Thread: Lucid Dreams and Time

Originally Posted by Box77

During your WL, have you ever been involved in such an interesting activity that hours seem to run like minutes? Perhaps during those apparently long dreams, the brain is using some sort of reverse algorithm to show us minutes that seem to last hours.

I will take into account 4 points in my attempt to explain it:

a. In nature, everything seem to move in a cyclic way.
b. If we take ourselves as the point of reference, our consciousness doesn't move. It's the world which moves around us.
c. During dreams, we are always doing something. I remember reading something about some corporal activity during REM stage is similar when we are immerse in some activity of our interest during WL.
d. If nature seem to be represented by fractal geometry, and dreams are part of nature, perhaps dreams could be represented under the same fractal principles.

There's a theory which states that the amount of deep sleep vs REM sleep, basically depends on the type of fatigue we present: body or mental. It's known that the REM sleep could vary from 90 - 120 min along the night. Although to exemplify, I will use an intermediate value, so I will have T= 1h 45min of REM sleep (or dreams) along a successful night of sleep.

Now I would like to perform some virtual experimentation, this time I won't consider physical fatigue in order to understand some phenomena I want to explain:

A.
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Subject M must stay still the estimated time T of 1h of 45 min, in front of a clock, trying not to get distracted by other things (should I consider meditation as another type of distraction?), and focusing just in how time T passes by. As the mind tends to lose focused attention approximately every 10 sec, and the sustained attention span varies from 20 - 40 min, it could be a very painful experience.

B.
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Now let M go for a walk alone from point X to point Y in the same time T. That's around 4 Km long if he walks at a speed of almost 1.5 m/sec. The only consideration is that M must pay attention on the followed path. This experience shouldn't be as painful as in A.

C.
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In this 3rd experience we will add a second subject W who must be of M's interest and viceversa, and we will let them walk together and talk of whatever they want from point X to Y in the same amount of time. What most probably will happen is they won't notice the long path like in B if they get immerse in a very interesting conversation about their lives and perhaps it would be more painful to them when they get to Y apparently so fast from their point of view.


So, what happened? Why the time perceived by M in A seemed to last much more than in C?

I think because of M focused on it. That's why perhaps it's very difficult to exert time dilation when you pay too much attention on it.

I could conclude, that we are not using real time to measure what we dream but the events we dream as a reference to deduce time that compared to the actual elapsed time seem to be much longer. Such events don't necessarily last what their counterparts in WL because they could be summarized in a definite number of cycles, which according to the self-similarity statement in fractal theory there's a small portion that has the exact same characteristics of the whole.

I understand your point. I keep two different possibilities of what time is, on one hand I think that time does not exist at all, on the other hand I think time might be different from how we know it or we are simply not advanced enough to understand how it interacts with this world. Time as we know it, is only a way to measure it, I was talking about dreams and time in more open way, not exact days, hours and minutes but time as an interpretation.

So is there any solid way to prove how long we dream and how much we experience? I think no. We cannot rely on time because it is tricky, your experiment as an example. And we cannot rely on the amount of events because we might unconsciously connect main events, fill missing details and create a whole new day. I can think of only two ways to check this, we can wait for a device that can record our dreams, which is not available yet. Well there is one device like that, but at the moment it records very low resolution images, like basic + or -, one day they will improve it. The other way is to ask our self, how many details do we remember from those long dreams? Did it feel like you made them up, or you clearly remember them happening?

As for my self I can only explain what I felt in my last long dream, I do not clearly remember all details of my previous long dreams. The moment I woke up I could recall most of the details, some of them were more clear and some of them were less clear, but I knew what I was doing, eating, how I was walking here and there, a lot of conversations. Many details are not important, and I did not write all those details in my DJ because even without them dream was pretty long.

So I personally believe that I had a pretty long dream, I cannot recall every small detail from the whole week, but I would not be able to do the same during waking life, so it is normal. I do not leave a possibility that most probably unconsciously I connected some main events, but in the end it all happened during a period of time that was much longer then I was sleeping.

Do you recall any small details when you think of them, and what do you feel, are they real memories or made up fragments of missing memories?

Originally Posted by Sageous

Great conversation, guys; thanks!

