Thread: Lucid Dreams and Time

Update*

Last night I went to sleep really late, at around 6 am, I had to wake up at 8. So I had only 2 hours of sleep, decided to make some kind of test If I could use lucid dreaming to prolong my rest. That morning I had to drive 250 km's to one town and then 250 km's back and with only 2 hour of sleep that would be a tragedy. I am drinking only water and tea, I do not drink coffee at all, only if I really really need one.

So I went to sleep with the Idea that I want to prolong my dream. I decided not to focus on it at all, until I see my nREM dream, you can call it nREM WILD. So I closed my eyes and I was very sleepy at that time, so it took me around few minutes to completely relax and I started to see first images of my nREM dream, I was already there dreaming, but still could use my conscious mind to think, so this is the best time to actually focus on my target. I changed my dream couple of times to make sure I have control of it, then I said to my self "I am going to sleep 10 hours, I am already sleeping around 8 hours, It is time to wake up in few hours" I continued to observe my dreams, I did not control much, I was trying to relax and watch my dream and all I thought about was that I am already sleeping for a long time and soon it is time to wake up. I woke up few times, at that time I was already sleeping for around 40 minutes. You might think I am crazy but already after 40 minutes of sleep I felt completely rested. I went back to sleep just because I had 1 hour and 20 minutes more. I woke up around 5-6 times more and every time I felt better and better, I finally woke after total of 1 hour and 30 minutes of sleep and I did not want to sleep anymore, I tried to go back to sleep but I felt that I cannot sleep anymore and, already slept enough. So fuck yea it is completely possible to use lucid dreaming to rest faster when needed. I understand that this might be only in my head, but now it is 5 pm and I still feel completely rested.

I can recall around 8 very short nREM fragments(around 10 seconds each) and around 3 short REM LD's(not more then 5-10 minutes each). Nothing special, just a short version of my everyday dreaming, but I still feel like I slept all 10 hours.

Flow, you should try to keep doing this for a few weeks and see if you can get more good results. This could be a major breakthrough in sleep if we can get a few different people that can testify to this.

Originally Posted by BrandonBoss

Flow, you should try to keep doing this for a few weeks and see if you can get more good results. This could be a major breakthrough in sleep if we can get a few different people that can testify to this.

I have work, wife, martial arts, gym, run... I cant afford breaking my sleep schedule. But we have a lot of DV members who might try this one day if needed.

Originally Posted by BrandonBoss

a major breakthrough in sleep if we can get a few different people that can testify to this.

I can testify to this effect as well & it is well known. FlowofMySoul mentioned getting very little sleep before the day he felt rested & his lucid dreams. I did this intentionally for a few weeks (3 hour core sleep, with REM naps) a year or two ago. Very good results.

I think the term is an "everyman" type sleep schedule. A short core sleep with naps interspersed throughout the day. A great way to get into REM very quickly and for us lucid dreamers, a lucid dream. I think his "rested" feeling was a result of getting that prized REM during his naps.

Unless you have an extraordinary amount of time on your hands though, be careful intentionally depriving for later REM. It might not be sustainable. For me it was not.

Originally Posted by bro

I can testify to this effect as well & it is well known. FlowofMySoul mentioned getting very little sleep before the day he felt rested & his lucid dreams. I did this intentionally for a few weeks (3 hour core sleep, with REM naps) a year or two ago. Very good results.

I think the term is an "everyman" type sleep schedule. A short core sleep with naps interspersed throughout the day. A great way to get into REM very quickly and for us lucid dreamers, a lucid dream. I think his "rested" feeling was a result of getting that prized REM during his naps.

Unless you have an extraordinary amount of time on your hands though, be careful intentionally depriving for later REM. It might not be sustainable. For me it was not.

Glad to hear you experienced the same.

At the moment I sleep only once per day, around 7 to 9 hours, this is called Monophasic Sleep. Mainly because of my busy schedule, I want to do so much and I have so little time. So this 2 hour fast sleep was an exclusion, I had to go to work and I had only 2 hours to sleep. Usually I sleep my 7-9 hours every night.

Apparently it has to deal with timing more than time dilation. It's called 'polyphasic sleep schedules'. Usually your own body adjusts it to your needs when you cannot have a monophasic schedule.
Basically, if for some reason you cannot sleep as we learned to normally do (around 8 hours in a row), when you feel the need to take a nap along the day, just take it and sleep until you naturally wake up or something like that.

