What if you had a year of lucid dreaming every night?

I wouldn't mind having the option to have a year of dream time in a lucid dream. As someone who admittedly enjoys the escapist element of it, being able to retreat into a dream for a year each night would be wonderful. After all the thread creates a hypothetical scenario where you have a year of lucid time each night. If it were a nonlucid dream then it might be easier to lose your bearings on reality; but in the case of an automagically lucid dream I don't think that would be a problem.

I have no shortage of lucid dreaming goals I'd like to accomplish. I could probably learn to coupe with a lot of the issues I face with lucid dreaming; things like the poo dreams, false awakenings, dream recursion, anxiety dreams, and schemas that plague me. I could go through every single TOTM/TOTY this website has ever posted in a single night. Sageous has good points about the life extension as well. You could have years of time to ponder things and meditate freely.

I would like the Caveat of; if you wanted to end the dream, felt like you were getting overwhelmed or losing your bearings you could wake yourself up or cut the dream short and just arrive at morning in the waking world.

Why settle for just one year. Why not hundreds? Thousands? No, Millions!

@FireFlyMan, Damn that's a really good question..

Found something very similar to the "experiencing a year (or more) in a night of dreaming" discussion. I came across a cool article "Inception's inception? 38 stories that take place largely within dreams" and one I checked out was "The Inner Light" which was episode 25 of season 5 of Star Trek: The Next Generation (for ease of locating on Netflix or elsewhere). In the episode, the character is seen with REM-like eye movements under his closed eyelids and he experiences what seems to be a few decades of another life while in this induced state (which seems to be dreaming). When he wakes up they tell him how long he's been passed out, which fits within the timing of a dream.

I remember reading a reddit thread about someone waking up in a hospital from a super long dream where they had a whole life and people he loved, he said he was super disoriented for a few weeks after waking up. I wonder what it would be like to wake up from that.

Also @fireflyman, a million years a night sounds pretty cool actually xD Death just feels like such a terrible thing, I want to keep existing! So having an insane abundance of time isn't something I would reject. Yeah maybe I'd get bored and go absolutely nuts after a single night, but at least I'll have had the opportunity to live to my heart's content. And if I don't get bored.. Well that would just be insanely fun and awesome :P But I'm going to think about this more. Also fyi, when I first read that I thought "damn.. a million years a day does sound like a lot.." and then I thought "but a year a night is also a pretty big amount of time, what makes you (me) think a year a night isn't too much?", which was probably your intention.

I been going over my significant other's dream journal because I remembered her telling me a very lengthy dream couple of years back. This dream spans through the course of 3 years within the dream and it all took place in a single night. It was a very disorienting for her and those around her. The dream mimicked waking life so she had quite a bit of false memories to go through. She was not lucid in this dream though, but I'd still imagine it will be just as disorienting. Just putting this out there for anyone seeking time dilated dreams. It's not all fun and games. ^^'

Not all fun and games, but it is pretty damn cool :P

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Originally Posted by lucidbunnie

...Just putting this out there for anyone seeking time dilated dreams. It's not all fun and games. ^^'

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Every Great Thing comes with dues, I guess... and I for one would be more than willing to pay these dues! Some disorientation, even if it's serious, seems to me a fair trade for virtual immortality spent in worlds of my own making or discovery.

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Originally Posted by Sageous

Every Great Thing comes with dues, I guess... and I for one would be more than willing to pay these dues! Some disorientation, even if it's serious, seems to me a fair trade for virtual immortality spent in worlds of my own making or discovery.

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That's a good way to look at it. ^^

So i dont feel left out.

I think having a year lucid every night could be fun but i don't know if i'd go through with it completly though. I most likely would miss WL(family/friends/pets,etc)and make myself wake up after a decent amount of time like "one or two days". However, during that time i would try to have as many memorable moments as i could and try out dream telepathy. Kind of like Sageous's dream share task but more out there.lol:alien:

My vote was number 3. (I prefer "one or two days") i could probably get use to that.

I would absolutely love this, but I'd also like an opportunity to get a little nerdy here and do some math.

Let's assume an average person lives for 80 years exactly. Also, let's assume that a lucid dreamer were to start living a year worth of dreams every night at the exact day they turned 20, because optimism ftw. That would leave exactly 60 years in which that person was able to live a year each night in their dreams.