Since this didn't get answered:



Yes, you can indeed go right back into REM, especially after several hours' sleep, when REM cycles are jammed together. That is the core of DEILD, BTW. I'm too lazy to find tests or studies on this, but I'm pretty sure that LaBerge did some work proving (and then using) the fact that REM can be rejoined after waking, given proper timing. Oh, and I have done this many, many times -- as, I assume, that many others have as well, since "chaining LD's" seems to have become a term on these forums.

As long as I'm here, I had another, more on-topic thought:



You might consider turning this thought around. Since our consciousness, and our interaction with and interpretation of our experiences (including time) is based on waking-life activity, we may be looking at our memories of dreams that seemed very long through the same glass that we use for waking-life memories. In other words, even though we only remember a few moments of, say, a previous waking-life day, we know that more happened. So, if we're presented with the same sort of collection of dream bits that seemed to span a day, we might tend to reflexively intuit that there must have been other stuff to fill in the gaps between the bits there too, because that is what is supposed to happen (based on our waking-life parameters). And, we'll tend to believe this even though there never was anything between those bits.

This to me is why I tend to only judge time's passage in dreams during LD's, when I'm actually there and can witness and register that passage in more solid long-term memory. Non-lucids, being based completely on difficult to retrieve memory bits, are not to me a good source for proving time-dilation.

I hope that made sense. If not, just ignore!

Thanks, it was logical to assume that we can come back to REM, I am glad it is so. I am having DEILD's almost every morning and also I believe that WILD can be nREM only, every REM WILD is DEILD (that's only my opinion).

You make sense, there are already several replies with the similar point. We tend to remember main events, everything that is between we might remember or we might unconsciously create false(logical) memories to fill in the gaps. And yes, only Lucid Dream can be a reliable source of information to make a conclusion that it was a long dream. But again, you have to ask your self whether you clearly remember all those moments or you just filled the blanks spots... The best moment to think about it is just when you woke up.

One more observations regarding recall, when I woke up after this long dream I wrote a DJ and also I had a lot of details which I did not write. And that's not all, when I went to the parking and saw my car, I saw few people and I remembered few more fragments from that long dream. And I was not thinking about that dream, I was simply thinking about things I am going to do, saw few reminders and it reminded me of more fragments.

I am going to write more, just a little bit busy right now.

Originally Posted by flowofmysoul

So I personally believe that I had a pretty long dream, I cannot recall every small detail from the whole week, but I would not be able to do the same during waking life, so it is normal. I do not leave a possibility that most probably unconsciously I connected some main events, but in the end it all happened during a period of time that was much longer then I was sleeping.

Do you recall any small details when you think of them, and what do you feel, are they real memories or made up fragments of missing memories?

I'm not trying to argue the non existence of long dreams, I have experienced it myself. Nowadays I tend to think that all dreams have this time dilation effect although we don't notice it most of the times. I'm just trying to figure out the way it works in order to play with it if it's possible.

Regarding those false memories, I would use WL as a point of reference too since it's easier to check back. I'm able to remember basically what I payed attention the most, other things will rely in oblivion, and even it's possible to know which things you won't remember in a short time although you're paying attention to them. There comes my point about 'anticipation', because of some times, you think an event is going to happen until you stop paying attention, and if you didn't check back if it really happened, most probably you will think it did until confronted with reality you realize it never happened.

About the way how we build those apparently long lapses of time inside a short one, an old idea comes to my mind: Some time ago, I used to think that we use to perceive events in a sort of shuffled deck of cards, considering every card as a piece of thought which includes different emotions, memories, time, etc. During dreams, I think we don't see them shuffled, although in an ordered sequence where every card is strictly connected to the next one, that could be the reason why we don't realize the absence of the other ones that in real life would be there building their own sequence and filling their space with their own amount of time.

About time, there's something happening right there, we perceive a sequence of past events interconnected to each other and we are able to guess what's possibly going to happen, that's something and I couldn't affirm that's non existent. Perhaps it's something immaterial, which possibly both thoughts and consciousness are made of too. That's something, and as you said, perhaps our CPU's are not capable to manage such information written in another language for another type of processors, who knows!

Originally Posted by flowofmysoul

.../saw few reminders and it reminded me of more fragments/...

Just a comment a little bit out of topic: Some time ago, I used a dictionary to randomly look for reminding words when I was not able to remember any fragment from the dream of my previous night.