Originally Posted by Box77

Apparently it has to deal with timing more than time dilation. It's called 'polyphasic sleep schedules'. Usually your own body adjusts it to your needs when you cannot have a monophasic schedule.
Basically, if for some reason you cannot sleep as we learned to normally do (around 8 hours in a row), when you feel the need to take a nap along the day, just take it and sleep until you naturally wake up or something like that.

First of all thanks for amazing link, I am going to read all the info there. At the moment I have Monophasic Sleep, so 7 to 9 hours every night. So my body did not have time to adjust to this type of sleeping, that day I woke up as usual at 8 AM and did not sleep until 6 AM of next day, followed by 1 hour and 30 minutes of sleep, woke up at 8 and went to work. Last time I did that was around a year ago.

But, around 5-6 years ago I had such a broken sleep schedule, that is the same time when I started lucid dreaming. I always randomly slept at any time during the day. I often did not sleep for 48 hours, followed by 20+ hours of sleep without wake ups. I am not saying that it is good, but I was young and did not have any responsibilities, was living every day as a new and last day. At some point I was sleeping by small naps, 1-2 hours naps during the day and my body got used to that schedule and I was feeling good with that kind of sleep. Well those times are far away in past now.

I will learn everything about those sleep schedules and how they affect lucid dreaming. What I payed attention to is that during long sleeps our every REM cycles is longer then the previous one, so it means that the longest dream will be accruing at the end of our sleep time. If we switch to shorter sleep cycles, for example if we split our sleep into two 3.5 hours of sleep then our longest REM will be exactly twice shorter then it would be in 7 hour sleep. Also I am sometimes questioning if there is any difference between nREM Lucid Dreams and REM Lucid Dreams, this is what I am experimenting with now. I am trying to figure out main differences between those two type of dreams.

Originally Posted by Box77

Apparently it has to deal with timing more than time dilation. It's called 'polyphasic sleep schedules'. Usually your own body adjusts it to your needs when you cannot have a monophasic schedule.
Basically, if for some reason you cannot sleep as we learned to normally do (around 8 hours in a row), when you feel the need to take a nap along the day, just take it and sleep until you naturally wake up or something like that.

First of all thanks for amazing link, I am going to read all the info there. At the moment I have Monophasic Sleep, so 7 to 9 hours every night. So my body did not have time to adjust to this type of sleeping, that day I woke up as usual at 8 AM and did not sleep until 6 AM of next day, followed by 1 hour and 30 minutes of sleep, woke up at 8 and went to work. Last time I did that was around a year ago.

But, around 5-6 years ago I had such a broken sleep schedule, that is the same time when I started lucid dreaming. I always randomly slept at any time during the day. I often did not sleep for 48 hours, followed by 20+ hours of sleep without wake ups. I am not saying that it is good, but I was young and did not have any responsibilities, was living every day as a new and last day. At some point I was sleeping by small naps, 1-2 hours naps during the day and my body got used to that schedule and I was feeling good with that kind of sleep. Well those times are far away in past now.

I will learn everything about those sleep schedules and how they affect lucid dreaming. What I payed attention to is that during long sleeps our every REM cycles is longer then the previous one, so it means that the longest dream will be accruing at the end of our sleep time. If we switch to shorter sleep cycles, for example if we split our sleep into two 3.5 hours of sleep then our longest REM will be exactly twice shorter then it would be in 7 hour sleep. Also I am sometimes questioning if there is any difference between nREM Lucid Dreams and REM Lucid Dreams, this is what I am experimenting with now. I am trying to figure out main differences between those two type of dreams.

I know of polyphasic sleep cycles. I have completely studied them. If you actually read what flowofmysoul wrote you will see that he didn't get any naps or anything else. He just slept 2 hours one day and had just as many dreams as he normally does with 7-9. That is still monophasic.

Everyman schedule is always 20-30 minutes 6 times a day. A 3 hour core and rem naps is still polyphasic, but not the everyman schedule, with the everyman schedule you will never sleep more than 8 hours a day.

