Thread: Lucid Dreams and Time

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 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.