Thread: Is it possible to make Lucid dreams feel like they have lasted for days?

Like in real life you are only sleeping for about one hour, but in your lucid dream it feels like days have passed by, is that possible?

Well, if you mean feeling that a longer period of time has passed even though this isn't the case in real life, nor the dream, then yes, it's very possible, but it's just a psychological effect, nothing more (kinda like when you feel bored, you feel like that time passes slowly...) However I doubt this effect would have such a huge impact on your perception of time.
If you mean that your perception of passing events actually becomes hyper-activated or something like that, leading you to experience events that would otherwise take a huge amount of time in a relatively small time frame, then it's complicated; research has been conducted on the matter, where participants that were having lucid dreams communicated with the researchers via eye movement and their responses were recorded in real time; which suggests that no, dreams can't be experienced that way. However, there are people who claim that they have dreams where time dialiation actually occurs, although whether their claims are true or not remains unknown.

Man created time and time is just a perception. Change your perception and you're good to go. I've talked to many Oneironauts who have claimed to dilate time. It's possible to those who don't limit themselves. Then again, anything is possible in dreams to those who don't limit themselves.

In my experience lucid dreaming is like going to an amusement park. There are different things to do there and you dont worry about the time. Your just experiencing and being in the moment doing things. Also, you don't plan on staying there over night but like it was said above it can feel like its been a long time and you just wanna wake up. Or in the case of the amusement park example you want to go home.

I wonder if we need a "triage protocol" for time dilation like we have, informally, for sleep paralysis. Some topics to detail the usual beliefs and misbeliefs. To separate the science from fiction.

Well according to science all you need is a supermassive object or accelerate in a frame of reference to high percentage of light speed. The only problem is that while you are dilating time with respect to else where, say 100 years pass there during your trip to the event horizon and or trip back and forth or in orbit. When you land lets say after a 90 minute trip where you stupidly slept and dreamed (for about 15 minutes) [stupid because you missed the whole space travel trip/event] when you land 100 years will have passed, but when you ask the pilot how long did it seem to you, he'll say "about 90 minutes" then he'll show you your watch and then you'll look at yours. "Wow only 90 minutes but every one else says 100 years, according to time check RC I must have been lucid dreaming"

Originally Posted by cooleymd

Well according to science all you need is a supermassive object or accelerate in a frame of reference to high percentage of light speed. The only problem is that while you are dilating time with respect to else where, say 100 years pass there during your trip to the event horizon and or trip back and forth or in orbit. When you land lets say after a 90 minute trip where you stupidly slept and dreamed (for about 15 minutes) [stupid because you missed the whole space travel trip/event] when you land 100 years will have passed, but when you ask the pilot how long did it seem to you, he'll say "about 90 minutes" then he'll show you your watch and then you'll look at yours. "Wow only 90 minutes but every one else says 100 years, according to time check RC I must have been lucid dreaming"

Keep in mind that's for the physical material universe. You're comparing the physical universe to dreams, which is something that occurs within our minds. If we're gonna look at things the way you are cooleymd then also, teleportation isn't possible as well because we can't do that in the physical universe either. To continue, nor would flying on our own be possible in dreams because we're not birds in waking life either. It's not really plausible to compare a phenomena that occurs within our minds every night to the entire physical universe.

We'll end with this: Dreams aren't taking place in this reality. Physical laws don't apply there, and that includes the concept of time as well.

well OneUp as long as you can see that you can be tricked by your dreams, so just like AP and OBE , time-dilation in dreams is just an error your making when recalling your dream.

all evidence points to REM dreams proceeding in real time, in humans, in mice etc.

where as AP and OBE and dream-time dilation are on entirely even ground in the realm of imagination, I can agree to that

Originally Posted by cooleymd

well OneUp as long as you can see that you can be tricked by your dreams, so just like AP and OBE , time-dilation in dreams is just an error your making when recalling your dream.

all evidence points to REM dreams proceeding in real time, in humans, in mice etc.

where as AP and OBE and dream-time dilation are on entirely even ground in the realm of imagination, I can agree to that

Yes I'm aware that studies have shown that REM runs in real time. I wonder if they've specifically conducted a study where the lucid dreamer deliberately dilates time and then they run the time from there and compare it to real time. I doubt they've looked that far into it though. From what I've read they've only run studies where the dreamer goes about the lucid dream normally not seeking to dilate time and then they compare the times like that. This could only be done with humans though considering we're the only ones that have a high enough level of self awareness to even consider the idea.