Didn´t the theory about polyphasic sleep schedules rely specially on the fact that a single sleep cycle lasts around 90 min, and all what they do is just play with its multiples? A lot of people who's into dreaming knows that after the first 2 or 3 full cycles of sleep the body is fully rested and that's why the REM stage lasts long during the last 2 or 3 cycles after that, because of the body apparently doesn't need to rest more. I remember some guy who claimed that sleeping the equivalent of 2 sleep cycles should allow you to feel rested enough to continue with your WL until the next time you feel tired when you should take a nap or so.

I don't know, I will carefully read @flowofmysoul's post to see what you mean, although it must be later, because of I have to go to sleep now. I work at night and have to sleep around 5 hours before that, then I must take 2 naps of an hour and a half each to keep on going...

Finally I have some time to spend on my favorite subject, dreams. Last days I was very busy and didn't have much time, although, I was paying more attention on my daily routine because of some points were not clear to me.

First of all, I read more than twice @flowofmysoul's post and it sounds like one of my successful one-full-cycle naps which I noticed not necessarily last an hour and a half and not always I have two per day. That is to say, I'm not a regular scheduled sleeper. Basically it depends on how many free time I have.

On the other hand, I think those polyphasic schedules are designed for people who wants to spend more time awake than sleeping. Perhaps that's why I don't find one that fits my sometimes 3 cycles core + 2 naps which can last from 30 min to around 1h 30 min. Perhaps the closest I find is the 'siesta sleep' just that I add one more cycle along the day when it's possible.

What about the amount of dreams during @flowofmysoul's one cycle sleep? Should I consider he had as many dreams as in a full time monophasic sleep? I don't think so, from his post I understand he felt completely rested after that nap, what has sense to me because of he got to sleep a full cycle without interruptions which included REM and nREM dreams that possibly included some FA's, that's all.

Originally Posted by Box77

Finally I have some time to spend on my favorite subject, dreams. Last days I was very busy and didn't have much time, although, I was paying more attention on my daily routine because of some points were not clear to me.

First of all, I read more than twice @flowofmysoul's post and it sounds like one of my successful one-full-cycle naps which I noticed not necessarily last an hour and a half and not always I have two per day. That is to say, I'm not a regular scheduled sleeper. Basically it depends on how many free time I have.

On the other hand, I think those polyphasic schedules are designed for people who wants to spend more time awake than sleeping. Perhaps that's why I don't find one that fits my sometimes 3 cycles core + 2 naps which can last from 30 min to around 1h 30 min. Perhaps the closest I find is the 'siesta sleep' just that I add one more cycle along the day when it's possible.

What about the amount of dreams during @flowofmysoul's one cycle sleep? Should I consider he had as many dreams as in a full time monophasic sleep? I don't think so, from his post I understand he felt completely rested after that nap, what has sense to me because of he got to sleep a full cycle without interruptions which included REM and nREM dreams that possibly included some FA's, that's all.

As for the amount of dreams, I did have very little dreams compared to what I have during full night sleep. Those were short fragments and short REM's, as I said 5-10 maximum. I think the reason why I felt rested was a combination of things, first of all I slept one full cycle, then I made my self think it was a full night and I had many short dreams. It was not time delation, it was a feeling that I slept full night.

Abstract:

During sleep we minimize mental distractions by putting our physical body to rest. In this state there is more room for an inner world to be experienced.

Perceptual reality is formed through experience, thus with a clearer mind we can extend the perceived time traversed.





Perceptual time is measured by moments of presence; the "framerate"


let:

-a flicker faster than b (dreamtime)
-b flicker consistantly (measured time)

time dilation0000.jpg

Hypothesis:

With more flickers in a shorter period, as in the case of the graph "a" could experience the same moments in half the time "b" would take to experience the same.

"b" would appear to move slower to "a"

This also can explain why dreams are capable of being more vivid and intricate then the physical world.





Note: this does not say that every dream will have this time dilation involved, only that there is a logical potential for it to occur.

When I have time extended dreams, they usually occur right before my alarm kicks off.

But what I notice is; say for example I look at the clock and it's 4:30 I have to wake up at 6:00. So I fall asleep, I might wake up at 4:58, again at 5:20 once more 5:38 and finally at 6:00.

During that 1.5 hours I've had 4-5 dreams. Probably only remember 1-2--the ones that stand out.

Of those that I remember, One of them probably went along with normal time. While the other might have felt like it lasted 2-3 hours.