So, we can now say that on a normal year, this person has experienced 366 years; on a leap year, that person will have lived for 367 years. These numbers include waking life years.

Leap years take up 1 out of every 4 years. So, this would mean that the optimal amount of time experienced would be (60/4)*3*366+(60/4)*367+20 years experienced. Simplify this down and you get 16470+5505+20 years, which simplifies to 21,995 years experienced; That's 8,028,175 days of life; 192,676,200 hours of life; 11,560,572,000 minutes of life; or 693,634,320,000 seconds of life. You would have experienced a lifespan nearly quadruple the amount of time that human civilization has been around. And, if you could experience 10 years every night? Your human experience will have been nearly 20,000 years longer than humans as we are today have been around. Would you even be capable of comprehending the apparent length of your lifespan with such an amazing skill? It's absurd really, but the thing is-- we are pretty confident that it's theoretically possible, based on the accounts of trustworthy, experienced lucid dreamers.

I, for one, would love to have a life that long, especially if it's spent lucid dreaming for the majority of that time. Sure, it would be disorientating, but I'm sure that's something I could get used to after a while.

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Originally Posted by SpaceGod

I would absolutely love this, but I'd also like an opportunity to get a little nerdy here and do some math.

Let's assume an average person lives for 80 years exactly. Also, let's assume that a lucid dreamer were to start living a year worth of dreams every night at the exact day they turned 20, because optimism ftw. That would leave exactly 60 years in which that person was able to live a year each night in their dreams.

So, we can now say that on a normal year, this person has experienced 366 years; on a leap year, that person will have lived for 367 years. These numbers include waking life years.

Leap years take up 1 out of every 4 years. So, this would mean that the optimal amount of time experienced would be (60/4)*3*366+(60/4)*367+20 years experienced. Simplify this down and you get 16470+5505+20 years, which simplifies to 21,995 years experienced; That's 8,028,175 days of life; 192,676,200 hours of life; 11,560,572,000 minutes of life; or 693,634,320,000 seconds of life. You would have experienced a lifespan nearly quadruple the amount of time that human civilization has been around. And, if you could experience 10 years every night? Your human experience will have been nearly 20,000 years longer than humans as we are today have been around. Would you even be capable of comprehending the apparent length of your lifespan with such an amazing skill? It's absurd really, but the thing is-- we are pretty confident that it's theoretically possible, based on the accounts of trustworthy, experienced lucid dreamers.

I, for one, would love to have a life that long, especially if it's spent lucid dreaming for the majority of that time. Sure, it would be disorientating, but I'm sure that's something I could get used to after a while.

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Interesting, i thought about that but i still chose to lessen the amount of time. I wondered why i would give up that much time if it would feel like i was living longer too. I suppose it just depends on the person but it's also the thought that sometimes more seems amazing however when you get into it and there's no turning back, you may regret it. I mean let's turn the tables and say you wouldn't be able to wake up in btw until you make it to year time. That way you get the full experience and don't just take what you can get than call off the dream. How long would you guys go like that if it started today?

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Originally Posted by DawnEye11

Interesting, i thought about that but i still chose to lessen the amount of time. I wondered why i would give up that much time if it would feel like i was living longer too. I suppose it just depends on the person but it's also the thought that sometimes more seems amazing however when you get into it and there's no turning back, you may regret it. I mean let's turn the tables and say you wouldn't be able to wake up in btw until you make it to year time. That way you get the full experience and don't just take what you can get than call off the dream. How long would you guys go like that if it started today?

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In the end, I suppose it comes down to the perception of the individual. As far as if the dreams must last a year, I haven't been in a very long lucid dream yet, so I couldn't really answer that until I get I feel for that kind of experience. However, in my perspective, I would still want to do it, if only because I want to experience being alive for as long as I can; my stance on this may change if I experience something similar to that first-hand, but until then I suppose I will maintain my opinion in that situation until then.

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Originally Posted by SpaceGod

In the end, I suppose it comes down to the perception of the individual. As far as if the dreams must last a year, I haven't been in a very long lucid dream yet, so I couldn't really answer that until I get I feel for that kind of experience. However, in my perspective, I would still want to do it, if only because I want to experience being alive for as long as I can; my stance on this may change if I experience something similar to that first-hand, but until then I suppose I will maintain my opinion in that situation until then.