Like I said before it all comes down to perception. However, the oneironauts I've talked to about their personal experiences with time dilation have claimed to stay in a single dream for weeks, as long as up to 18 months. Although there's no way to know if they're telling the truth, it'd be real hard, in my opinion, to trick your mind into thinking you experienced 18 months in the dream world. 18 months has too much gravity to it to be a simple error in recall, but I'm not denying it entirely as a possibility.

I like that we're on opposite sides of the spectrum here haha. Makes things interesting.

I've experienced dreams where it feels like days/months have gone by... I suppose every time you enter the unconscious state you dilate time. I've had nights where it felt like I just went to sleep a couple minutes ago and then I'm up. Most nights I just wake up and don't have any concept of the time that has passed however - other than the way I'm feeling or if I can see light.

It's only a feeling though in the dream... But that's the cool part of it. When you allow your mind to completely escape this reality and our 24 hour clock, the time passes exactly how you imagine it to pass.

Studies in animals do show that N-REM dreams do pass at high speed but only like 10-20x and they seem to run both forwards and backwards.

I think I have recalled at least one N-REM dream but I wasn't LUCID

Today I was awakened at around 4:00 and I had the feeling I came from a disconnected dream it could have been an N-REM but I couldn't piece any of it back together, certainly I felt like I was awoken from a deeper sleep than I usually awaken from.

With LUCID I usually have total recall of it if I wake from it (if false awaken or lost and recalled not so) as soon as I wake I run thru the entire dream and time it to estimate the time. Of course when its 8 or 10 minutes long and involves 1+minute in the void prior to void survival and re-stabilizing, the estimate could be off by quite a bit. I'm sure I couldn't recall more than a brief out line of things I've done in the past 18 months in the real world and it would take me 18 months to time it out if I could go thru it second by second. So just as events from long ago can be fresh in your mind, or a series of events over time, your only remembering bits and pieces of time this is the same deception that people fall to upon awakening from a dream that transitions thru time. Even when I recall many segments of a dream (non-lucid) I don't assume I know for sure the order of all the pieces.

I will indulge the meta-physical angle. If time is merely a perception, then why bother dilating it? Why bother with measurements and metaphors? If you just discard the time illusion, I think what we really want is: to live and recall a great many and variety of experiences.

Well lets say the next time you wake up the dream fairy is floating above you, you reality check and reality check but it appears the fairy and the world are both real. The fairy tells you that you only have a couple more decades to live, and says that you can make a choice you can either have lucid dreams maybe a few per week maybe more that last between 5 seconds and 45 minutes for the rest of your life, or you can have only two more lucids. Then goes on to explain the second option. If you choose dreaming door number two you won't have to put in any more effort, the very next time you go to sleep you will enter a lucid dream that seems to last for several decades, but when you wake up it will only be 90 minutes after you fell asleep, then you will have only non-lucid dreams no matter how much effort you put in, except on the night you die, once again no effort will be required you will simply go to sleep as usual but almost immediately you will have a lucid that seems to last for decades, you will never awaken the dream and life will simply end.

Would you choose door number two? Two lucid dreams that each seem to last the balance of your lifetime.

I think I would ask to see the dream journal of the last couple people who took door number two, just in case it read "cool dream seemed to last forever to much to remember or bother to write down estimated lucid time 32 years"

Unless the journal looked to be all the volumes of a prolific author who spent 30 years writing full time I think I'd go with dream door number one.

With LUCID I usually have total recall of it if I wake from it (if false awaken or lost and recalled not so) as soon as I wake I run thru the entire dream and time it to estimate the time. Of course when its 8 or 10 minutes long and involves 1+minute in the void prior to void survival and re-stabilizing, the estimate could be off by quite a bit. I'm sure I couldn't recall more than a brief out line of things I've done in the past 18 months in the real world and it would take me 18 months to time it out if I could go thru it second by second. So just as events from long ago can be fresh in your mind, or a series of events over time, your only remembering bits and pieces of time this is the same deception that people fall to upon awakening from a dream that transitions thru time. Even when I recall many segments of a dream (non-lucid) I don't assume I know for sure the order of all the pieces.

For sure it'd be a huge task to remember a whole 18 months upon awakening from the dream. WhiteCosmoz and Oreo, who have stayed in a lucid dream for extended periods of time like that say that they don't remember the entire dream upon awakening from it if its extremely long. They say they only remember pieces, but there are enough pieces to realize that they did stay in the dream that long and experience that passing of time. Hukif on the other hand, has reported staying in a lucid for way longer than I've ever heard before. He's claimed to create persistent worlds, one of which he started a civilization and watched it grow up and technologically advance over a time period of decades. It's a big claim, I know, but it certainly is mind boggling to think about.