The longest time span in a dream that I can think of, has been a day or so. But it didn't feel as I was trapped in the dream for a whole day. Some parts just seemed to skip ahead in fast-forward while the more interesting aspects of the dream went along at a normal pace.

Originally Posted by Lucky27

When I have time extended dreams, they usually occur right before my alarm kicks off.

But what I notice is; say for example I look at the clock and it's 4:30 I have to wake up at 6:00. So I fall asleep, I might wake up at 4:58, again at 5:20 once more 5:38 and finally at 6:00.

During that 1.5 hours I've had 4-5 dreams. Probably only remember 1-2--the ones that stand out.

Of those that I remember, One of them probably went along with normal time. While the other might have felt like it lasted 2-3 hours.

The longest time span in a dream that I can think of, has been a day or so. But it didn't feel as I was trapped in the dream for a whole day. Some parts just seemed to skip ahead in fast-forward while the more interesting aspects of the dream went along at a normal pace.

Same with me, most of my long dreams happen when just before I wake up and the longer I sleep the longer my dream will be. The logic is easy here, the longer we sleep the longer REM's we have. So our last REM will be the longest REM, and it will feel like we spent long time there. See this graph as an example


Regarding your wake ups, I think every time you wake up, you come back to your REM dream with DEILD. I am not sure if we can wake up and return to REM phase? If anybody got info on this please share. I believe it is possible, I am sure somebody already did tests on this.

It is very hard to say whether you skipped some parts or not, try to think of your waking life day, you will also feel like you skipped most details and at first you will recall only main events. I think this is how our memory works, we do not remember every single moment. Of course if you sit and think more, you will recall most small details of the waking day, but also some details you wont be able to recall anymore. Same with dream, when you wake up you will remember only main events, from even to event, try to visit chat and slowly step by step start writing your dream and you will start remembering all small details, or even write it into your DJ when you wake up and you will notice that the more you write the more details you will recall.
Some people might say that we imagine and complete our dream using our imagination, you can apply same for recalling your full waking day. Again that's how our memory works, we miss some details and sometimes we complete the picture using our imagination. Sometimes it is hard to understand whether your really had that moment or you simply added it on.

Great conversation, guys; thanks!

Since this didn't get answered:

Originally Posted by flowofmysoul

Regarding your wake ups, I think every time you wake up, you come back to your REM dream with DEILD. I am not sure if we can wake up and return to REM phase? If anybody got info on this please share. I believe it is possible, I am sure somebody already did tests on this.

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:

It is very hard to say whether you skipped some parts or not, try to think of your waking life day, you will also feel like you skipped most details and at first you will recall only main events. I think this is how our memory works, we do not remember every single moment. Of course if you sit and think more, you will recall most small details of the waking day, but also some details you wont be able to recall anymore. Same with dream, when you wake up you will remember only main events, from even to event, try to visit chat and slowly step by step start writing your dream and you will start remembering all small details, or even write it into your DJ when you wake up and you will notice that the more you write the more details you will recall.

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!

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 Finnegan

Abstract:

During sleep we minimize mental distractions by putting our physical body to rest. In this state there is more room for an inner world to be experienced.

Perceptual reality is formed through experience, thus with a clearer mind we can extend the perceived time traversed.





Perceptual time is measured by moments of presence; the "framerate"


let:

-a flicker faster than b (dreamtime)
-b flicker consistantly (measured time)

time dilation0000.jpg

Hypothesis:

With more flickers in a shorter period, as in the case of the graph "a" could experience the same moments in half the time "b" would take to experience the same.

"b" would appear to move slower to "a"

This also can explain why dreams are capable of being more vivid and intricate then the physical world.





Note: this does not say that every dream will have this time dilation involved, only that there is a logical potential for it to occur.

Great post, this reminds me of FPS in games and Hz in Monitors. You are right this might explain why some dreams are more vivid then the others.

Recently I read article about how sleep forms our memories. Basically it explains that when we sleep we do a clean up in our memories, we delete what is less useful or less important and we re-play and anchor stronger what is important to us. The clean up process happens in nREM phase only. The reason why we cannot clean-up during waking life is because there is a lot of distraction and noise. We form memories by creating connections between neurons, so when memories are deleted those connections dissolve.