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Thanks for explaining SpaceGod. I understand why you chose to go that path more now and i think that's a fair point. For me being in a long lucid is fun until you reach a point where you ask yourself if you've overstayed your welcome. Mostly because of waking life responsibilities. If you don't have to worry about time in nightly year lucids or waking life responsibilities I suppose year lucids feel like you were in the hyperbolic time chamber from DBZ conjuring and experiencing things until the dream ends. Also, when it comes to company dream characters can be with you until you wake up. Now this reminds me of an movie/episode from foster's home of imaginary friends where frankie(think that was her name) was kidnapped by an imaginary friend and brought to a imaginary world where she had to made the decision to leave or stay. Sorry, i need to stop coming up with comparisons from cartoons but i felt like it was worth mentioning. XD

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Originally Posted by DawnEye11

I mean let's turn the tables and say you wouldn't be able to wake up in btw until you make it to year time. That way you get the full experience and don't just take what you can get than call off the dream. How long would you guys go like that if it started today?

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TLDR; Once I feel confident that this is going to happen regularly, I would become seriously detached from the world, my main goal above all would be to figure out how to not die or get sick, my secondary goal would be to read fiction and stuff on dream sites and explore other people's fantasies for ideas on what to do while dreaming. I would treat my friends and family very nicely, just like I treat anyone I don't hate and very rarely see.


At least on the first day, after a just 30 minutes, and then after an hour, and then after 90 minutes, and many more times after that, I would cry and scream with joy xD Because I would be super duper happy about having such a long lucid dream, because it means I can have more of these in the future, and because my life is kinda meh. After a day? (or two) I would start doing reality checks and seriously wonder what the hell has happened and I would think that maybe somebody put me inside a virtual simulation without me knowing it, or maybe I took some insane drug and forgot about it, and I would constantly do reality checks and figure out ways of making sure I'm in a dream. It's kind of hard to imagine actually.. Part of the reason why I made this thread is just to talk to people about it and explore it together with you guys. But after a week.. I honestly don't even know :P Obviously I'll be worried at this point or at least very very curious about what the hell is happening, Am I in a coma? what did I do to land in a coma? Are my parents and family and friends worried? I'm so sorry if that's the case..

But I would just do all the things I want to do in a lucid dream and probably be very haphazard at first, just like all of my lucid dreams. But after like an hour or two, if not after 2 days, I would definitely realize this might go on for a while and make long-term plans, like I would practice skills like flying and magic tricks and transformation, summoning stuff, and fundamental skills like that, to make other things possible. And I would explore how the dream world works, like, is my mind the same? (this is actually a huge thing, because usually in dreams my mind is like 10-20% of what it is awake, but since it's a fantasy I just assume the mind is fine because it's more fun that way) I would see if I can make notes and read them later after forgetting about them, how does physics work, how sophisticated are people? Also flying, that never gets old :D I am really curious if I'll ever get bored with flying or if I'll just spend hours every day flying and have it be just as awesome as it always is.

After a month? That's even more difficult to imagine, but a month is a really, really long time. I think I'd still be screaming or crying out from joy because I'm just in this awesome place for god knows how long and my waking life is meh. I'd probably meditate occasionally just to center myself and put things in perspective (whatever that means :P), just think about stuff and make sure everything is cool. I would probably miss a lot of stuff from my waking life and try to imitate them and try to find or create them in the dream world. I would try and remember stuff about my waking life so that I don't forget it, in case I ever wake up. And I would also build some feeling of "oh god I really don't want this to end, it would suck so much if I left this beautiful place" and get sad just imagining waking up.

Now it's been a year and I wake up. Hopefully I don't jump out the window and die (actually I'll probably do reality checks constantly just because of this possibility.. hopefully I will remember what waking life is actually like so that my reality checks are still valid), instead of dying, I do a million reality checks to make sure I'm really back. Then I go to my computer and write down all the things I did, and do all the things I missed doing. And I would think all day about what to do with this experience and how to tell my friends, because no way they will believe me :P

If the next night I get lucid again, after 15-30 minutes I'll think there's a good chance it happened again, because my lucid dreams are almost never that long. What I would do, I really have no idea because it's already super hard to imagine what I would do after a month, or even just a week. A week is a long time.

