Thread: Time

Originally Posted by thegnome54

Actually, according to LaBerge's initial experiments, dream time is very similar, if not identical to, real life time. I suspect that this 'time dilation' business is more of an 'after effect', where if you asked someone to describe each moment of their dream in real time (hypothetically) they would have real time experiences. It's only the memory of the dream which seems to be longer than your REM period.

Who died and made LaBerge king?

Originally Posted by Brandon Heat

Who died and made LaBerge king?

Science? Do you contest the validity of his experiments?

Originally Posted by thegnome54

Science? Do you contest the validity of his experiments?

Yes I do as a matter of fact.

Originally Posted by Brandon Heat

Yes I do as a matter of fact.

I was hoping for an explanation or something

I felt that his eye movement tests and physiological recordings were quite sufficient...

Originally Posted by thegnome54

Science? Do you contest the validity of his experiments?

Originally Posted by Brandon Heat

Yes I do as a matter of fact.

From LeBerge's "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming:"

One of the earliest experiments conducted by my research team tested the traditional notion that the experience of dream time is somehow different from time in the waking world. We approached the problem of dream time by asking subjects to make an eye movement signal in their lucid dreams, estimate a ten-second interval (by counting one thousand and one, one thousand and two, etc.), and then make another eye movement signal. In all cases, we found time estimates made in lucid dreams were within a few seconds of estimates made in the waking state and likewise quite close to the actual time between signals. From this we have concluded that in lucid dreams, estimated dream time is very nearly equal to clock time; that is, it takes just as long to do something in a dream as it does to actually do it.

Just contributing some source info. I'm with thegnome54 on this one. These methods and observations are pretty solid, and conform to scientific method.

Pre-emptive strike:

The next paragraph in LeBerge's book:

You may be wondering, then, how you could have a dream that seems to last for years or lifetimes. I believe this effect is achieved in dreams by the same stage trick that causes the illusion of the passage of time in the mov-ies or theater. If, on screen, stage, or dream, we see someone turning out the light as the clock strikes mid-night, and after a few moments of darkness, we see him turning off an alarm as the bright morning sun shines through the window, we’ll accept (pretend, without being aware that we are pretending) that many hours have Passed even though we “know” it was only a few seconds.

As far as time in dreams goes, it really is an individual experience. I've never had a dream that lasted for days, personally, but time tends to jump around for me. It's possible that the way we experience "time" in our dreams may be similar to how we experience it in real life, but then there's a debate on just how one experiences "time."

It's individualistic. I find it facinating enough that I can have a dream that seems to be longer than the amount of time I spent asleep. If I never figure out how that works, it's really no skin off my back.