid!

Perceptually, time feels like it's going along normally in my own LDs. When I wake up, the time still feels similar to what it felt like in the dream; for instance, if I was lucid for five minutes and then woke up, the time spent in the dream would still feel like 5 minutes. When I look at my clock though, lots more time would have passed because I wasn't just asleep for five minutes.

I personally don't believe in the ability to spend many days, months or years in an LD, since one's REM periods are only so long. You cannot go through every event or occasion that would occur over many years unless you skip a whole bunch of stuff in between, but that's just a set of different scenarios made to look like you've spent a long time in the dream. It's not really spending a year+ in the dream.

**Graves** · 10-20-2011 06:02 PM

Originally Posted by Puffin

I personally don't believe in the ability to spend many days, months or years in an LD, since one's REM periods are only so long. You cannot go through every event or occasion that would occur over many years unless you skip a whole bunch of stuff in between, but that's just a set of different scenarios made to look like you've spent a long time in the dream. It's not really spending a year+ in the dream.

Yeah, it's not literally spending that much time in a dream. It's manipulating your sense of time to generate what feels like that.

**Puffin** · 10-20-2011 06:05 PM

I wouldn't necessarily say it "feels" like that, though, as in you feel like you've actually spent a lifetime or whatever in a dream. I'm honestly not sure how to word it.

**Darkmatters** · 10-20-2011 06:25 PM

I'll take a shot at it -

In dreams unlike in movies, you experience feelings directly. Movies consist only of visuals and sound. But dreams, being generated inside your own mind and made of the stuff of the mind, consist of directly experienced thoughts, feelings, memories - anything you can experience in your mind when awake really. Sometimes for instance you experience great fear for no real reason, or elation. Sometimes you know things - like that you have to accomplish some task before a certain time. There's no concept of HOW you know these things - it's just a sort of implanted thought or memory.

So a dream can implant or generate a feeling that a lot of time has been passing. Just as it can generate the feeling that you're dead and rotting, or that you're a glowing being made of light. Or really any other feeling or idea you could possibly imagine.

**Puffin** · 10-20-2011 06:32 PM

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

I'll take a shot at it -

In dreams unlike in movies, you experience feelings directly. Movies consist only of visuals and sound. But dreams, being generated inside your own mind and made of the stuff of the mind, consist of directly experienced thoughts, feelings, memories - anything you can experience in your mind when awake really. Sometimes for instance you experience great fear for no real reason, or elation. Sometimes you know things - like that you have to accomplish some task before a certain time. There's no concept of HOW you know these things - it's just a sort of implanted thought or memory.

So a dream can implant or generate a feeling that a lot of time has been passing. Just as it can generate the feeling that you're dead and rotting, or that you're a glowing being made of light. Or really any other feeling or idea you could possibly imagine.

I see what you're getting at. Maybe it's just me, but I haven't really experienced "implanted" memories or feelings during lucids, because I'm conscious and am in control of my memories, pulling more of them from waking life such as remembered dream goals.

I am curious to learn more about people who have managed to truly feel a lengthy passage of time in an LD.

**Darkmatters** · 10-20-2011 07:26 PM

Doh!

Ok, I forgot you were talking about lucids - or rather I've just had so few lucids (and it's been so long) that I forgot how different they are. Yeah, what I said applies more to regular dreams.

**Quantiq** · 10-20-2011 08:07 PM

But apparently there is research that dream time occurs differently from person to person. Not exactly at days, months or years on a scale but enough to make 5 minutes feel almost like 10. I know I've had a couple of really lengthy dreams, however I'm just guessing that is what my mind interpreted from the actual length of the dream. Intresting.

Also congratulations on your lucid. Truly an amazing experience isn't it.

**Zoth** · 10-20-2011 09:38 PM

"Mind/brain/body relationships during dreaming One of the earliest experiments conducted by
my re-search team tested the traditional notion that the experi-ence 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 wak-ing state and likewise quite close to the actual time
be-tween 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 mov-ies or theater. If, on screen, stage, or dream, we see
someone turning out the light as the clock strikes mid-night, 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 sec-onds."

Taken from Exploring the world of lucid dreaming from Stephen LaBerge. I think you will find this short part very interesting

**Robot_Butler** · 10-20-2011 11:13 PM

Here is a fun thing to try if you want to experience a long period of time in a lucid dream. As soon as you become lucid, search your memories for an explanation for your current situation. Keep trying to remember further and further back. When I do this, I find false memories stretching back infinitely far.

I think these false memories are what has made my longest lucid dreams possible. The line between memory and current experience starts to blur. It is like the entire dream happens at once and I am living my memories. Years can pass in a few minutes. This is most common when my dreams have a strong narrative. If I follow the story, the back story fills in and seems equally realistic. This is possible because, unlike reality, the entire dream is happening in your mind. It is all very close to imagination and memory to begin with.

**NoctilucentArt** · 10-21-2011 01:17 AM

Thanks all for your feedback. It is close to my bedtime here on my part of the planet and I cannot WAIT to get back into the dreamtime, to see if I can repeat last nights amazing experience. I know the odds are against me but who knows? As far as the time thing goes, I have had dreams in the past where it felt like an entire year or 2 had passed by. There was sooooooooooo much information I could recall upon awakening. I really would like to explore more the sensation of time inside the lucid experience and am really looking forward to learning more from everyone here.