But once I feel confident that this is going to happen regularly, I would become seriously detached from the world (Hey didn't you read this before? Time for a reality check!), my main goal above all would be to make sure I don't die or get sick, my secondary goal would be to read fiction and stuff on dream sites and explore other people's fantasies for ideas on what to do while dreaming. I would treat my friends and family very nicely, just like I treat anyone I don't hate and very rarely see.

Thanks DawnEye for that question.

No problem. ^w^That was a good read Shiroyasha. I enjoyed reading about what you would do and feel like. I think i would go through something similar except you dont have to worry about death if you wake up consistently early. Like at 6am or something and it just felt like a year. However, you would be anxious after much time passes.>. <So it does make sense if you think about it like that.

I definitely wouldn't mind being guaranteed however much lucid time I want each night. But I wouldn't eat poop for it.

This might be slightly off topic as It's not 1 year time-dilated dream, but rather 7 years. There were moment's in the dream I'm not fully lucid as well. If anyone wants a sampler of a long time-dilated dream check out Story of Cocoa in my Dream Journal.

I still feel year of time-dilated dream every night is over doing it especially if we can't break free from that condition as we please. ^^'

If anyone claims they lucid dream every single night, thats cool, i just personally believe it would mentally exhaust almost anyone (like not sleeping 2-3 days your memory/thought process could easily f*ck with you)..if I continuously had lucid dreams for two weeks id be twitching out on my couch, borderline psychotic, doing reality checks every two minutes

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Originally Posted by PrisonPlanet

If anyone claims they lucid dream every single night, thats cool, i just personally believe it would mentally exhaust almost anyone (like not sleeping 2-3 days your memory/thought process could easily f*ck with you)..if I continuously had lucid dreams for two weeks id be twitching out on my couch, borderline psychotic, doing reality checks every two minutes

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It's very rare for people to be lucid the whole night, so for most people I don't see how it could affect quality of sleep so much... I'm curious where this very common idea that LDing too much wears you out comes from... I've never read somebody saying that it's a problem for them. And I've never felt any sort of fatigue when I've had periods of nightly LD's. I'm doing nightly lucids right now actually, not noticing any difference at all...

Maybe it's because some only get lucid when they're not sleeping properly one night, and so they wake up exhausted and figure it's because of the lucid... idk.. Another possibility is that if you wake up from REM, you'll be pretty groggy..

@prisonplanet we can pretend that in lucid time we don't feel the effects of not sleeping

Lighrkvader ive had lucid dream experience's that appeared significantly longer than others, when i awoke, definitely experienced fatigue, perhaps its psychosomatic and i dont doubt there could be numerous explanations (yours sound reasonable) i dont assume lucidity only occurs in rem but have read during rem sleep our body may shut down systems in our brain responsible for creating memories (im unsure if this applies to lucid dreams) especially if someone's repeatedly in some heightend state of awareness night after night, some researchers believe we are designed to forget our dreams because if we remembered all our dreams we might not be able to distinguish dreams from real memories

i dont have lucid dream but once in a blue moon so this sounds like heaven to me. I would practice not being impulsive and self indulgent. i would also play though and be magic. I have had non lucids where i can use telekinesis and summon fireballs...it is amazing. I would have the adventures i couldnt in waking life because lets face it doing some of those things will land you in prison lol

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Originally Posted by PrisonPlanet

have read during rem sleep our body may shut down systems in our brain responsible for creating memories (im unsure if this applies to lucid dreams) especially if someone's repeatedly in some heightend state of awareness night after night, some researchers believe we are designed to forget our dreams because if we remembered all our dreams we might not be able to distinguish dreams from real memories

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Yeah. The memory is largely turned off, which is one of the main reasons we aren't quite ourselves as soon as we get lucid.. You can turn it back on though. There is a guide on it somewhere on the forum. I think it's called the three fundamentals or something along those lines... A guide to increasing lucidity.

Basically if you take a pause when you become lucid to ask yourself questions that you'll need your memory to answer you turn it on more and more. Increasing lucidity.

I would totally want to be able to have a solid year's worth of LDing a night... If I could wake up whenever I want to. If not, I'd rather just have an hour or two a night, so time spent lucid feels more special. Still though, it's a tough call.