Just thought I'd share this, last night real time passed slower for me than I expected. I went to bed around 1am and I had two dreams that ran together or maybe it was one dream that went off topic, I'm not sure. When I woke up I just knew in my head it was like 8am (I had my alarm set for 8:30) but the sun wasn't up yet so I looked at my phone and it was only about 5:45. I jotted down a couple notes went back to sleep and had a fairly detailed dream and then woke up with the alarm. This time the passage of real time seemed normal or maybe a tiny bit fast. Maybe it was purely an artifact of my dream, but it seems like I can usually guess within about an hour of what time it is when I wake up.

I had a lucid dream once when I was a child. I decided to see how a dream second compared to a normal second, so I counted to one and woke myself up. It was hours later. A few dreams lasting different amounts of time later I decided that dreams last however long as they like, and I still believe that now.

I accidentally acquired some potential 'evidence' of time dilation recently.
I started voice recording a DJ entry on my phone, but fell asleep halfway though, leaving the microphone resting against my mouth as I slept.
The recording went on for another 30 minutes, during which time I had a lucid dream.
I listened to the whole thing out of curiosity, and came across something interesting.
In amongst all the boring breathing, there was a short segment of sleep talk.

Here's what happened in the recording, within 10 seconds:

- garbled sentence about coffees
- sharp inhalation (nose plug?)
- very clear "increase"
- random syllables of garbled speech

Here's what happened in the dream:

- no speech for several minutes prior to lucidity
- nose plug RC
- voice command: "increase clarity"
- no speech for several minutes while exploring the dream environment

I wonder if my thoughts were translating as speech, or if I really was experiencing time at a different speed?
Perhaps this would be one way to explore the idea, especially if a known sleep talker would volunteer to record themselves nightly and compare the recordings to their DJ entries.
You should be able to pick up speech if you look at the waveform in an audio program, without having to listen to the whole 8 hour recording.

And just to add my own anecdotal evidence to the discussion:
I have certainly experienced what felt like days during lucid dreams; weeks during non-lucid dreams; and the feeling of eternity during terrifying nightmares that closely resembled psychosis (following sleep deprivation.)

Re: necro - I heard about this thread on the DV podcast... feel free to move this elsewhere if needed.

Hi @~ Dreamer ~!

I know that according to LaBerge's studies, it looks like if you pay attention to it, dream time duration corresponds to its elapsed real time. The point would be not to pay attention to it and have a way to record events like that which you described and compare the results, I don't know if there's more scientific studies about it.

Some months ago I had a dream where I was coming back home after a busy day in a parallel dream world where I have a different life, I'm single, have different apartment, no kids, etc. When I woke up I couldn't remember more than just fragments, and that in the dream I felt really tired and wanted to get back home and go to sleep. Now I just can remember the sequence where I got into the apartment, it was night and I realized that I forgot to close the windows when I went out in the morning. It's curious that I felt the elapsed time from that morning to the moment I got back home, as I normally do in my WL. I felt like it was a loooong day.

Recently I was studying something about the process of memory, and perhaps our perception of elapsed time could be something like a false memory about it. I would love to experiment more about the subject but I didn't have any idea how to do it alone since my 'soul mate' doesn't share my interest in lucid dreaming. I think the way you accidentally discovered is a good idea, and I would like to give it a try (veteran sleep talker here, although I don't know if I'm still active ). The only problem is that the HQ voice recorder I had some months ago, unfortunately is gone and I don't know how much could I catch with the cheap one I have nowadays.

Hope the OP is still active and interested in the subject...

Hey guys, I noticed this thread is active again, will update with few of my new findings.

@Dreamer, How did that dream felt to you, did it pass really fast or it felt like 25-30 minutes?

@Box77, Laberge might be right there. But he could also be accidentally right, when in reality it could have another reason to be so. I think that it happens so because when we do pay attention to how time flows, we unconsciously give it a real-life time speed. We are used to how time goes in waking life and whenever we focus on it in our dreams we do make it flow the same speed, or at least similar speed.

That could also explain why most time dilation's happen randomly, when our mind does not pay attention to time speed.


I spent some nights trying to focus on how time works in lucid dreams and wrote this small topic. I don't know if you will get the idea, but I hope you will I did not write things that I am not sure of yet, will have to do part2 topic for that later after more tests.

Does Time Exist in Dreams? | flow of my soul