I think that our brain might have a limit of what we can remember and experience per day. On our first sleep most of the time we spend on cleaning up our memory during nREM and this is the reason why in our first sleep cycle our REM is very short. On every next sleep cycle our clean up process is shorter and our REM phase is longer and we dream longer.
I think our dreams memories might be lighter then our waking life memories. By saying "lighter" I am saying that they are printer lighter, they exist but they are not anchored enough to have the same weight as waking life memory. Dream memories are lighter and they can be deleted faster, this is the reason why in our last sleep cycles we can dream for a really long time. In the end of our sleep we cleaned up most of our useless memories and we have a lot of space to dream, so we can have really long dreams followed by a very short cleanup because clean up of dream memories is much easier and faster then clean up of waking life memories.

I have more to say, but I am late for my training. I will reply more later

Originally Posted by Finnegan

With more flickers in a shorter period, as in the case of the graph "a" could experience the same moments in half the time "b" would take to experience the same.

"b" would appear to move slower to "a"

The amount of flickers should have a limit, otherwise there wouldn't exist the 'Wagon-wheel effect' to the eyes under continuous illumination if it's valid the theory that it's because of the brain takes snapshots of reality. There's another theory that states it's possible that the brain superimposes its own motion effect to the real one to explain that peculiar optical illusion.

I was wondering if it would be possible that the brain is not working on just one single sequence, but many at almost the same time using different areas to work on each one separately from the others, and it sort of overlaps two or more sequences of the same story like a transition between scenes in a main point of view which could be what we perceive.

Box77:

Yes the alternate theory posited for this effect may be a cause in some cases as well. I'm not yet saying the dilation principle is limitless either, I was just making the process clear, to prove that it can occur. Although as was said earlier our memory works like a movie, remembering the important things and assuming time by transition. It is quite possible that our mind can emulate this effect to give the illusion that we have spent more time in a dream than we really did. Both possible causes make a good point and present a serious hurdle if we wish to know which one we are experiencing in a particular instance.

P.S.

One solution to telling the difference as flowofmysoul mentioned is that if we have a good enough ability for recall, we will notice either a lack or excess of experienced details.

Another is the classic cited method Stephen Laberge used to measure time in dreams, although somewhat difficult to set up, could give more credible scientific evidence.

I really like that idea finnegan. It makes it so that you don't always have to have time dilation, but if you practice long enough you might be able to beat the system and make your dreams longer.

Thanks Brandon! I've been studying the physics of the "drealm" a lot recently, and thought I should share this bit here. Had some inspiration from Einsteins relativity theory, glad to hear it came out understandable.

^^I think your point about the brain minimizes mental distractions plays a very important role in all this time effect.

Originally Posted by flowofmysoul

On our first sleep most of the time we spend on cleaning up our memory during nREM and this is the reason why in our first sleep cycle our REM is very short. On every next sleep cycle our clean up process is shorter and our REM phase is longer and we dream longer.

Perhaps that's the reason why some polyphasic schedule models seem to suppress the longer REM cycles, because of the body already did the most fundamental maintenance, after that I think we just get high with vast amounts of self-made melatonin . And that people who made those long WL schedules apparently doesn't enjoy dreaming.

Originally Posted by Box77

^^I think your point about the brain minimizes mental distractions plays a very important role in all this time effect.

Yes, it made me think of part of an induction method. It would work similar to meditation; by clearing our consciousness of all unnecessary distractions, and then using that extra focus to immerse ourselves in the inner space. Although this could require a great deal of practice to consistently attain enough added focus to cause a noticeable dilation.


this ability is not limited to dream, but since it works through focused awareness, it can also improve reaction time while awake. Check this out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdD59aqjSMk

Originally Posted by Finnegan

this ability is not limited to dream, but since it works through focused awareness, it can also improve reaction time while awake. Check this out. Anthony Kelly - Ripleys Paintball - YouTube

Heeyy!! I love paintball!!! By the way, that's a pretty good timing

Yeah I know, self-discipline perhaps could be the cornerstone to achieve most of the goals that one proposes to him or herself, specially in the fields of lucid dreaming.

Edit: I was mentally checking the video that you posted and I found some other implicit things that fits like the piece of a puzzle in some of the stuff I was recently thinking: Attitude and anticipation, the first one apparently goes hand in hand with self-discipline, but I want to focus on the second one, which I think could actively intervene in time perception:

Perhaps, many of the things we remember, we just anticipated them to happen although they didn't really happen.

That's it by now, it's time for me to go to sleep.